Funding of Community Schools

As you think about funding streams for your community school, here are some resources we think will help you.

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• Sustainability Planning Checklist: This checklist serves to help local community school initiatives plan for the future. This document is a work in progress, and we welcome your comments and additions -- please e-mail suggestions to ccs@iel.org. The checklist contains three sections:
  1. Keys to sustainability: A few thoughts on keys to sustaining community-school initiatives.
  2. Questions to ask: A series of questions for local initiatives to ask and answer while developing a sustainability plan. Add or modify questions to reflect your own local environment.
  3. Funding: Questions to help your initiative think about your funding strategy and how other funding streams can be integrated into your initiative.
  Download the Sustainability Planning Checklist as a PDF file PDF (28.9 KB)
  

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• Community School Assessment Tool: This checklist can help you to take inventory of the many programs and services in your school that support school-age children, their families, and other community residents. Once completed, it may then serve as a useful planning tool for improving coordination of existing programs and services and/or to expand current levels of support.
  Download the Community School Assessment Tool as a PDF file PDF (164 KB)
  

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• Building Community Schools: Now is the time for parents and other citizens to be part of the school-building process. According to the National Education Association, the nation's deteriorating public schools need an estimated $322 billion for repairs and updated technology, a figure 10 times greater than what states now spend annually on school infrastructure. For more information, see
  
  
  • U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley issued a report on an innovative form of bond that can be used to support school construction initiatives. Fixing Our Schools Now! Qualified Zone Academy Bonds: A New Approach to Financing School Renovation and Repair, available online or by calling 1-877-4ED-PUBS (1-877-433-7827).

  • What If?, a report from New Schools/Better Neighborhoods , sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation, focuses on the need for better and more educational facilities that also serve as centers of their communities.

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• We also recommend checking out the following Web sites for funding ideas, grant deadlines and other relevant information.
  • The Finance Project
  • U.S. Department of Education, Funding Opportunities
  • SchoolGrants!, a one-stop site for K-12 Grant Opportunities!
  • Current Office of Juvenile Justice and Deliquency Prevention Funding Opportunities
  • The Foundation Center Grantmaker Info.
  • Afterschool.gov, Finding Federal Dollars Provides over 100 sources of funding from many different government agencies.

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© 2004, Coalition for Community Schools
For more information, e-mail ccs@iel.org.