Tag: education

Best Practices for Grant Management

Career Technical Education (CTE) Programs receive much of their funding through state and federal grants. Those of us who work in this area are often managing grants on top of developing and improving career education programs for our students. Having managed grants for some time now, I thought I would share some of the practices that have worked for me.

Keep the Purpose of the Grant at the Forefront

When a grant is awarded to our school district, I start by reviewing the original grant application and remind myself of the purpose and vision we wrote in the grant application. Since grants are sometimes awarded months after the application window, we may have made progress toward the goals originally proposed, or our priorities may have changed. If our goals have changed, I consider how the grant can help with our vision and mission as it stands today, even if we need to shift the focus. If there is a significant difference in our plan for the money, I contact the organization providing the grant and discuss whether we can revise our budget and work plan.

Track Metrics and Impact Early

After reviewing the purpose and vision of the grant proposal, I review the metrics that will be measured during the grant term, as well as our initial proposal for impacting those metrics. For CTE, these tend to be data such as career pathway completion numbers, certifications, and enrollment in work-based learning programs. If there are other data points that will be required, I ensure that we will have access to that information when needed. If I anticipate any issues, I work with our IT team to set up a reporting system. For any measurements that will require surveying students or parents, the beginning of the grant is a great time to set those up to avoid rushing at the last minute.

Beyond measurable outcomes, I consider the human impact we hope for from our grant efforts. How will we positively impact students’ trajectories? If possible, I plan to provide those stories as part of our reporting. Qualitative data, including survey responses, testimonials, written reflections, and videos can help your funder understand the impact of the grant they provided.

Calendar Reporting Dates

When we receive a grant, I immediately calendar the deadlines for any required reports. Since grants often require both a narrative and a financial report, I share this calendar with a colleague in the accounting department who assists with expenditure reporting.

In addition to calendaring the various due dates for the grant, I add a calendar event for myself a month ahead of the reporting deadlines to make sure I start working on the report and gathering pertinent data. This ensures enough time for our IT department to run any student reports needed, as well as to gather financial reports and ensure that expenditures were charged to the grant appropriately.

Review Allowable Expenditures

Prior to beginning the work, we always review what expenditures are allowable under the grant requirements. Discovering that a grant does not allow expenditures for certain items after the fact can place a serious financial burden on your organization. For example, CTE grants often allow the purchase of industry standard equipment but not general classroom needs or infrastructure improvements, such as renovating a classroom. When reviewing the goals of the grant and allowable expenditures, we often need to bring other grants or general funding in to supplement the grant efforts. This “braiding” of funding allows us to increase the positive impact on student outcomes.

Plan to Spend Early in the Grant Cycle

When a grant is awarded, we set up a plan for spending as soon as possible. This is critical as some grants require that the money be returned if it is not used as intended by the end of the grant term. In addition, when purchasing equipment, supply issues and backordered items can create long lead times for receiving items, which delays invoicing and expenditures. Spending early helps avoid having to spend funds at the last minute, which can result in poorly planned purchases and reduced opportunities for students.

Get Help from Your Accounting Department

Over the years, I have maintained good relationships with our accounting staff. My background as an educator has focused on teaching and building programs, not accounting, so it is critical to collaborate on grant reports and ensure that our expenditure reports are accurate. I also maintain good working relationships with others at our district office, including our purchasing department, since I may need their help with large purchases or expediting orders.

Conclusion

While those of us working in career education benefit from having funding to improve our programs, managing grants can feel like a full time job on top of our normal duties. Maintaining good practices around grant management helps reduce this burden and ensure that future funding will be available, ultimately allowing us to both make a positive impact on students while meeting grant compliance requirements.

Lessons We’ve Learned as Educators Partnering with Business

The US government and many states are investing millions of dollars to support workforce development for young people, funding Career Technical Education programs and other career readiness initiatives. At the same time, both our workforce and educators are grappling with the changes brought on by artificial intelligence and its impact on the future careers of our youth. Our young people need guidance navigating their career journeys more than ever, and one of the best things educators can do is provide career exploration opportunities and adult mentors to guide them along their journey. To do this, partnering with the business community is critical. After nearly a decade working with over 120 business partners in support of our AIME career mentoring and internship program, we at the Anaheim Union High School District have learned several lessons about partnering with businesses and other organizations to support young people in their career exploration journey.

Honor Business Leaders’ Time

Early on, we recognized that for a business partner, time spent meeting with us and participating in mentoring and internships is time away from profitable activities. Whereas internally, we might set a one-hour timeframe for a meeting, with our business partners we default to thirty minutes or less. Shorter meetings help us stay focused and get right to the point. In addition, we make sure we are prepared with a clear agenda and know what our ask is. A meeting that ends without a clear ask or next step is a missed opportunity.

In addition, when hosting a guest speaker or coordinating a mentoring event, we do our best to ensure that the event starts and ends on time. If transportation is required to bring students to a business location, we allow plenty of time for traffic to ensure the students and chaperones arrive on time. To help with this, we have worked closely with our district’s transportation department, and they understand the importance of being on time for events hosted by business partners. When we honor a business’s time, we increase the likelihood of working with them again in the future.

Be Professional in Attire and Language

Knowing that it’s critical to be professional in appearance when meeting with a business, we match the attire of the business community in our area. For many years, this meant a shirt and tie (or suit) for men and a business suit or equivalent for women. In recent years, business attire has become more casual, although this may vary depending on whether we are meeting with a corporation versus a government organization. Professional attire applies whether the meeting is virtual or in-person.

In addition, when interacting with a potential business partner, we keep our language professional and avoid divisive topics or politically incorrect comments. In addition, we present our school district in the best possible light. We all deal with bureaucratic hurdles and conflicts with colleagues that can be frustrating (it happens in the business world too), but sharing those with outside partners can undermine our credibility and damage the relationship.

Make Agreements and Logistics Easy

When arranging guest speakers or mentoring field trips, we do not require formal agreements since our staff will chaperone and supervise the experience. This makes these events easy for businesses to participate in, since signing an agreement would likely require involving their legal and risk management departments.

For internships, formal agreements are required, but we do our best to make this process easy on the business partner. Our district uses standard, pre-written internship agreements for all of our partners, which include the legal requirements and protections our risk management team and legal counsel require. This saves us having to create new agreements for each partner, or accidentally leaving something off of an agreement because we are cutting and pasting from a document we have used in the past. If a business would like to request a change to the language of the agreement, we ensure that our risk management team and legal counsel respond in a timely manner to keep things moving.

To meet state requirements and keep students safe, our internship agreements require background checks for those working directly with our students. To streamline this process, we allow partners to use the same background check facility we use for employees, with costs covered by our work-based learning grant funding. Our agreements also offer the option of letting the business certify that they will handle the background check, since many organizations already do this as part of their onboarding process, again making the process as easy as possible.

Respond and Follow Up Quickly and Consistently

While we all get overwhelmed by email and other forms of communication at times, we have found it’s critical to respond in a timely manner to our business partners. Many businesses and executives are used to moving quickly on ideas and projects, and if they do not hear back they are likely to move on to other things. If communication comes in from a business partner, we respond as promptly as possible.

We also make sure someone on our team is keeping leads organized and following up when we do not hear back from a potential business partner. For us, this involves a simple ongoing spreadsheet, but longer term we may move to a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program, similar to what a sales team at a business would use.

Create Plug and Play Opportunities

One of the early decisions we made for the AIME program was to create a tiered system of engagement, so that business partners could choose how to support students, essentially selecting from a menu of options. This not only makes our programs easy to understand, but also makes working with us that much more straightforward and user-friendly.

Our program is organized around four tiers. Tier 1 offers Career Exploration through guest speaker visits and field trips to businesses. Students explore career fields, tour businesses, and learn about the education requirements for various industries.

Our second tier is the Career Mentoring Series, which involves two or more events with the business partner in a series. These events allow students and businesses to develop deeper mentoring relationships. A tier 2 event might involve site tours, keynote speakers, small group mentoring and projects in collaboration with the business, or simply going deeper to learn about the industry through multiple visits.

Tier 3 is a Professional Internship, which takes place either over the summer or during the school year, and as mentioned above requires agreements as well as staff coordination. Even though an internship is a much larger commitment, businesses appreciate that we have a ready-made program with curriculum, staff support, and template agreements.

Tier 4 is a Teacher Externship, where our teachers visit a business for a two-day experience. The first day typically consists of a site tour, career pathway conversations with various employees, a summary of the careers within the business and the education required, and coverage of the key skills desired in the organization. During the second day, the teachers work on curriculum development to incorporate what they learned into their classrooms. These have proven to be highly valuable experiences for our teachers, and the learning will reach every student in that teacher’s classes for years to come.

Having these plug and play opportunities has lowered friction for our partners and increases the likelihood of businesses being willing to participate and continue participating into the future.

Final Thoughts:

For educators, working with businesses to support students’ career exploration is often new territory, and it certainly was for us when we started the AIME program. With business and education speaking different languages and seeking different outcomes, sometimes these differences can prevent collaboration between educators and businesses. We believe the lessons learned above have increased our likelihood of success. Considering the urgent need to help our students discover their future careers, the tremendous support businesses provide is more valuable than ever.