Page 80 - EdViewptsSpring2017

Creating a Grant-Writing

Culture in Your District

By Nancy Lubarsky, Ed.D., Superintendent, Mountainside

In the past five years, minimal and outdated technologies. grants because the main disqualifier
Mountainside (a small, suburban, K-8 These circumstances are not unusual. is often socio-economic. Second, who
district in Union County) received al- Although people think of small, subur- would write the grants? Small districts
most half a million dollars in grants ban towns as affluent, their resources have limited administrative personnel,
and donations. Much of this money are also limited. These districts receive already wearing many hats. Hiring
was obtained through teacher efforts. significantly less state aid. There are grant writers is costly.
We now have more books in class- fewer homes and less commercial en- I decided to take the plunge. Moun-
rooms, more curriculum related assem- terprises from which to develop a tax tainside has an Education Foundation
blies, and more field trips. Of course, base, and yet they still must provide (MEF) and a private foundation (Watts),
this didn’t happen overnight. Not only the same services and support the but both their primary missions were
were teachers trained to write grants, same infrastructure as larger districts. the arts. Neither had ever given large
but we convinced them that their time Generous parents came to our board scale funds to our district. I had to
and effort would directly impact their meetings, concerned about the lack convince them in my proposals that
students, classrooms, and teaching. of technology, wanting to donate, but our greatest need, technology, was
When I taught English in a small, ur- we had no system in place. Would key to supporting the arts across the
ban district, there were few resources. their donations stay in the classroom curriculum. It worked! We received
I wrote grants out of necessity for or follow their children? How could substantial donations from both orga-
classroom materials, field trips, and we insure equal distribution? Par- nizations to begin to build our technol-
guest speakers. Years later, when I ents suggested applying for grants. ogy program. Once we achieved these
arrived as superintendent in Moun- I already knew, however, that there successes, I asked other local orga-
tainside (a district of less than 800 were two key obstacles. The first was nizations (the Elks and the Rotary)
students), surprisingly I found similar that suburban districts aren’t eligible to also support our technology. They
budgetary issues, especially regarding for many public, private, or corporate were happy to donate to our efforts.

Educational Viewpoints -78- Spring 2017