Grant News

Now is the time of year for education entities to evaluate their goals and plans for the upcoming year. Think about your plans to support your students, researchers, and the broader community, and look for alignment with any of the priorities described above. Although this is by no means an exhaustive list of the kinds of grant funding that will be available in the coming months, these trends will give you a sense of the types of programs that are likely to be most popular and where you may see absolute or competitive preference priorities for existing annual programs. Start to strategize for where you would like to focus your efforts in 2024 and get started!

School safety has been a primary concern for school districts over the past several years. In the wake of tragic events such as the Uvalde school shooting in 2022, K-12 school districts have made it a priority to improve the physical security of their school buildings. However, funding was not always readily available until the Stop School Violence Act of 2018. An important result of this act was the STOP School Violence Prevention Program, or SVPP, a federal grant program that provides K-12 school districts, state and local governments, and Tribes the financial means to improve the physical security of their schools through evidence-based school safety programs and technology. In fiscal year 2023, up to $73 million was available for potential applicants, with future funding available through 2028.

Computer Science for All is a bold initiative to empower all American students from kindergarten through high school to learn computer science and be equipped with the computational thinking skills they need to be creators in the digital economy. A key goal of this program is to provide all U.S. students the opportunity to participate in computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) education in their schools at the preK-12 levels. CT refers to the thought processes involved in formulating problems and their solutions in such a way that the solutions can be effectively carried out by an information-processing agent (usually a computer).

Grant-seeking can be an extremely competitive process for K-12 schools, especially if they limit themselves to grants available from their State’s Department of Education or the U.S. Department of Education. To increase the possibilities of success, now is the perfect time to explore various federal grant opportunities outside the Department of Education that could supplement their funding. In this article, I will highlight some federal agencies and grant programs schools can take advantage of from other departments and agencies according to the type of project schools are hoping to fund.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law made a $500 million investment to improve Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Improvements at Public School Facilities. DOE aims to facilitate substantial additional investment, prioritize schools with high needs, minimize administrative burden, and build enduring capacity in local educational agencies (LEAs) and the states to maximize impact equitably and efficiently.
Through this Renew America’s Schools Program, eligible entities are encouraged to consider projects that enable replicable and scalable impacts, create innovative, sustaining partnerships, leverage funding and economies of scale, target disadvantaged communities, improve student, teacher, and occupant health, enrich learning and growth, target schools that serve as community assets (e.g., neighborhood cooling centers or disaster recovery shelters), can be completed quickly, and are crafted thoughtfully within the context of public-school facilities (e.g., procurement restraints, construction windows, etc.).

The Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing School Violence Act of 2018 (STOP School Violence Act of 2018) gave the COPS Office authority to provide awards to improve security at schools and on school grounds in the jurisdiction of the grantee through evidence-based school safety programs.
Anticipated outcomes of SVPP awards include improved information sharing with local law enforcement; increased interaction and improved communications between law enforcement and school officials; reduced notification times to law enforcement; improved response time to threats and events; accurate identification of danger and follow-up; increased knowledge of and use of community policing principles; and increased school safety and sustainability planning efforts. In FY2023, funding will be available for the following school safety measures:

•     Acquisition and installation of technology for expedited notification to law enforcement during an emergency.
•     Coordination with local law enforcement.
•     Placement and use of metal detectors, locks, lighting, and other deterrent measures.
•     Training for local law enforcement officers to prevent school violence.
•     Any other measure that the COPS Office Director determines may provide a significant security improvement.

Esports are hugely popular; current projections show that there will soon be 30 million monthly esports viewers. The National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) currently lists nearly 200 colleges and universities with varsity esports programs, and many more schools have club teams or curricular esports programs. K-12 organizations are increasingly getting involved with esports as well. 

The past few years have presented several challenges for K-12 school districts across the country. Many districts reported lower test scores, mental health challenges, attendance issues, and technological shortcomings because of the disruption to learning caused by COVID-19. These challenges present complex issues that demand careful attention, but many teachers appropriately feel the school day is just too short, and school leaders find it difficult to parse out one issue from another and address them accordingly.

With the passing of the Fiscal Year 2023 budget, the US Department of Education was allocated approximately 83.5 billion: an increase of $3.4 billion from FY22. Similarly, to FY22, Congress opted to allocate additional monies to many well-known programs housed under the Department of Education, instead of creating new funding programs.

School-aged children and gaming have become ubiquitous; casual and competitive gaming is a part of nearly every school-aged child’s daily activity. According to Pew Internet and American Life Project, about 99% of boys and 94% of girls play digital games about 7-10 hours per week.[1] These figures are not a surprise for anyone that regularly interacts with children and educators have long-ago incorporated games within their classrooms. Many schools across the country have set up after-school gaming clubs, integrated games like Minecraft or Roblox into their STEM coursework, or have developed Esports teams that compete in interscholastic leagues. At a time when student engagement and enrollment are down, many educational institutions are turning to game-based learning (GBL) to re-connect with students and equip them with the skills needed to tackle 21^st century challenges.

[1] Homer, Kinzer, and Plass, “Foundations of Game Based Learning,” 258.