Has anyone heard about the New FRC grants for MI to start teams and pay coaches a $1500 stipend??
Yes.
Grant Announcement: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/Robotics_Grants_431002_7.pdf
Grant Details: http://www.techplan.org/downloads/pdfs/99h_first_rfp_20130814_105933_3.pdf
-Clinton-
$3,000,000 is a nice amount of money. Awesome!
An interesting bullet point:
- If a FIRST Robotics team qualifies for state, national, or world competitions, the team will participate in the competition.
Wow! Guess I never should have left Michigan 35 years ago…except I never would have been able help start The High Rollers:D Seriously though, kudos to those who helped convince their legislature of the benefits of supporting the FIRST mission. Hopefully the rest of us can use this as precedent for our state’s movers and shakers in our efforts to “do the right thing”.
That’s amazing, will more FiM teams go out of state this year since they don’t have to pay their initial registration fee?
That is awesome news and glad to see you folks pave the way for hopefully the rest of us!
Our state is currently in legislation about paying stipends to Middle School Academic program coaches.
That would qualify a lot of VEX programs in our State, including our school where we are a High/Intermediate.
Not only will they not have to pay their initial registration fee, it seems like they won’t have to pay any registration fee.
- State, National, and World Competition Grants
The MDE will provide funding for reasonable expenses for qualifying teams to participate in State, National, or World FIRST Robotics Competitions.
Great news for southern Nevada teams regarding stipends, Glenn. We finally got our District (5th largest in the country) to offer $746 per semester to high school robotics advisers and $486 for middle school advisers per semester. We fought this battle for many years. Just goes to show you that persistence in life can pay off! Now if we can just get our legislators to follow the Michigan model…
That’s awesome too!
Its about time academic advisors/coaches got paid something for all that they do!
WOW!
Looking at the details:
New teams can get $7,500.
Existing teams can get $5,000.
ALL teams that qualify for state, national, or world championships can get an entry fee.
For the District grants, the team must show 50% of the grant value in local sponsorship from 3rd parties (if I’m understanding this right)
There were 203 MI teams in 2013. 64 Qualified for MICMP, and 35 MI teams competed at CMP.
35 x $5000 (CMP Registration) = $175,000
64 x $4000 (MICMP Registration) = $256,000
203 x $5000 (District Registration) = $1,015,000
Total cost per season if it were to pay for EVERY veteran MI Team’s District/MICMP/CMP registrations? $1,446,000.
This grant is supposed to last 3 years. It won’t be paying for everyone’s initial $5,000 registration, but it very well might pay for state and world championship entry fees for most of the MI teams each year.
Sweet deal. Way to go MI.
Just a reminder that the Grant Applications are available today via the MEGS+.
https://megs.mde.state.mi.us/megs/login.asp
There should be at least one person in every school district in Michigan that should have access.
Enjoy!
-Clinton-
Additional information about the Michigan Grant
House Bill No. 4228
Sponsored by: Bill Rogers
See page 50 - Sec. 99h: https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2013-2014/publicact/pdf/2013-PA-0060.pdf
Additional Information about the bill can be found here: https://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(1c5hc0rjjuwqsz2nehptc245))/mileg.aspx?page=getobject&objectname=2013-HB-4228&query=on
-Clinton-
Dear Michigan Grant Teams,
I hope you have started the process of trying to get your MDE grant through your school system. In my case I have run into numerous issues and the grant process has not been a “slam dunk.”
Please don’t wait until the last minute and miss this great opportunity. You may need to “bird dog” the grant until is submitted by your local school officials.
Looking forward to the 2014 FRC season,
Marc
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 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.
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.
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!
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.
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.