Kennedy

Erin Kennedy

Professor Lorraine Bruce

LIS 560 A

29 October 2015

Training Module Part A:

Grant Writing for Public School Teachers

The topic of my instruction session is preparing and writing grant proposals to

secure funding from private, corporate, and government agencies. According to

Grants.gov, the centralized website coordinating all federal government grant agencies,

more that $500 billion in federal grants is available each year to support educational

institutions, nonprofits, and state and local agencies. Furthermore, the Foundation Center

reports that more than $55 billion in grants is available annually from private foundations

(2014). This huge amount of available funding makes the preparation of grant proposals a

useful and sought-after skill. The targeted audience for this lesson is public school

teachers, including both elementary and secondary teachers.

Target Audience: Public School Teachers

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that the United

States has approximately 3,385,000 public school teachers, 92% of whom teach full time.

Nearly 77% of these teachers are women, and just over 80% are Caucasian. Furthermore,

40% of public school teachers have earned a Bachelor’s degree and 52% hold a Master’s

degree or Doctorate. While these figures may vary from state to state, even the small

percentage of teachers who have not attained at least a Bachelor’s degree must complete

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specialized training to receive certification, resulting in a highly skilled and educated

audience.

Recent research has shown that teachers are increasingly seeking grant funding to

support classroom projects and professional development (Clark 7). The need for grant

funding parallels a decade-long decline in state budgets for education. The NCES notes

that nationwide, state and local government expenditures per public school student have

decreased each year since 2008. At the same time, teachers have been forced to expand

their curricula in order to meet new standards and performance indicators established by

federal and state mandates under No Child Left Behind (Taylor 14). As public educators

struggle to “do more with less,” they often find themselves subsidizing their classrooms.

In fact, a 2013 survey from the National School Supply and Equipment Association

estimated teachers’ classroom spending to be an average of $945 a year for school

supplies and instructional materials. The same survey revealed that 99.5% of public

school teachers spent their own money on school supplies and instructional materials.

These factors have led many teachers to seek alternative funding through grants in order

to meet educational standards (Taylor 15).

Information Needs

Public school teachers seeking grant funding have a range of information needs

which may be segmented into several broad categories: articulating a need for the grant;

finding grant funding sources; and the technical aspects of preparing grant proposals and

applications. In their study of Louisiana teachers with grant writing experience, Turpin

and Cage found that educators most often seek grant funding for materials and equipment

(7). Interviews I conducted with several public school teachers corroborated this finding.

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One teacher stated, “I usually need funding for projects that require special supplies or

materials, or maybe transportation. It’s always related to the curriculum and has to help

meet the set standards and learning outcomes” (Kennedy, Tara). These projects may be

developed for a single classroom, or in concert with colleagues. Teachers also write

grants for professional development activities, such as attending conferences or

workshops, or travel grants for students to attend workshops or competitions. The critical

motivating factor for teachers is that the grant-funded materials or activities make a

contribution to student learning (Monahan 8).

Finding a source of funding is often the most challenging and time consuming

component of the grant writing process for teachers. Monahan (1992) and Turpin and

Cage (1998) note that 79% of teachers cite a lack of knowledge of grant funding sources

as the greatest obstacle to writing a grant. Not only must teachers identify potential

funding sources, but they must also match those sources with their funding need. Many

grants have restrictions on the type of organizations and projects they will support, such

as limitations on purchasing equipment, or no funding for travel costs (Taylor 75).

Teachers must navigate this information carefully to determine whether a grant

opportunity is appropriate for their funding need.

Teachers also need information on how to successfully prepare a grant proposal or

application once a funding source has been identified. According to Turpin and Cage,

56% of teachers reported a lack of technical knowledge in grant writing as an impediment

to securing grant funding (7). Grant proposals can range from simple one-page letters to

detailed applications consisting of multiple forms and required attachments. Often, the

preparation of a successful grant requires teachers to “learn the lingo,” or key terms used

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by a granting agency that may be unfamiliar, such as indirect costs, employee

identification number, or in-kind matching support (Pawlicki and James 8). Many grant

proposals demand special formatting or the use of online application platforms, which

may be unfamiliar to teachers. Proposals may also request data that falls outside a

teacher’s normal duties, such as school financial statements, mission statements, student

demographics, or research statistics (Pawlicki and James 19-20). Finally, teachers also

must be able to articulate their funding need in a formal writing style.

Information Seeking Behaviors

In identifying funding sources and preparing grant proposals, teachers’

information seeking behavior is often dictated by a simple fact: lack of time. Although

full-time public school educators are contracted to spend a minimum of 30 hours per

week teaching (face time with students), they spend an average of 52.2 hours per week in

all classroom related work (NCES). Because educators view teaching as their primary

responsibility, they often have less motivation to pursue time-consuming activities that

take them away from the classroom; in fact, Monahan found that more than 70% of

educators cite teaching load and lack of time as challenges when writing grants (7).

As a result, teachers who pursue grants tend to rely on familiar easily accessible

information sources. For example, many organizations offer workshops or tutorials in

preparing grant proposals, but only 5% of teachers surveyed by the National Science

Teachers Association (NSTA) and 1% of teachers in the study conducted by Turpin and

Cage had pursued some type of training in grant writing. Alternately, nearly 90% of

teachers surveyed by the NSTA relied heavily on the Internet to identify funding

opportunities and find information on how to prepare a proposal, either through a general

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search or professional websites such as educational associations (6). Other information

sources included word-of-mouth, conversations with colleagues, and emails. Teachers

may also seek information from their school administrators or district offices, parent

organizations, or local businesses, though these avenues are utilized far less than the

ubiquitous Internet search (Maxwell 17).

When preparing a grant proposal, teachers most often rely on their colleagues for

information and support (Maxwell 17). In an interview I conducted, one teacher stated, “I

will ask the other teachers at my school if they have applied for a grant from that funder

before, or if they have gathered some of the data I need. I also have them edit and

proofread my grant, and look for any typos or mistakes” (Kennedy, Clinton). Teachers

also use the Internet to find sample grant proposals and budget worksheets that are useful

when preparing an application.

Information Literacy Skills

Below are listed some information needs of public school teachers seeking grants,

and the associated information literacy skills.

Need 1: Identify funding sources. Skill: The ability to locate and synthesize information

from a variety of sources.

Need 2: Match potential grants to funding need. Skill: The ability to evaluate information

from a variety of sources for relevance and value.

Need 3: Successfully complete the requirements specified in a grant application. Skill:

The ability to analyze and select information for relevance and accuracy.

Link to Survey

https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/edken/285112

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Works Cited

About Grants.gov. Grants.gov, 2015. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

Clark, Charles. “Costly Proposals.” Education Week 13.6 (2002): 7. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

Digest of Education Statistics: Table 211.60 – Estimated average annual salary of

teachers in public elementary and secondary schools, by state: Selected years

1969-70 through 2012-13. National Center for Education Statistics, 2013. Web.

20 Oct. 2015.

“Grant Writing Receives Little Support.” NSTA Reports 25.1: 6. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

Kennedy, Clinton. Personal Interview. 22 Oct. 2015.

Kennedy, Tara. Personal Interview. 22 Oct. 2015.

Maxwell, Jackson D. “Money, Money, Money: Taking the Pain Out of Grant Writing.”

Teacher Librarian 32.5 (2005): 16-22. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

Monahan, Thomas C. “Grant-Seeking as Professional Development of K-12 Teachers

(Incentives and Obstacles).” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Eastern

Education Research Association (1992): 3-10. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

NSSEA Retail Market Awareness Study. Education Market Association, 2013. Web. 20

Oct. 2015.

Pawlicki, Dakota, and James Chase. The Insider’s Guide to Winning Education Grants.

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2014.

Schools and Staffing Survey. National Center for Education Statistics, 2012. Web. 21 Oct.

2015.

Taylor, Chris. Granted! A Teacher’s Guide to Writing & Winning Classroom Grants.

Chandler, AZ: Five Star Publications, Inc., 2009.

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Turpin, Tammye, and Bob N. Cage. “Factors Influencing Grant Writing of K-12

Teachers.” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Louisiana Education

Research Association (1998): 3-15. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

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