001teachers and um staff members in our school system. We appreciate everybody that turned in a grant request. Uh I want to give a shout out to the committee for coming up with a workable rubric and scoring mechanism to help score. There were over 20 grants that were um placed for submission and we have settled on the eight finalists and whether you um were granted the uh the grant or whether you did not, you will receive an email by the end of the week um as we complete tallying the the grants that were submitted. Ed, well, we appreciate everybody um participation in that and hopefully our budget will allow us to move towards this again in the fall semester. So, we can we can do that again. If you didn't receive the grant, uh don't please
002continue to to put those uh grant requests in and do that. But it was really eye openening and I appreciate every appreciate everybody's hard work on the on on the grants. Um, moving forward, uh, we really don't have a heavy agenda other than the grants and the grant cycle tonight, but we do want to I I would like to take about five minutes and talk about uh, our group. We talked about how to replace grant monies out of our budget with applying for other grants. Is that correct, Mr. Ballard? >> I think so. Yeah. >> Um, our afterchool program or our excellence program um is funded a little differently and uh Miss Garner is going to share an alternate a potential alternate form of funding that. So, um, you know, it was up in the
003air if the 21st century grant or the leaks grant would even be available this year, and luckily it is available. Um, it's supposed to open up sometime here in the next week. They said around February the 1. Um, not the 21st Century Grant, which was what we had in the past. Um, this this one's the leaps, which is um, it's a little different. Um a few key components that make it different are you have to offer 15 hours uh per week to students. Um the criteria is a little different. You have to have like 50% um free and reduced at the schools that you apply for. Um because of the 15-hour rule, you have to have them um childc care certified. So they will get certified by the state and then it will get each
004site will get audited by the state annually and um they'll do site visits and stuff. Um so that is the LEAP grant. It doesn't because it has not opened up yet. I don't know the exact amount that we can apply for but I do know in 2024 Manchester City which just funded two sites got $610,000. So it's it's a big funding source. Um so if if I'm told to go ahead and apply for that, I will um I will start applying whenever it opens. I think it's you turn it in by April the 1st and then they normally give the awards the week before school starts. We know how that goes. So, I would definitely recommend that we move forward just like we've been doing like we're parents, you know, have to pay and then
005if we get it great, then we, you know, make changes then. Um, but that's that that's the big one that I have found and um plan on filling out an intent to apply. >> And thank you, Miss Tanya. And that is a huge commitment on her part. writing that grant is pretty intense if I understand >> correctly and uh but that may be able to help supplement some of our afterchool programming uh and some of those needs that we have. >> May I ask a question? How many years is this just one year or does it have several? >> No, it'd be I believe it's five years. >> Wow. Yeah. >> If it's like the 21st century. Okay. Um, and I believe that it is. >> And is that like the amount that Manchester got,
006was that a yearly amount? >> Yes. >> A lot of money. >> Now, uh, I I would assume that, uh, some of the liberty or what the things that that we're doing. I would say there we had to fit the leak guidelines of what they consider. >> Yes. it and really we've we've done really well with sticking to you know a schedule and um we'll include Jonah's tutoring um that would be included in the um after school program because there would be plenty of funding um that they're very strict about what the funds can go to though salaries um and programming and stuff that's you don't buy a bunch of stuff in the past you've been like you could buy a bunch of stuff like playground stuff, it's not like that anymore. Your funding is
007going to staff. Um, so whenever we have either the 21st century or the leaps, we really have to focus on getting those kids to stay like we need a lot of kids um because you have to justify getting that large of amount. Now, can we can with with a grant like this, can you supplement the funds and you know, I mean, you need to buy things that aren't don't fall within the grant. Is there ways to bring in money from our regular budget? You know, assuming we have it. Do they allow that with >> This is a federal grant, so it's just they're very particular about what you can do. Um, you know, I was even looking like, okay, could you still charge a couple dollars to parents just and rarely will they approve stuff
008like that? So, um, I don't know. It it all comes It's just a lot of different rules whenever we're talking about federal funds. So, I really won't know until the >> the request for applications actually comes out. >> Right. Okay. So, we couldn't supplement the grant with with other funds to kind of >> I don't think I know with 21st century we would not do that. Okay. Um, so I'm I'm probably going to say I would guess no. I mean, I may be wrong, but I don't think so. >> Okay. Okay. Just something that >> No, I'd say we shoot for the moon and ask for the max amount and we don't need any other money. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah. And that would be a great topic for maybe our next meeting in
009after a few months is we get into the the leap grant and figure out what our restrictions are and hopefully we don't want to put the cart above before the horse, but that would provide some real good opportunity I think for okay >> for a productive uh speaking of we are tutoring Miss Seismore in a sentence or less or two words seven words or le talk to us about uh what has the data shown us what has the data shown us with our afterchool and before school tutoring that we we have. >> So we've extended it to K2 as well. So right now we have uh 15 teachers or teachers assistants and we're serving about 92 students across the district. Each school has a tutoring program. Some schools have a third and fourth grade and
010an early grades, but um every school at least has one. Um I've heard a lot of positive feedback from teachers. I was out at Hickerson's tutoring yesterday and visited their third and fourth grade group and their first grade group and they're closing a lot of gaps. They're seeing that kids are from their first um assessment to now they're seeing a lot of gaps closing for kids. So, it's very exciting. And as we move along, hopefully we can include some of that data growth. Maybe at the next meeting in a few months, we could we'll have a a much more complete picture on on how our children are progressing and our commitment to support them in their academic walk. >> Our teachers are doing a really good job of tracking data. So, it will be fun
011to look at once we have >> out of the >> Well, that's a possibility, too, that if if we if we get the LEAP grant that maybe we can take some of the funds we were putting into the afterchool program and up >> uh our amount of tutors and things like that. >> Yeah. But like she was saying, it may need to be a whole separate program because it might need to be. Yeah. So, you kind of have to separate it out somehow. So obviously not 100% guarantee you're going to get the LEAP grant if you apply for it. So >> I'm I wouldn't even say 50%. Like I don't want you to get your hopes up. >> And I don't think it's because I'm not a good I've already got my hopes up. >>
012I mean I would not I >> I just All right. >> Really? I shouldn't have we shouldn't have even brought it up. >> Well, I mean we Yeah, we know. We got to look at that. But uh so what's our backup plan? I guess. Well, we're we're still trying to find grants that we can apply for that fit our narratives and and in support. So, just >> do we need to we talked at one point about restricting some of our fund balance to look at at least next year's program, you know, would that be something we still want to >> Yes, sir. And I think uh we do that and if we receive the grant which uh the odds have already plummeted even within that I'm just kidding with Miss Tanya in this meeting even
013we don't get it we still have something in place to fund our our excellence program and our tutoring >> we don't want to get caught like we did you know a while back >> miss Tanya said we won't know that until >> eve of the first day of school probably >> yeah so backup plan is is definitely something we want to have. Okay, >> for sure. >> Anybody else for the good of the cause? I want to thank everybody. Uh reading through those grants is pretty intense. Uh and I appreciate everybody's commitment to doing that. Um getting things in on a timely on a timely manner. And like I said before, we'll have um somebody from central office will shoot out an email and we'll celebrate and the ones that didn't we'll we'll do better
014for next time. So, >> can we can we recognize at a board meeting the people that got the grant >> potentially? >> I think that would be fine after we notify them. >> Yeah. >> Can you notify us also before you notify them so we know who is >> we'll loop you in on that email that goes out. >> Be good. And I really want to say, you know, without God think too bad that reading through those things, you know, it was, >> you know, there was a lot to read through, but, you know, I looked at the title on some of them and I said, "Oh man, I'm not, you know," but you read into that and there was really a lot of detail and a lot of thought that went into it. And
015I, you know, I gota admit I changed my mind when I actually read read the detailed description on some of them and >> and went, you know, this is a a pretty good idea. So, so there was a lot of thought that and effort that went into that and you know, so I really appreciated everybody that applied. >> Can't judge a book by the cover all the time, right? >> I have a new respect for people that write grants. I have never been someone that needed to read grants. In fact, I couldn't and Miss Tanya had to print them out for me. But what you're getting ready to do with this sleep thing, I appreciate you. All of you that write grants, I appreciate you. Mr. skipper out there in the world. Thank you for
016all these grant writings that you do. I wouldn't want to write a grant. >> This is one of the easiest grants you'd ever see. Just so you know, >> this was nothing. >> Yeah, I'm not a grant person. So, I really I'm thankful for those >> rubrics and all that stuff was, you know, that was a lot of work. So, >> yeah, exactly. Can you imagine writing them and knowing that you wrote the right thing was >> so I mean, they were good. I'm just saying it would take a lot of time. Imagine if they were like >> Yeah, they were very short. >> Yeah. >> But I appreciate everybody's input and uh we'll try to gather again a little later in the semester and um and hopefully we'll have a few things to discuss
017moving forward. >> Now, what is this? >> That's just the information that we have. It's um >> on the lease. >> Yeah. Okay. It's just Melissa wanted me to print out anything that I had about the This is all that is out right now and some of it is actually from last year. >> Okay. >> For your leisure reading enjoyment. >> I'm going to quiz y'all next. >> There'll be a test. All right. Does he mean we have a mo do we need a motion to adjurnn? >> Yeah. height I guess. Well,