GRANTS AWARDED Department of Education
The U.S. Department of Education awarded 35 new grants of up to $400,000 each to school districts under the Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Program. These grants will establish and expand counseling programs in target schools. The 2007 grantees are listed below.
Alaska: Valdez City School District, Valdez.
Arizona: Page Unified School District, Page; Tucson Unified School District, Tucson.
California: Centralia School District, Buena Park; Redding School District, Redding; El Centro Elementary School District, El Centro; Westminster School District, Westminster; Julian Union School District, Julian; Walnut Valley Unified School District, Walnut; New Haven Unified School District, Union City.
Colorado: Boulder Valley District RE-2, Boulder.
Connecticut: Hartford Public Schools, Hartford; Waterbury School District, Waterbury.
Florida: School Board of Miami-Dade County, Miami.
Indiana: Michigan City Area Schools, Michigan City.
Iowa: Grinnell-Newburg Community School District, Grinnell.
Louisiana: Lafayette Parish School System, Lafayette.
Kentucky: Bourbon County Board Of Education, Paris
Massachusetts: Newton Public Schools, Newton; Worcester Public Schools, Worcester; Boston Public Schools, Boston.
Michigan: Berkley School District, Oak Park; Richfield Public School Academy, Flint.
Minnesota: St. Cloud Area School District, St. Cloud.
North Carolina: Wake County Public Schools, Raleigh.
New Mexico: Jemez Mountain School District, Gallina.
New York: Yonkers Public Schools, Yonkers; Roosevelt Children’s Academy, Roosevelt.
Oregon: School District No. 1JPortland.
Oklahoma: Guthrie Public Schools, Guthrie.
Texas: Ganado Independent School District, Ganado; San Antonio ISD, San Antonio.
Washington: Educational Service District 105, Yakima; Educational Service District 112, Vancouver.
Wisconsin: School District of Bayfield, Bayfield.
Another Education Department initiative, the Partnerships in Character Education Program, awarded $1.6 million in grants to help school districts implement programs that teach the principles of character development and the responsibilities of citizenship. The winning districts are: Los Angeles Unified School District; Special Association for Special Education in DuPage County, Naperville, Ill.; New York City Department of Education; and Black Hills Special Services Cooperative, Rapid City, S.D.
General Electric Foundation
The School District of the City of Erie, Pa., announced that it received a five-year, $15 million grant from the Fairfield, Conn.-based GE Foundation, to improve student achievement and college-readiness.
Alliance for a Better Community
A joint $2 million investment from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the James Irvine Foundation was awarded to the Los Angeles-based Alliance for a Better Community. The grant is intended to strengthen Communities for Educational Equity, a coalition of organizations that works to prepare high school students in Los Angeles for college and careers.
Knight Foundation
The Miami, Fla.-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation awarded a $1.2 million grant to the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation in Washington to support work on multifaceted high school electronic media initiatives. The grant will enable RTNDF to help schools create broadcast journalism classes and multimedia Web sites.
NewSchools Venture Fund
The NewSchools Venture Fund, based in San Francisco, announced it has given a $1.6 million grant to Perspectives Charter Schools, a nonprofit charter management organization that works to serve underprivileged students in Chicago. The grant will help create three new charter schools in Calumet, Ill.
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, based in Arlington, Va., recently announced two grants it has received. The State Farm Companies Foundation gave the board a grant of $340,000 to help it encourage teachers to pursue national board certification. Another grant, $75,000 from Hewlett-Packard, was given to the board to help it encourage minority teachers to pursue national board certification.
Afterschool Program
The Hillside-Work Scholarship Connection, in Rochester, N.Y., announced it had received a $4 million grant from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation to help expand the scope of the city’s afterschool program. The grant, to be paid over 42 months, will be used to double the number of students served in Rochester by the afterschool program, which aims to increase the graduation rate of at-risk students.
Technology for Teaching
Hewlett-Packard announced $7 million in cash and in-kind grants to 172 schools across the country as part of its HP Technology for Teaching program. The initiative is aimed at schools with low-income students and provides cash and equipment. Teachers will also participate in a professional-development program led by the International Society for Technology in Education.
