In the last article, I talked about grants for “extras”, and as promised, I’m going to tell you about grants for individuals.

Individuals fall into two categories, full or part time teaching staff, and consultants. In big federal and state grants like Title I and Educator Quality, it is expected that you will request funds for staff and professional development consulting personnel. They will caution about this, the people you hire must be aligned with the goals of the grant. There is a person in your district (depending on its size) that prepares those grant application packages. Sometimes it’s the curriculum director. If it’s you, and you are also responsible for writing foundation and corporate grants, you are a busy person. I have been one of those all-encompassing-grants-people, so I speak from some authority.

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What are extras you ask? In any school, there is nothing extra. We all work overtime just to provide for the essentials. I remember a time when Christmas was an entire month of frivolity, trees and baubles and plays and art walls, and Santa and ………

We don’t see that much anymore, at least in most public schools. “Time on task” is the new mantra, you see school administrators scowling at class projects that take more than an hour to prepare for the holidays. We have to prepare for the tests, remember?

Ah, the good old days.

There is also the issue of budgets, if there is no money in school budgets for art supplies and musical instruments or even a music teacher; it’s hard to create too much frivolity.

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