Professional Development Mini-Grants - FAQ
These questions have been posed by parties interested in the Professional Development Mini-Grant Program.
Q1: It doesn't look like it, but I was wondering if organizations would be able to apply?
A1: We had not considered organizations such as yours in designing this program. Our intent is to support school site-level activity. The thinking is that after teachers attend workshops (by CCAE or ANN or whomever) they need each other's help to gain control of the skills presented. That teacher-to-teacher interaction is usually best supported at the site level. This school-site teacher-to-teacher professional development is in line with the State's emphasis in adult education professional development for the coming three years.
Q2: We are able to support mentoring within our own school using resources from our WIA grant; however, these funds are becoming more limited. I am interested in knowing more about what type of projects you will support.
A2: Funded schools will have teachers involved in peer coaching, study circles, and other similar structures. Proposed Mini-Grant activities should contribute to a school's larger professional development plans for the year. For example, a team of teachers might attend a particular CALPRO workshop together and then work through a number of peer coaching cycles n the following months to help each other gain control of the new skills.
Each agency uses its WIA funding differently. (And not every school participates in 231 - especially at the smaller end of the scale which we are prioritizing.) It's great that you are using your WIA reesources to fund mentoring. If there is a group of teachers you'd like to support with release time for collaboration but WIA regulations don't permit activity in that program area, that could be a possibility for you. Or if there is a group of teachers you have identified as particularly needy of professional growth (because of, say, the quality of their distinctive student or a distinctive context in which they work, etc.), you might choose to target that group to augment what you are able to do with WIA resources.