Grant Writing and Management
Grant funding and the corresponding federal programs work towards achieving equity in services and education for all scholars, irrespective of their socioeconomic level, needs, academic gaps, or subgroups. The grants department’s job encompasses programmatic, compliance, and back-office roles.
Key Responsibilities of the Team:
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) team serves to gather information about site demographics, determine school community need for both food services and FRL-based entitlement funding, and serve students with nutritious, hot meals at a price equitable to their FRL level. The food service staff distribute ESEA and NSLP indicator forms, process and reconcile them, enter info into the SIS system for transmission to ADE, and maintain a database for meal distribution on school days. They coordinate services between the food vendor, the site, and ADE for payments and reimbursements. Counts are submitted weekly, reconciled with vendor amounts, and reimbursements are submitted monthly. Each site is also monitored every year, and a sample of forms is collected and reviewed.
The Grants Team:
The Grants team oversees entitlement and competitive funding for four Local Education Agencies (LEAs) at a level of $29.7 million for FY22. This funding supports school-wide academic programs, interventions, teacher retention, ESS student support, and support for EL learners at AMS. A pivotal role of the department is to administer site visits or whole-staff discussions to assess site needs and move towards best practices, and the most effective schools. When areas of enhancement are acknowledged, funding is allocated to the most at-risk students and items.
Funding:
The Grants Team completes compliance and planning documentation for the CNA, root cause analysis, and the school integrated action plan. The department leverages resources and positions to best meet each individual site’s needs. The role of the grants staff is to identify available grant funding, write competitive applications, submit budget narratives and compliance, monitor expenditures, and submit reimbursement requests and completion reports. Formulas are created to ensure that the school or entire network supports scholars and maintains that funding, so all grant funding supplements already established programs.
Ancillary roles include submitting all monitoring documentation, attending reviews and visits, registering the LEA and contacts, and ensuring support for EL, schoolwide, and SPED programs.