Fallon Parker

FBLA: Grant Proposal

School and Community in a Diverse Society

EDL 274
Grant Proposal 1

For my FBLA project I chose to take up writing a grant proposal. I had no experience in

writing grants so the first thing that I had to do was research what the first steps were to writing a

grant. I talked with my administrator about resources that were available to the district for

writing a grant proposal. My administrator gave the information for the grant team for DMPS. I

talked with them and they gave me information on the grant writing process. They also explained

the process in which someone working for the district has to go through in order to write a grant

for the district. I talked with my administrator about rants and found out that several of the Early

Childhood programs are funded through grants. She explained that she is constantly working on

grants to fund Early Childhood. After discussing several different aspects of grant writing with

the grants team and my administrator I research several different grants for Early Childhood that

I could practice writing. My administrator discussed that we are in need of funding three positons

for our Early Childhood site. Two years ago we opened a fourth Early Childhood site and we do

not have full time nurse, social worker, and family engagement facilitator for this site. The

current positions are half time at two different sites. She explained that they do not have enough

funding to fund these positions full time therefore finding a grant to fund these three positions. I

looked into the Kellogg Foundation to fund this grant. As I looked at the grant application I had

to gather information from several different resources. DMPS has a lot of the information on

their websites as well as in our staff shared documents. I also found information regarding Head

Start standards on the National Head Start webpage. The part of the application that I found the

hardest was the budget information. Since this is a practice grant I did not have access to all the

funding break down. I did not have an opportunity to sit down with my administrator to discuss

the budget that would be needed for this grant. However I did briefly talk about the process in

which they decide the budget. Overall I found this project challenging as I had never worked on
Grant Proposal 2

a grant prior to this. I also found it informative on how many resources that DMPS employees

have available to them. After talking with my administrator if I want to work as an administrator

for Early Childhood I will need to know how to utilize all the resources available for funding.

Total Time: 16 hrs.

Resources
Des Moines Public School Early Childhood Department goals and handbook
http://preschool.dmschools.org/
Des Moines Public Schools Cultural Proficiency http://equity.dmschools.org/the-barriers.html
Head Start Performance Standards https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/policy/presenting
Grant Proposal 3

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF)

*Provide a brief summary statement about your project and how it aligns with your

organization's mission, values, and priority focus:

Provide high quality, holistic early childhood education and family support services to children

and their families living within Des Moines, Iowas, most disadvantaged neighborhoods.

*Describe why your organization is best positioned to do this work. Include a few examples

of recent achievements relative to your request:

Des Moines Public is positioned in the heart of Des Moines. Programs provide quality learning

experiences to help promote growth of young children and their families. We accomplish this by

offering free quality preschool with several options to best meet the needs of families, including

a variety of locations, class times, and half- or full-day plans. Programs focus on working with

students that are at risk; low income families, English language learners, and students with

disabilities. In each of the last three years, students who attended preschool scored higher in all

six components of the Phonemic Awareness Profile [PAP], an instrument administered annually

to district kindergartners. Those results are part of the mountain of evidence demonstrating that

investment in quality preschool programs pays exponential dividends down the road in terms of a

myriad of reduced social costs.

*Describe the background and qualifications of the key team members who will work on

this proposed project, and how they will work together:

Des Moines Public Leadership Committee

Grant Proposal 4

*Please provide an overview of your funding request by describing the specific purpose, the

problem you are trying to solve, and the overall change you expect to see as a result:

Des Moines public is attempting to fund three positions for our new Early Childhood center.

With the proposed funding it will include a nurse, case manager, and family engagement

facilitator. These three positions create a partnership between families and the school. They will

provide comprehensive services needed to support better outcomes for the city's most vulnerable

children. The case manager will have the opportunity to work with families in difficult

situations, help families find services, create family plans, and act as a resource. The funding

request would allow students access to a full time nurse. The school nurse serves as a crucial

piece that brides health care and education. The school nurse along with the case manager

addresses the social determinants of health such as income, housing, transportation, access to

health insurance, and environmental health. The nurse will act as a resource for the families that

we serve in Des Moines Public. Low income families have a more difficult time accessing

medical treatment. Lastly the Family Engagement Facilitator will focus in the area of effective

family engagement and school improvement. They will provide training and building the

capacity of the school to effectively engage families and communities. The Family Engagement

Facilitator will act as a resource for families and provide opportunities for families to be

involved in their student's education.

*Describe the key outcomes you expect to achieve with WKKF funding:

Des Moines Public's mission is to provide more children in low-income families with access to

high-quality child care. Research suggest that families are more likely to become engaged and

participate in their child's education when they have a positive and trusting relationships with the

people who are supporting them. Therefore it is a key outcome for Des Moines Public to build
Grant Proposal 5

relationships with families by supporting; family well-being, supporting positive and strong

relationships between parents and children, and ongoing learning and development for both

students and parents. The positive relationships and support that a case manager, nurse, and

Family Engagement Facilitator can provide to families create results in which children are

healthy and ready for school.

*Provide the goals and related strategies to be accomplished specifically with WKKF

funding to achieve the outcomes identified:

Des Moines Public will provide children and families with high-quality early childhood

programs and professionals. Accomplishing this will require the hiring of critical team members

as well as access to professional development. To achieve this goal Des Moines Public will hire

an additional nurse, case manager, and family engagement facilitator for newly established early

childhood site. Des Moines Public will focus on children's physical, emotional, and behavior

health. Accomplishing this will require that all children will have access to comprehensive and

family-centered development and medical care. The child's social, emotional, and physical well-

being are critical to their success in school. Therefore Des Moines Public will strengthen and

support each children's health and development through screenings, referrals, and follow-up

services. They will act as a resource and partner with families to build each child's capacity to

succeed in school. To achieve the goal in supporting children's health is that the nurse will

complete screenings on all students and provided appropriate referrals and follow-up services.

The nurse will coordinate appropriate screenings and services for all students. The case manager

will coordinate referrals for child's medical home, mental health services, and interventions. The

Family Engagement Facilitator will offer trainings for families and caregivers on behavior
Grant Proposal 6

management procedures, health services available in the community, and act as a resource for

families and staff members.

*Describe the project activities to be achieved with WKKF funding:

Des Moines Public will address the learning, physical and social-emotional health needs for all

children. We will engage and support families as first teachers and health providers. The

program will focus on offering all children access to high-quality early learning and development

programs and professionals. Lastly coordinate policies and programs across agencies to provide

comprehensive services to young children and their families. The program will strengthen

partnerships with families.

*Describe the key communications and knowledge dissemination activities that support the

work detailed in this funding request. Describe your key audiences and how you will

engage them in communication and learning efforts.

Des Moines Public identifies, develops, and disseminates evidence-based best practices to

support the positive growth and development of young children and strengthen families and

communities.

*Describe the strategies and efforts to financially support this project beyond WKKF

funding:

Multiple types of funding are available to support the funding of support staff for the new Early

Childhood building within Des Moines Public past the WKKF funding. Public funds may be

found at the federal, state and local levels. We will have a process for braiding the funding from

each resources. Sources of funding are often based upon eligibility requirements depending on

families served.
Grant Proposal 7

*Describe your community engagement efforts with NON funding key leaders, partner

organizations or institutions and/or networks to ensure the success of this project. Describe

the length of time your organization has worked with these partners, their contributions to

the project and their roles and responsibilities:

The Community Education department serves as an outreach arm of the Des Moines Public

Schools in strengthening the community. The mission is to provide educational, cultural and

recreational opportunities responsive to the needs of the citizens of Des Moines which promote

the concept of lifelong learning and personal growth for all members of the community. We

based our efforts on the Head Start Performance Standards (2016): A program must implement

intake and family assessment procedures to identify family strengths and needs related to the

family engagement outcomes as described in the Head Start PFCE Framework, including family

well-being, parent-child relationships, families as lifelong educators, families as learners, family

engagement in transitions, family connections to peers and the local community, and families as

advocates and leaders.

*Describe your organizations existing capacity/ability (staffing, financial resources, etc..)

to evaluate this work; or your plan to build the capacity:

A key part of the training and technical assistance provided by Head Start to its grantees comes

from the national centers. The National Centers are funded and guided by the Office of Head

Start (OHS), the Office of Child Care (OCC), and the Health Services and Resources

Administration's Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB). The Centers work to promote

excellence across both Head Start and Child Care Programs and all ECE programs. They offer

resources and approaches that build program capacity and encourage consistent practices.

Programs include; Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning, Early Childhood
Grant Proposal 8

Health and Wellness, Early Childhood Quality Assurance, Parent, Family, and Community

Engagement, and Program Management and Fiscal Operations.

*Describe any racial equity practices, programs, or initiatives in which your organization is

presently engaged

The district is developing a culturally proficient learning community that is integrating and

transforming knowledge about individuals and groups of people into specific standards, policies,

practices, and attitudes used in appropriate cultural settings to increase the quality of services;

thereby eliminating opportunity gaps.

DMPS is a majority-minority urban district that serves families from a variety of socioeconomic

backgrounds, home languages and cultural experiences. As such, it is an expectation that district

leaders, educators and related services personnel be aware and respectful of the values, beliefs,

traditions, and customs of the children and families they serve. It is also expected that DMPS

personnel be aware of the impact their own culture may have on interactions with and decisions

regarding students and families. These factors must be taken into account when planning and

delivering services to children and their families in order to ensure all DMPS students graduate

with the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to excel in life.

In an effort to ensure School Board and superintendent goals regarding culturally proficiency and

educational equity are met, DMPS is actively working with The College of Education at Iowa

State University and other partners in developing a district plan that fully embeds cultural

proficiency and equity into our continuous improvement process. This plan includes specific

goals, annual attainable benchmarks, and the development of district support structures and

deliverables for schools to ensure the DMPS Systems of Support are viewed through a culturally
Grant Proposal 9

proficient lens. Throughout the year, the District Office will be providing additional information,

updates and supports regarding the integration of our commitment to Cultural Proficiency into

our current systems.