Money is tight in education. Besides being highly qualified to teach our subject matter, we also need to be grant writers.
Today we got an email asking if anyone had written a grant for the Bulls-eye Corporation. An English teacher was writing a grant to apply for money to help take her students on a field trip to see a play that tied closely with something she teaches. I understand that corporations want to contribute to their community and help teachers do things in their classrooms. But the red tape on this grant makes you wonder why people even bother to apply. Bulls-eye Corp wanted to know:
1. Tax status date.
2. They want the following information on each of the board members. Middle name, professional occupation, company, street address, city, state, and country.
3. They are asking for the Total Organization Budget for the school. They also ask for our income sources. The categories are Corporations/Foundations, Memberships , Ticket Revenue and Other.
4. They want a list of the 10 largest donors who are “committed.”
Huh? All she wants is a few bucks to take a class or two of sophomores to a play and pay for a bus. I can see why the teacher was confused on how to answer these questions. Bless her heart for applying. But it does make you wonder about education in the future if we have to write grants like this to do the simplest things. Will anyone want to contribute money to my class so I can have paper to photo-copy exams?
