NEF CyberLearning Offers $2 Million Matching Grants for School Safety; QZAB Assuring School Safety Within a Budget
(PRWEB) October 02, 2013 -- School safety budgets have been cut; leaving school districts to face how to provide a safe learning environment for its students. The question of safety encompasses external and natural occurrences, such as tornados, floods and hurricanes. Safety budgets are important to providing an environment that is conducive for learning for the nations over 50 million K-12 students. The Qualified Zone Academy Bond, QZAB, is a federal program that fills in the budget gap for school safety.
With over $1 billion available, Superintendents can use QZAB funds for “safe rooms”, renovations, and rehabilitation. The National Education Foundation is offering any superintendent with 35% or more free/reduced students up to $2 million in grants/donation assistance when applying for the QZAB.
In addition to the 10% match grant, NEF helps the school districts to create QZAB STEM+ academies capable of advancing a student one grade level in a subject in 20-30 learning hours in the NEF system, as documented by the State University of NY (SUNY), which implements the academies nationally with a grant from NEF.
According to Misty Weber, the QZAB academy program director at the Warren County School District in PA, “NEF helped us to receive $34 million in QZAB funds for renovating our school facilities. In addition, NEF’s QZAB academy, implemented by SUNY, helped our students to advance a grade level in in math in 22 learning hours. NEF also set up a parent academy to train our parents in job skills, as well as a teacher academy to enhance our teachers’ teaching skills.”
Kirsten DeMento, Curriculum Director of New York’s Watervliet school district says, "NEF grant provides a total learning solution including differentiated learning using the top-rated Pearson SuccessMaker and GradPoint courses, mentoring, teacher training and teacher-parent-student motivational incentives."
The NEF STEM program, formulated at the Clinton Global Initiative in Chicago, also creates school-college-business partnerships to provide world-class STEM+ academies for disadvantaged schools at no cost to the schools.
Dr. Appu Kuttan, Chairman of the National Education Foundation (NEF), global expert in digital education and empowerment, and the recent University of Wisconsin Distinguished Achievement Award winner, states, "School districts across the Nation are faced with serious budget cuts at a time US rankings in math, reading and science are still going down. Twenty four countries are ranked ahead of US in math. Our $100 million grant program would provide school districts the required 10% match, and thus enable them to receive $1 billion in Federal QZAB funds (http://www.qzab.org) for energy efficiency, renovation, technology, teacher training and STEM academies. Moreover, schools located in low income communities could receive additional Federal cash grants."
To apply for the QZAB grant, visit http://www.qzab.org.
About NEF
National Education Foundation (NEF), founded in 1989 in Washington, DC area, is the national non-profit leader in bridging the academic and job skills divides through high-quality, affordable STEM+ education solutions. NEF provides total STEM+ education solutions including 6,000 top-quality Web-based differentiated learning courses, mentoring, motivational rewards, teacher stipends and teacher training to disadvantaged school districts across the nation.
Contact: Dr. Art Stellar
VP
Tel: 703-823-9999
Email: qzab(at)qzab(dot)org
Websites: http://www.cyberlearning.org and http://www.qzab.org
Appu Kuttan, Cyber Learning, http://www.cyberlearning.org, +1 (703) 823-9999, [email protected]
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