The Barr Foundation requests proposals from teams of school and system leaders from local education agencies (LEAs) in New England who are ready to engage in an intentional year of learning, dreaming, and planning to transform the high school student experience so that all students, especially historically marginalized students, thrive in and after high school.
Donor Name: Barr Foundation
State: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 03/15/2023
Size of the Grant: up to $100,000
Grant Duration: 1 year
Details:
Barr seeks to partner with high schools and systems who are ready to embrace a pivotal opportunity to pause, understand the context and student need more deeply, challenge assumptions about how things need to be, and move toward a vision of excellence that their students deserve. This is a unique opportunity that is designed intentionally for teams to pause and deeply reflect on what currently is and what could be. The year-long experience will provide time, resources, and facilitated support for school and district leaders to step out of the day-to-day whirlwind of urgent needs to come together and engage in the necessary deep conversations and rigorous planning that this moment demands.
At the end of the year, we hope participating teams will be able to answer big questions:
- What is their vision of excellence at both the high school and system levels?
- What do they need to change or create at both the high school and system levels to make that vision a reality for all of their students?
Funding Information
Applicants are invited to submit a proposal for up to $100,000 for one year of support to engage in a learning, dreaming, and planning process with local stakeholders. Investments may support collaborative work time; facilitation, project management, and/or data collection support; and/or other local needs related to this work. This initial one-year phase of work may lead to further planning, design, and early implementation funding for selected applicants.
Eligibility Criteria
This opportunity may be for you if:
- You are ready to engage in a new strategy, visioning, and/or planning process, or
- You are looking for a complementary set of supports for a strategy, visioning, and/or planning process that is already underway, or
- You have a current strategy, vision, or plan that needs to be reimagined to be more about transformative, equity-driven change.
Eligibility Requirements
- Applicants must be open to considering new possibilities for fundamental change at both the high school and school system levels (i.e., bring a learner’s mindset rather than a predetermined set of solutions).
- Public Local Education Agencies (LEAs), including districts and charter organizations, are eligible to apply. A group or regional consortium/collaborative of LEAs or schools organized around common goals or interests may also apply.
- This opportunity is open to LEAs serving students in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, or Vermont. Each LEA must include students in at least one high school grade and serve a minimum of 100 high school students.
- Current Barr Foundation grantees with high schools that are not yet active in Barr-supported transformation efforts are eligible to apply. Please connect with your current Program Officer if you have questions regarding eligibility.
- The Barr Education Program’s strategy focuses on high school options that provide equitable access for all students; high schools with selective/screened admissions are ineligible to apply.
- Single-school LEAs (e.g., a single site charter school) are ineligible to apply for this particular opportunity due to the dual school-level and system-level focus.
- Successful applicants must have a student need that warrants a substantial level of investment to transform for equity. A description of the current understanding of student need should be included as part of the response to question #2 in the proposal narrative. Eligibility for this opportunity can be met through at least one of the following options:
- LEAs with a high school population that is at least 50% high needs students (composite rate of at least 50% across all high schools included). (Note: Using the MA DESE definition of high needs: “A student is high needs if he or she is designated as either low income (prior to 2015, and from 2022 to present), economically disadvantaged (from 2015 to 2021), El/former El, or a student with disabilities. A former El student is a student not currently an El, but had been at some point in the four previous academic years.”)
- LEAs who have experienced significant recent growth in their high needs high school student population.
- LEAs with a significant population of high school students who are not being served well by the current model of school and whose unique experiences, strengths, and needs must be centered as part of an overall plan to reimagine high school.
For more information, visit Barr Foundation.
