Education Resources Blog

Trying to figure out how to best spend your Career & Technical Education funding - or use other funding for career & technical education programs? Let's take a look at some options.

Engagement. Inclusivity. Social-Emotional Support. With all that students have experienced in recent months, you're looking ahead to the future. In a "normal" year, your federal funding dollars may have gone towards field trips, student performances, or hands-on lab materials. Now you have decisions to make on how to spend that funding in a meaningful way to set up for what next year will bring. Overcoming challenges from distance learning, promoting inclusion and equality, and expanding your social-emotional support efforts are just a few concepts that will require extra action as students (hopefully) return to classrooms. Today we'll explore a few major funding streams and how you can use aligned tools to face these challenges, head-on.

CARES, ESSER, HEERF, GEER....is your head spinning with letters? With additional funding for education to assist with planning in light of the COVID-19 Pandemic, there's a lot to process in terms of what is meant for which purpose, and we're here to help. Below you'll find some explanations, links, and a downloadable resource to help guide you through the COVID Funding for Education "jungle" and offer some suggestions on investments that align with the funding to enhance learning and safety today, tomorrow, and beyond!

According to the U.S. Department of Education website, the Title I Grant program is meant to provide funding to disadvantaged Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) to improve their academic achievement. The most common of these, Title I - Part A, "...provides financial assistance to LEAs and schools with high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families to help ensure that all children meet challenging state academic standards." As these funds are meant to improve instruction and provide additional academic support and learning opportunities, they are often allocated towards reading or mathematics curriculum, supplemental programs to reinforce and extend the regular school curriculum, or additional staff members to lead and teach the students. And as we look at the bright future of the job market as it relates to STEM and 21st Century skills, we'd like to give you some ideas for tools that Title I Funding can be used for!

If we all held unlimited monetary resources, there's no end to what we would provide for "our kids." There are many professions far more lucrative than those in education - but for the most part, you aren't doing it for the money, you're doing it for the intangible reward of helping students learn. And with schools trying to provide so much with so little, choices are forced to be made. And that's why, according to a survey of 1,800 public and private school teachers following the 2015-2016 school year, the average American teacher spends $600 of his/her own money every year on basic supplies. With this in mind, we at VariQuest, being passionate about education, want to help. There are many federal, state, and private funding streams available for any number of projects in schools, and the process of applying can be intimidating, so we've developed a free guide to help you learn how to write a grant.

April 11, 1965. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965: