Grants to Support Classrooms, Schools, Career Centers and Technology Make a Difference

The Hillsborough Education Foundation makes a difference in classrooms and schools with various grants. These grants are available through a competitive on-line application process. With supplemental funding, a teacher can set the stage for making the learning process even more exciting, interactive and innovative. Link here for more information about classroom grants.

Schools could often benefit from discretionary funding to achieve school wide goals such as increasing reading or math scores, addressing civility issues, or improving attendance. The Foundation offers School Excellence Grants in amounts up to $5,000 per school to address specific school-wide issues or goals. The School Excellence award is a match grant which is one part of the whole process used to help improve excellence at the school.

According to research, in the next three years alone, nearly 100,000 skilled job openings in Florida could remain unfilled. Career and Technical Centers (Hi-TEC in Hillsborough County Public Schools) can graduate skilled workers at a faster pace if students are able to meet the modest financial obligations of these post-secondary programs. The Foundation’s INVEST program can help. (Link to 3.1.2) The INVEST program helps students who may have enough tuition money, but lack funds to purchase tools or uniforms required for certain classes, thus delaying their graduation. In addition, students may have to take fewer classes at a time or not complete certification exams because of lack of funds. INVEST provides assistance with grants.

Newer schools are fortunate to have state-of-the-art instructional technology and equipment through start up funding readily available, but many schools within the district lack the funding to replace dated equipment. The Foundation has a Technology Matching Grant Fund (Link to 3.3.1) that can help any school receive up to $25,000 to purchase instructional technology such as software, hardware, networking, etc.

• The Foundation has awarded over $2.5 million of grant money through its grants program. With so many requests each year, The Foundation is continually striving to provide funds for this tremendously successful program. Visit our How You Can Help section to support this worthy program.
• The Foundation helps a significant number of students at Career and Technical Centers to obtain the education they need for their career goals each year.
• The Foundation’s Technology Matching Grant program provides over $500,000 in technology dollars to the school district each year.