Grant Program for Teacher-Powered Teacher Teams

Grants have been available for teams of teachers who are starting or converting schools to teacher-powered (Ignition Grants), or for established teams looking to improve their practices (Booster Grants).

We currently do not have an open grant round nor immediate plans for an upcoming grant round. Please check back later for updates, or see details on prior grant programs below.

About Ignition Grants

Starting or converting to a teacher-powered school is a challenging process. Navigating the local and state politics and education code, as well as creating a shared governance structure and learning program designed to meet the needs of their students takes time, money, and professional development opportunities. The application process for charter or innovative district schools is intensive and requires teachers to put in many hours on top of their regular day job of teaching in a classroom. Many teachers are unable to move past the initial planning stages because of an absence of resources, support, and encouragement.

Teacher groups that have successfully started or converted to teacher-powered schools report that among the most helpful things in the planning stages were: release time to plan as a group and visiting other teacher-powered schools. Both of these require funding—money specifically used to cover substitute costs, travel expenses, and consistent release time for teachers on the planning team.

The purpose of these Ignition Grants is to help committed groups of teachers in the planning process of designing and implementing a teacher-powered school, or for teams looking to improve their teacher-powered practices and structures. For Ignition Grants, teachers will need to have formed a design team and have completed the Forming Stage of the Steps Guide. The Ignition Grant is used in the Storming Stage. While these grants are not designed to be all-encompassing or enough funding to complete the whole start-up process, they will jump-start the process and empower teachers to create schools that better serve the students in their communities.

About Booster Grants

For Booster Grants, teams need to identify teacher-powered practices or structures that they want to improve at their site. These might be teams that have had a change of leadership or many new team members, or perhaps have slipped into more traditional leadership structures and are looking to revitalize their teacher-powered culture and decision-making. These Booster Grants are designed to support teams by providing funding for professional development, team collaboration time or retreats, or site visits to other teacher-powered schools.

Possible Uses of Funds

Teams applying for a grant can propose to use the grant for any or all of the following (but can also suggest their own uses):

• Travel expenses for members of the team to visit a current teacher-powered school or conference
• Release time (i.e. paying for substitute teachers) to plan as a group,
• Child care for evening or weekend design sessions,
• Space rental and food expenses for meetings,
• Miscellaneous supplies and materials.

Teams are only eligible for one grant, so prior grant winners cannot re-apply.

How to Apply

Applications are reviewed by a national team of teachers who currently teach in teacher-powered schools, have hands-on experiences on a design team and have completed the Forming Stage and Storming Stage as they developed their own schools.

We currently do not have an open grant round nor immediate plans for an upcoming grant round. Please check back later for updates.