New Michigan Grants for FRC

[marccenter]

I sat down with our district finance director the other day and had everything submitted in about 15 minutes. I would suggest that you get a face to face meeting with the person responsible for the submission, as there are some things that they might not know on the application. Nothing major, but just information about sponsors and contact numbers and addresses. Our district was excited about it because they are going to be supporting us beyond workspace for the first time.

I electronically submitted all the information, met with the grant submitter and have been "bird dogging" the grant applicaton since Oct 15th. The grant submitter is stumbling over the wording "hired a coach". Since my day job is an engineer, I am presently not "hired" by the school district and I am working through the "hiring process" presently. I am pretty sure I will not be able to jump through "all the hoops" to be "hired" before Nov 7th, thus losing out on the $5000 for team expenses and $1500 for coach pay.

Are you "already hired" as a coach or did your district finance director "overlook" or "not notice" this aspect of the grant?

BTW, I have made FIRST of Michigan aware of my condundrum. I think the issue can be resolved by changing the meaning of the word "hired" to "identified". I don't think many of the high varsity school coaches starting after January have been officially "hired" by their respective high schools, but, I could be wrong.

[MrBasse]

Originally Posted by marccenter

...

Are you "already hired" as a coach or did your district finance director "overlook" or "not notice" this aspect of the grant?

...

I am "hired" as I am a Vocationally Certified Teacher using Robotics as one of my CTSO's (Career and Technical Student Organizations). So I have other requirements to meet for my classroom funding, but as far as this is concerned robotics is officially part of my day job. Typically hired as a term should apply to volunteers as well because to volunteer at a public school you still have to go through all of the background check hoops and prove to be qualified to be working with students in the area you volunteer in.

I have found that if you talk to the Principal or the Superintendent and tell them that there is potential money available to fund a program that is often not supported by school districts, they will jump on that to be sure that they are showing support in ways that they are able. We receive no funding from our district, but this grant has been a way for our district to show that we are important to the student body and that what we do matters.

[marccenter]

Dear CD,

I have received information from the state that on Monday, October 21st the grant wording will be changing from "hired" to "identified". When this happens, I believe this issue will be resolved. Looking forward to Monday to see the update.
Have a great weekend!

[Tungrus]

Do veteran teams require matching grant from another sponsor(s)? If so, will teams who have lost sponsors or have no sponsors be able to get this grant? Any info will be appreciated.

Marc thanks for following up with "hired" mentor, many of us are not school district staff.

[marccenter]

Do veteran teams require matching grant from another sponsor(s)? If so, will teams who have lost sponsors or have no sponsors be able to get this grant? Any info will be appreciated.

Tungrus,
I would talk to Gail Albert (president, First of Michigan) for more information. I spoke with her about the grant, but not specifically your issue, and she spoke about "in kind" matching from the school system of which I didn't press for more information because it didn't impact me at the time but may help you.

[Tungrus]

Thanks Marc. My read about the 50% matching, it is not a requirement, it looks more like additional information. I may be wrong, hope this discussion will help others too.

[sdaustin]

We have discovered that in order to qualify for any of this grant money, participation on the team must qualify for school credit (i.e. credit hours) for the students. That is what the district employee that attempted to apply for the grant was told by her contact at the Dept of Education in Lansing. She made repeated attempts to clarify this, without success. As our team is not run under or connected with any day-school classes, there is no way to give students credit for participation at this time.

Has anyone else run into this?

There's no way to jump through all the hoops to give students credit for this year, but we are exploring getting this changed for next year.

[marccenter]

Dear CD,

1) sdaustin - I would contact Gail Albert, president of FIRST of Michigan for help. Personally, I think the person you spoke with at the Michigan Department of Education is not correct and I would obtain her name for reference. If you think about it, that would most likely disallow nearly every team in Michigan and I don't think that was the intent of the MDE grant.

2) The Michigan Grant information has been modified to read the following:

The RFP has been updated – the third item down on http://www.techplan.org/rdi/
Direct link: http://www.techplan.org/downloads/al...5_162758_3.pdf

Ann-Marie Smith
Education Technology Specialist
Office of Education Improvement and Innovation
Michigan Department of Education
517-335-2775

[gail]

If you run into any snags at all please contact me immediately.

Gail Alpert
248 425-4148

Or Ann Marie Smith at the Michigan Dept of ED
517-335-2775

[sdaustin]

Quick update:

We were finally able to apply for the grant. Many thanks to Gail and Ann Marie for their help.

The sticking point was that the grant states that the district has to be "willing" to offer students credit (elective, independent study, etc.) for participation on the team. For our district, this meant getting the curriculum director on board before the administration would apply for the grant. Thankfully, she was all for it.

Now we cross our fingers and wait...

[Anthony4004]

Today is the big day! Can't wait to see how many great teams got helped out!

[Kimmeh]

Is this the list of teams that received funding?

[mcason]

Yes - That is the list

[geomapguy]

This is what it looks like:

Rookies: $9,000
Veterans: $6,500
FTC: $1,500

[Anthony4004]

Happy to see so many teams great helped out like that! I know we'll be using that money as a great help!!