Fannett-Metal Only Area District to Apply for Race for the Top Grants

January 25, 2010

Last Tuesday was the official deadline for Pennsylvania school districts to submit paperwork to participate in the state’s Race for the Top competitive grants program.

However, most school districts in Franklin County and statewide declined to participate in the grant program.

Of the six school districts in the county, only Fannett-Metal School District turned in Memorandums of Understanding signed by the district’s administration, school board president and teachers’ association president. Statewide, only 120 of the state’s 500 school districts turned in the memorandums with all three signatures.

Fannet-Metal Superintendent Dixie Paruch said that applying for the grant funding was a no-brainer for the district because many of the strategies the state is looking to implement are already under consideration in the district.

"Everything that the grant addresses we’ve either already talked about or started implementing," Paruch said. "I think it’s going to be beneficial to the entire district, students and administration."

Paruch also said recent census numbers, which put about 15 percent of the district in the lower-income category, affected the decision to enroll in the grant competition.

Race to the Top is the largest federally-funded grant competition with $4.3 billion dollars being distributed nationwide to states that are working toward education reform. The grants are not formula-based, but will be awarded to the states that can show
the strongest strategies and coordinated commitments to reform. Pennsylvania could be awa rded as much as $400 million through the program.
According to a release issued Tuesday by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Commonwealth’s application for the funding is built around increasing student achievement and developing data systems capable of supporting reform, with schools using real-time data to guide instruction and help to identify students who are at-risk academically. The strategy also includes developing an evaluation system for teachers and leaders and creating a system for professional development.

Paruch said the district was already in the process of developing a rigorous curriculum for its students kindergarten through 12th grade that is concurrent with the state’s standards. To track the progress of the students the district is looking at ways to identify anyone who is falling behind.

The district is also working on a supervision and evaluation process for teachers in addition to working to allow teachers more planning time so they can collaborate on lesson plans. Fannett-Metal is also looking at ways of offering faculty more professional development as it applies to the changed curriculum.

Tuesday the Chambersburg Area School District issued a statement that said the district would not be participating in the grant competition at this time. District spokeswoman Sylvia Rockwood said in the release that the district and representatives of the teachers’ association met on several occasions to discuss the grant. Some of the guidelines established by the state were in potential conflict with the current teachers’ contract and an agreement could not be reached within the application’s time frame.

"We will continue to monitor the Race to the Top progress and future developments and evaluate how and when these programs may benefit CASD in the future," the release said.

Tuscaro ra Superintendent Rebecca Erb also said the district’s teachers’ union and the administration were unable to agree on the terms of the grant funding.

She said Tuscarora is almost halfway finished with a new local curriculum map that allows teachers to work together and map out vertically and horizontally what’s being taught in each subject. She said the district was also looking to implement a new form of professional development where the teachers would be paid to come in during the summer months to be trained.

Much like Fannett-Metal, some of the aspects of the state’s strategy to secure the funding were already being put in place in Tuscarora.

"All of the things there we had already begun to work on," Erb said.

"You don’t just put the technology out there. People have to know how to use it," Erb said.

Paruch said it’s too soon in the process to determine how much funding the district would receive, but any funding is welcome.

"This was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up," Paruch said.