Today we were informed that we would not be getting the Texas Workforce grant for this year. Are there any teams in Texas that have been notified that they would be getting the grant? If so, what criteria did you use on the application?
Team 57 has received no communication at all concerning the status of our application.
A few teams have received confirmation , most have not.
Hopefully there will be more transparency soon.
I actually found out by making a call to Skillpoint.That may be the only way anyone will find out if they have been approved or denied. They let me know that we did not get it and why.
FRC3005 received a grant confirmation email (no amount details) on 11/15 requesting all student member names, grades and student IDs printed on school letterhead. There was a 10 business day deadline to submit the paperwork.
Team 2582 got confirmation of grant awarded on Friday and like 3005 no deets just request for school and team member info. Sent reply asking for deets on Monday along with question regarding award amount but have gotten no reply as of this moment.
Team 2950 also got one but with no stated amount. We got the email on friday.
just got the denial email
Team 57 just received the denial email also. Disappointing that an inner city school, Booker T. Washington, did nog qualify.
FRC 2468 received a denial as well today.
Best of luck to teams still awaiting and congrats to those who qualified.
Norman
I graduated from Washington/HSEP. Without a doubt not funding team 57 makes zero sense.
I spoke with Skillpoint Alliance today and they said they would be posting a list of the teams that were offered a grant. I hope that happens soon but our conversation was at about 11:30am and they haven’t done it yet.
We were not given a grant. Hopefully Skillpoint will start being a bit more transparent in some of their decisions as they keep working with FRC teams in the state.
Allen,
Any updates from Skillpoint?
TIA,
Brad
Nope, I just sent them an email and I’ll call them later today if I don’t hear back.
Hi Texas FRC Teams:
The FIRST® in Texas Foundation is pleased to announce the FRC teams that have been selected to receive a Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) team grant for the 2014 season. We are proud to help fund seventeen (17) rookie and fifty-one (51) existing teams FRC teams to represent Texas among over 2,800 teams from around the world. Thank you for your participation in the FIRST® vision of “a world where science and technology are celebrated.” You are all science and technology heroes!
PLEASE NOTE that we have one (1) ROOKIE FRC grant remaining. If any ROOKIE teams have not yet applied for a grant from the FIRST® in Texas Foundation, please do so immediately! We would love to help an 18th FRC ROOKIE team get off the ground this season. Any team applying must first register with US FIRST® to get a team number. Because of the quick turnaround time until the December sixth registration deadline, we must now require a temporary or permanent team number to finalize a grant.
As the foundation transitions management this season, there are a few updates we’d like to provide you. The total grant award from TWC was $260,000 less this year than in years past. This season, FIRST® in Texas had more applicants than ever before, making this the first year that the foundation was not able to provide a grant award to every applicant. We experienced a very competitive selection process for 2013-14 grant season. Teams are selected for awards based on criteria given to FIRST® in Texas by the funding sponsors. Award criteria may change from year to year. We believe that all FIRST® participants are deserving of an award. Unfortunately due to an increased demand and decreased supply, we were not able to award grants to every applicant. Because of the overwhelming number of funding requests from teams like yours, we aim to significantly increase funds available for team grants next year.
ALL AWARDS CONTINGENT ON ELIGIBILITY
Grant selections are contingent on the verification of eligibility for TWC: all student team members must be enrolled in 9th-12th grades in the state of Texas.
The list below may change based on the receipt and verification of Eligibility Forms submitted by selected teams or if teams inform us of changes to their team or application status. We will announce changes or updates to this list as they occur. Please check out the list below, as well as the status updates below.
Questions about your application status?
IF YOUR TEAM:
RECEIVED YOUR SELECTION NOTIFICATION, BUT HAS NOT SUBMITTED YOUR ELIGIBILITY FORM:
Please submit the Eligibility Form as soon as possible! You have ten (10) business days to submit your Eligibility Form. If your team has already made your registration payment to US FIRST®, your team can be reimbursed for your payment up to the amount of your grant award.
Your team will not be able to participate in the 2014 FRC season if US FIRST® does not receive your registration payment on or before December 6th. If you have not already made your registration payment to US FIRST® and FIRST® in Texas has not verified your eligibility by December 5th, we will not be able to submit your grant award payment to US FIRST® in time for their December 6th registration fee payment deadline.
Please send your completed Eligibility Form to [email protected].
SUBMITTED YOUR ELIGIBILITY FORM:
Please wait. Teams that have submitted verified Eligibility Forms by end of the day Wednesday 11/20 will receive Award Letters by Friday 11/22. Teams submitting verified Eligibility Forms before 8 AM Monday 11/25 will receive Award Letters by Monday 11/25. Teams submitting Eligibility Forms after that will receive a response within 48 hours.
RECEIVED YOUR AWARD LETTER:
Unless you have specifically declined assistance with registration costs in response to the Award Letter, all granted funds will be applied directly to your teams US FIRST® registration cost. If you have already paid your registration cost, please send us a receipt [email protected] and we will reimburse your team.
RECEIVED YOUR REGRET LETTER:
FIRST® in Texas has sent out letters of regret to all teams that have not been selected for a Texas Workforce Commission grant, except for teams that have APPLIED on or after Friday 11/15. If your team number is not listed below and you have not received a letter of regret, please email [email protected] from an email address you would like to receive your notification and we will re-send it to you. All teams that have applied will be kept on file. Should a selected team be determined ineligible or decline their award, we will send a selection letter to a new team to ensure all grants are distributed. We do not expect to have a significant number of grants open in this manner.
HAS NOT RECEIVED EITHER A SELECTION NOTIFICATION OR REGRET LETTER:
Please contact us at [email protected]. Teams that have applied since Friday 11/15 have not received notification yet.
TEXAS FRC TEAMS SELECTED FOR TWC AWARDS LISTED FROM SMALLEST TO LARGEST TEAM NUMBER (Please note that we are still gathering team numbers from teams 1-3, so we have only 65 numbers listed here):
- Irvin HS T-STEM Academy | El Paso ISD | El Paso
- BelAir High School | Ysleta ISD | El Paso
- Eastlake High School | Socorro ISD | El Paso
- 118
- 148
- 231
- 441
- 457
- 499
- 624
- 647
- 653
- 2158
- 2582
- 2587
- 2833
- 2950
- 2965
- 2969
- 2982
- 2985
- 3005
- 3029
- 3035
- 3037
- 3305
- 3320
- 3366
- 3545
- 3700
- 3728
- 3997
- 4063
- 4084
- 4219
- 4298
- 4332
- 4335
- 4570
- 4589
- 4597
- 4610
- 4639
- 4670
- 4689
- 4694
- 4717
- 4734
- 4747
- 4798
- 4799
- 4852
- 4853
- 4934
- 5047
- 5052
- 5070
- 5103
- 5212
- 5261
- 5287
- 20140021
- 20140165
- 20140204
- 20140537
- 20140639
- 20140697
- 20140698
Thank you for posting this information
We haven’t heard either way yet, but probably because we applied later since we were informed application deadline is December:
http://alamo-first.org/node/43
Can anyone discern a pattern of criteria among the veteran teams’ awards? I cannot…
–Michael Blake
I am not sure what criteria was used to select teams. I can tell you that I submitted our application on Oct. 10th and there is not another FRC team in a 150 mile radius around us.
I hope that helps,
Mr. B
My guess it was based on the demographics numbers which were mostly these questions below. I will say that we don’t have and weren’t able to obtain some of the information for our students so that might have been part of the reason we didn’t get the grant.
- What type of organization is your team affiliated with?
school
non-school organization (e.g. Girl Scouts, 4H)
homeschool organization- How many team members have a disability?
0- How many team members are enrolled in a school that is located on a military base?
0- How many team members have a parent or sibling who are actively serving with, or are a veteran of, the US military?
0- How many team members live in a home where someone qualifies for free or reduced price lunch?
0- How many of your team members reside in households where someone qualifies for WIC or SNAP (formerly “food stamps”)?
0- How many team members are home-schooled?
0- How many team members are female?
13- Please select the number of team members that are best described as an individual of the following racial/ethnic categories.
African-American, Non-Hispanic - 4
Asian/Asian-American - 8
White, Non-Hispanic - 27
Hispanic/Latino - 6
Native American/Alaskan Native - 0
Our team demographics have shifted much further to a 50/50 girl to boy ratio. We submitted this before the club fair for St. Agnes Academy our all girls school, and some of the boys have stopped coming since it was right at the beginning when we get our rush of members each year who are just deciding if they want to join or not.
Anyone else want to post their answers, so we can reverse engineer their criteria?
Here is our team demographic information.
Number of Students on Team 70
Number of Female Students on Team 24
Number of Male Students on Team 46
Number of High School Freshmen on Team 9
Number of High School Sophomores on Team 25
Number of High School Juniors on Team 20
Number of High School Seniors on Team 16
Percent of African-American/Black Students on Team 1.00%
Percent of Asian Students on Team 4.00%
Percent of Caucasian/White Students on Team 94.00%
Percent of Native American/Alaskan Students 0.00%
Percent of Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Students 1.00%
Percent of Other Race Students on Team 0.00%
Percent of Hispanic Students on Team 84.00%
100 %. Title I students
25 on free/reduced lunch
3 with disabilities