The Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence awards $1.5 million to 25 outstanding skilled trades teachers and their programs in U.S. public high schools.
Donor Name: Harbor Freight Tools for Schools
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Awards and Prizes
Deadline: 05/02/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
The Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, started in 2017, recognizes outstanding skilled trades teachers and programs in public high schools in the United States.
In 2025, they will award $1.5 million in prizes overall: Five grand prize winners will each receive $100,000, with $70,000 going to the public high school skilled trades program and $30,000 going to the eligible individual skilled trades teacher. Twenty prize winners will each be awarded $50,000, with $35,000 going to the public high school skilled trades program and $15,000 going to the eligible individual skilled trades teacher. Applicants whose school, district and/or state policy prohibits receipt of the individual portion of prize earnings may still apply.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligibility: Subject Matter
- The Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence is open to skilled trades teachers who are current faculty members at U.S. public high schools.
- Eligible applicants are educators who teach skilled trades classes that emphasize the expert use of tools and materials to build, repair and maintain products and structures. Most applicants will come from the following broad fields of trades education in public high schools:
- Agricultural Mechanics
- Carpentry
- Construction
- Electrical
- HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning)
- Manufacturing
- Plumbing
- Transportation mechanics and repair
- Welding
- They recognize that high school classes within these broad categories have a variety of names, focus areas and sub-specialties. Past winners of the prize have taught, for example, green construction, marine systems technology, diesel mechanics, advanced manufacturing and engineering. The common thread prize winners share is that their students work with their hands, using tools regularly throughout the course of study, to build, repair and maintain.
- Eligibility: School Type
- Each applicant and each prize recipient must be an active faculty member at a U.S. public high school, in good standing who is not subject to any threatened, pending or active disciplinary proceedings or involuntary leave of absence with their school, district or state education agencies or other authorities during the entire 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school years. Applicants must be a faculty member at the same school during both such school years. Harbor Freight Tools for Schools reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any applicant whose participation may subject the prize, its judges, Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, TSF or HFT and any of its customers to controversy, negative publicity and/or reputational harm.
- Teachers at district career and technical education centers serving both high school and post-secondary students may apply if they are members of their school district’s high school faculty.
- No teacher may apply more than once for the 2025 prize. In addition, teacher teams are not eligible to apply in one application like they have been in previous years.
- Past winners of the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence are ineligible to apply for the 2025 prize. Previous finalists and other applicants who were not named winners in any previous year are permitted to apply.
- The following persons are also ineligible to apply for the 2025 prize:
- Directors, officers and employees of TSF, HFT, and/or any of their respective affiliates; family members of directors and officers of the TSF, HFT, and/or any of their respective affiliates; immediate family members of employees of TSF, HFT, and/or any of their respective affiliates; any contributor of more than two percent of the total contributions and bequests received by TSF in any taxable year, or family member of such contributor, or, if the contributor is an entity, then any person who owns more than twenty percent of such contributing entity, or family member of such person; and senior government officials.
- Harbor Freight Tools for Schools does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status, in any of its activities or operations.
For more information, visit Harbor Freight Tools for Schools.
