Funding Opportunities
In 2008, the federal department ofeducation announced the Full Service Community Schools (FSCS) Program, designed to encourage “coordination of education, developmental, family, health, and other services through partnerships” between public elementary and secondary schools, and community-based organizations and public-private ventures. The floodgates having finally swung open, the department was deluged with applications – but the funding stretched only far enough to support ten awards. Today, under the new administration, talk of education is omnipresent; in addition, at the
highest levels, there have been discussions about increasing interagency
collaboration to better support and link early childhood, school, and neighborhood-enhancing strategies.

Funding has begun to be allocated to back up these policies. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has been part of a charge to re-authorize
the FSCS Program. President Obama has called for increased support
for home-visiting programs such as PCHP. The federal Education
Department released new guidance for districts that specified that
community school strategies are an allowable use of Title I stimulus
dollars, saying that these Title I dollars could go to hiring community
school coordinators, for out-of-school-time programs, for parental
involvement, and for early childhood education and family literacy, etc.
(See the October 2009 NCLB Advisor). Details on the so-called Race to
the Top funds, which is the biggest pot of funds left to distribute, may yet
be revised to make it possible for a community school approach to be a
solution for schools that are failing – none of which, of course, are in
Rockland, although children facing challenges are not hard to find.
Particularly heartening to initiatives that include nonprofit partners such
as ours was the October release of draft guidelines for the Investing in
Innovation Fund, known as “i3.” Six hundred and fifty million dollars
will be available to districts and to districts and nonprofit partners to
“support local efforts to start or expand research-based innovative
programs that help close the achievement gap and improve outcomes
for students.” Rockland 21C is evaluating the feasibility of taking
the county initiative to the next level through applying for one of
these grants.

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