This chapter contains a collection of phrases for a variety of situations and purposes that can prove invaluable for administrators.
In a single district, regular public schools, trade schools, charter schools, safe school programs, magnet schools, and alternative schools can all be managed under one superintendent. Some districts have separate superintendents for different types of schools. For example, there may be a superintendent of the middle and high schools and a different superintendent for the elementary school. In other districts, there may be a superintendent for the academic schools and a separate superintendent for the vocational schools. Some schools can be defined by the programs that are offered to their learners. More charter schools for intensive language training, the arts, and technology have become noticeable in districts. Educational administrators promote the diverse programs in these schools to entice more students to stay in school to lower dropout rates.
If you are a new school administrator, you will soon learn that schools within a district are constrained by financial budgets. This is a fact that experienced superintendents and principals know all too well. Schools are budgeted certain amounts of money based on the number of students attending their programs. And with school choice programs, some districts have to pay money out to other districts for students who don’t want to attend their local town or city schools. This is why promoting a public education to elementary, middle, or high school parents has become commonplace, especially within varying school systems. Many people are under the mistaken assumption only the private or parochial school districts are looking for prospective students for future classes. These educational leaders must sell their programs in order to justify tuition rates, but public school administrators have similar issues because for every student they lose from a district, money is lost from the budget. So school districts have to work on the same premise as private and parochial schools in many instances.
As the administrator of a school or program, you will need to meet with incoming students’ parents to sell your school and its programs. During the presentation, you want to sell and market your school by highlighting its programs in order to attract the students to your school. In many cases, once students come to a school, even if they drop out or attend another school in the district, you can keep the money allotted for them in your budget. It is in your best interest to show quality programs at the most affordable price in the safest learning conditions. This section offers phrases that can be used to demonstrate competitive programs and/or to introduce your school to the general public.
We are on the cutting edge in the areas of . . .
Your child’s education and safety are our top priority.
We stand above the other institutions because we . . .
We are one of the first to . . .
Our reputation for quality has withstood the test of time since . . .
We are ranked among . . . as one of the top . . .
We offer the finest traditions due to our merit and awardwinning teachers.
We offer the best quality education for price in these difficult economic times.
We offer____________in scholarships to our students.
Our students have gone on to become . . .
Our prestigious alumni include . . .
Our splendid record of great achievement consists of . . .
We have a low student-to-teacher ratio.
The percentage of our students who make or exceed state averages is . . .
We encourage active parental involvement.
In any organization, including schools, a good grant writer can more than fund his or her own salary. Asking teachers to write grants is another option, but with their workloads, it is nearly impossible for them to meet the requirements effectively. As an educational leader, learning to write grants is essential. It is important work, and if you know how to do it you can bring money into your school district. Following are recommended steps in writing a grant proposal or responding to a request for response (RFR).
The first thing to do is to read the grant to make sure your school or district is a match. If the grant says your school must have a high population of Sudanese students to qualify, and you write it for a school made up primarily of Hispanics, then you have wasted your time and probably eliminated your chances of winning the grant.
Second, you must compose an inquiry letter. An inquiry letter should be worded something like the following:
July 13, 2010
Douglas Wilson, Grant Chairperson
Kilmarnoch Park Cottage Foundation
303 Muirhouse Road
Pittsfield, NY 35217
Re: Letter of Inquiry
Dear Mr. Wilson,
Thank you for our recent meeting at the Kilmarnoch Park Cottage Foundation (KPCF) where you were kind enough to offer us a follow-up visit with our staff. We appreciated the time you took to learn about our mission and current projects. We thoroughly enjoyed your visit with us, and we sincerely appreciate your thoughtful attention to our ESOL program for refugee students attending New York public schools.
Your interest in our refugee students from Central Asia and the Middle East is a significant acknowledgment of our successful track record of delivering superior education projects to school-age refugees for nearly thirty-four years.
We are aware that the KPCF distributes a number of grants for educational purposes. We wish to apply for one of the Foundation’s grants.
I am pleased to write to you about a project that I believe will be of interest to the KPFC. We are seeking $50,000 over three years to expand our very successful language education program to provide aggressive, hands-on intensive English language training to refugee students living in new communities around the greater upstate New York area.
We are also seeking support from the Foundation to enable us to develop a pilot for an ESOL program for war refugee children with strict Islamic backgrounds. We ask for your partnership because of the Foundation’s demonstrated interest in alternative education, especially for those from the underrepresented minority communities. We critically need funds to launch this sorely needed language training program and to fund equipment, software, and the resources of two teachers to oversee and assist the volunteer student educators from Crane College. These equipment and support resources will constructively assist the two hundred undereducated minority residents to be served by our new community ESL language program. The ethnic composition is approximately 49 percent Iraqi, 26 percent Palestinian, 9 percent Uzbek, 9 percent Yemeni, and 7 percent Algerian. We look forward to hearing positively from your organization in the near future.
Sincerely,
Katherine Sarah-Eileen Wilson and
Alexander John Patrick Wilson
Executive Director and Principal Language Educator
Attachments: audited financial statement for the most recent fiscal year, current IRS 501(c)(3) designation, and annual report
Upon completion of your inquiry letter comes the real workload, and this is why grant money doesn’t come flowing into schools. The grant application documents can sometimes look like a Greek translation of legalese. After reading through the grant information, grant writers must attempt to figure out what they are being asked to write and the expectations of the grant organization. With few volunteers willing to do the paperwork, coupled with the fact that school grant announcements come at the busiest time of the school year, many grants proposals don’t get written and a lot of money isn’t used.
But with a little preparation and some good phrases, you can write a proper grant proposal to earn money for your school projects. The first step is developing a one-page school summary. The summary page should have information that reads almost like a checklist. For school grants the summary page should include such items as the project’s name; submission due date and time; and mailing address to submit the application for the grant. The grant itself will tell you all the pertinent information, such as the prior notification date and contact; number of copies required; preferred font, margins, and spacing; page limit and location of page numbers; and preferences and eligibility requirements. Before embarking on this endeavor, make sure to read and reread the restrictions on grant money use, goals of the funding, acceptable uses of grant money, and requirements for signatures and assurances.
Follow the grant sentence by sentence. A solid piece of advice is to answer what the grant asks for, instead of injecting what you think the grant organization needs to hear. In most instances, don’t include pictures or other information that isn’t relevant. Often those who just follow the directions are awarded grants, because they show that the school understands the spirit of the grant.
When writing any grant proposal for your school, you must introduce your connection to the purpose for which the money is intended and your need for the proposed project. If your school is a religious private school, you may not be eligible for some government-funded grants. There may not be a connection to justify why government money should fund a religious-based program. But you can word grants in odd situations to fit your district’s needs. Let’s look at this sample:
The problems at Hinsdale High School, whose ten-room building is settled in the Appalachian mountains of the United States, are common to many rural areas across the western end of Massachusetts. Issues faced by our central Berkshire school include (1) student isolation from cultural activities, (2) increasing numbers of at-risk families, (3) increasing risk of juvenile alcohol/tobacco/drug use, (4) increasing numbers of students at risk for academic failure, (5) low per-pupil expenditures, and (6) high teenage pregnancy rates coupled with high dropout rates.
When writing the grant, you may want to incorporate phrases that show you will meet national and state standards. In these situations, you may want to phrase your wording in the grant like the following example:
All food facilities used in the hunger project are accessible and meet federal standards. The Ashford youth program will be providing food during the before and after school programs in three ways: (1) through federal after-school nutrition subsidies, (2) through donations from local businesses, and (3) from surplus vendor samples.
When writing the grant, you will need to create charts that show goals, aims, and objectives with quantitative data. These goals should have measurable outcomes. The measurable outcomes can be submitted in chart form to demonstrate the program components, activities, outcomes, and measurable indicators.
You will need a framework and a timeline to demonstrate how you will complete these objectives, as well as a budget showing required expenditures.
You may have to demonstrate the process by which each goal will be met by using phrases such as the following:
In Phase 1 of Washington-Carver District’s plan, the Kandiko Computer Aided Language Learning Project intends to bring Arabic language to rural towns. It will consist of five steps: (1) data collection by language type, (2) data entry by language progress, (3) computer-based storage of syntactical differences, (4) computer-based statistical analysis, and (5) reporting to measure if the English speakers were able to acquire a second language in an intensive program meeting for a set number of mornings under the direction of a native speaker.
If you want a grant awarded to your school, as the administrator, you will need to demonstrate how you will collect data, maintain grant records, and sustain the program once the grant has ended.
The grant writer should for safety purposes write a basic conclusion rephrasing what the grant or RFR asked for in its proposal, inserting your school’s information in the appropriate places.
Teachers either like or dislike professional development (PD). Teachers who like professional development will always be in attendance. This section is written for the educator or administrator who has to coax unwilling teachers to a professional development event. Some states have started to make professional development mandatory for license renewal. The following phrases can help administrators promote programs for teacher development to encourage educators to show up and actively participate.
This program will enhance your professional growth.
Change is inevitable. This professional development workshop will challenge you to . . .
In the spirit of . . ., the district will offer professional development workshops for . . .
Productive faculty members are seen as those who show initiative to attend PD programs.
Possibilities are endless when you learn something new. Come to our PD event!
Potential knowledge coupled with education means success! Join us for the workshop on . . .
Transform your favorite teaching lesson into a sharing session for colleagues. Attend our lesson swap shop session for teacher professional development!
In order to fulfill requirements for . . ., teachers are expected to attend____________professional development sessions.
Teacher Enrichment Program Opportunity: [list workshop/date/time]
Become proficient in . . . at our teacher PD workshop session.
Master new skills at the PD session offered . . . for . . .
First-rate speakers will be training teachers in the areas of . . .
Motivated teachers wanted to attend a dynamic presentation on . . .
Keep statements simple and factual in faculty notices. As an administrator, it is a good idea never to explain the reasoning behind a statement in a faculty notice because it gives disgruntled staff members something to pick away at or to complain about later with other teachers. These notices are not personal statements, but rather neutral comments that provide information. Following are some handy phrases associated with faculty notices that will prove helpful.
A student will be removed from an uncomfortable situation if . . .
Emergency lockdown is required if . . .
Evaluation services are offered to students.
Fire and emergency drills will take place . . .
Food and drink are prohibited in the classroom.
In an emergency, exit the building using the nearest open door.
In case of an evacuation, students and faculty are asked to . . .
In order to evaluate performance, students will be asked to . . .
In order to expedite the process, . . .
In order to extract the data, each child will need . . .
It has been established that . . .
It is estimated that . . .
It is important to edit documents before sending them out to the general public.
It is necessary to exert all necessary precautions.
Our system has not failed us in the past.
Please examine all copies.
Students must enter the schools through designated areas, which are marked by clear signs on the walls.
Students showing signs of underperformance will be required to . . .
Students who are expelled are responsible for . . .
If a child becomes uncontrollable in your classroom, district policy states . . .
Students will be evaluated on . . .
Teachers are not permitted to hand out any drugs or medication to students.
The principal has asked our student body to participate in . . .
Unapproved electrical devices may not be used in the classroom.
Study hall teachers should report to room____________.
When you think back to your school days, you probably remember your teachers far more than your administration. How the administrators worded information they relayed determined the “information” that you knew. Not all information for students needs to be announced over the intercom, however. Many teachers prefer a written bulletin that they can post for students to read. First, a written bulletin is appreciated by instructors because it is less of a distraction, and second, it can list repeated facts that are used to remind students of information from guidance and administrators. The bulletin can be broken into sections. The student academic section should have a separate space in the bulletin for sports announcements.
The lunch menu for the week will be . . .
Scholarship forms are now available in the guidance office.
The library will be closed tomorrow.
There will be a meeting for all Cub Scouts after school with Mr. Plumb in the cafeteria.
Students are reminded that all class dues must be paid in full by____________.
The daily announcements over the intercom system should include information and reminders about current school activities and events, as well as important reminders about school policies or procedures. Listed are sample announcements for all students:
Students are offered student counseling by peer resources/professionals/volunteers.
Students can be recommended for the____________award. If you feel that a student is deserving, you may nominate him or her by . . .
Students’ artwork has been displayed in . . .
Students are reminded that . . .
The magazine drive kickoff date will be____________. See your homeroom teacher for details.
All students interested in the trip to the United Arab Emirates should report to room____________and sign up with Mr. Ibrahim.
Kat Wilson will be offering a free lecture on____________to all students at the Lanesboro Public Library on_______at____________. Anyone interested in attending should pick up a permission slip from Mr. Alex no later than at the end of lunch today.
There will be a general assembly on Monday afternoon. All students should report to the auditorium at____________.
All students and teachers will be processed for IDs on____________.
School pictures will be taken on____________during school hours. Students are reminded that payment is due at that time. Retakes will be made available to students on____________.
There will be no school on Friday due to in-service workshops for teachers.
All staff and students are reminded to remove all metal objects before going through the security detectors.
Reminder to all students: unless you have a written note from . . ., you may not ride any school bus other than your designated bus.
The Regents Exams are scheduled for next week. Teachers are asked not to assign homework on test days.
Teachers are reminded to post the daily bulletin for students to read.