Management

Capitalize on Blended Funding and Critical Funding Periods

Schools don’t have to wait for federal funding clarity. Here’s how IT leaders can support tech investments now.

Curtiss Strietelmeier is a K–12 analyst for CDW•G. He spent two years as an elementary teacher, two years as an educational trainer, 10 years as a director of technology and six years as a school superintendent.

Janice D. Mertes

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Janice Mertes is the CDW state-level ambassador serving state departments and K–12 education. She has more than 30 years of experience in public education, including 20 years in a large suburban Wisconsin school district as a social studies teacher and technology leader. Janice serves as the CDW liaison for national educational technology organizations, including SETDA, the Consortium for School Networking, the Council of Chief State School Officers’ Education Information Management Advisory Collaborative CIO Network and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology.

With Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding gone and continued uncertainty about what federal funding will look like going forward, K–12 IT leaders may feel stuck in a holding pattern. But while it’s too soon to tell how federal funding will evolve, schools don’t have to wait passively.

There are actions they can take to support their tech investments in the meantime.

Leverage Available Resources To Acquire Multiple Funding Streams

ESSER was a helpful one-stop shop for school funding, but its expiration doesn’t equate to an absence of available funding. Schools just have to work a bit harder for it, seeking multiple, often smaller streams of funding that can add up to total their expected need.

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Following a thorough, holistic evaluation of technology needs — per student, per class, across grade levels, in extracurriculars, etc. — and the accompanying price tags, schools can start by focusing on the funds they know they’ll receive.

This usually comes down to localized budgeting bonds, stabilized funds that can be counted on year after year. You may not have the freedom and flexibility to use these funds any which way, but their usefulness can’t be overstated. They still help cover the needs for which they’re allocated.

From there though, schools may need to be a bit more creative, collaborative and intentional.

On their own and along with personnel at educational service centers (people who know where the money is), K–12 schools should research wide-ranging grants and other funding options. This can include searching places such as Grants.gov and other funding hubs at the district, state and federal levels.

In action, this can yield resources that are obvious (the Department of Education, federal grant sites) and those that are harder to find. This may even involve working with vendor partners to sniff out further funding opportunities; after all, when they can provide the right solutions, they’re incentivized to help you find the funding for these investments.

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This blended funding approach isn’t new. While it may be unfamiliar to some staff members, schools have been blending funding sources to make ends meet for decades.

Align Project Timelines to Critical Funding Periods

Rigid grant windows don’t always align with project timelines. Therefore, schools must adjust their timelines in accordance with grant windows.

Case in point, if the application window for a state or federal cybersecurity grant ends in May, schools shouldn’t plan to retool their cybersecurity posture in June, because the funding from that grant may not come until early autumn.

In situations where the school’s project timelines aren’t as flexible (e.g., you really need those cybersecurity enhancements before summer classes start), seeking out local grants with more closely aligned funding periods may prove pivotal.

In the long run, however, the most important thing is consistency. Schools should seek grants they can trust to come in year after year within the same time frame, which can also help standardize recurring project timelines.

Ultimately, the synchronization of project timelines with critical funding periods will be decided as each school creates its strategic plan. These will also depend on the blended funding amount schools are able to acquire. While schools can’t control when federal funding details will be finalized, they can take charge of how to support their tech investments and the people those investments were made for.

This article is part of the ConnectIT: Bridging the Gap Between Education and Technology series.