Deal: Schools statewide awarded technology grant
Gov. Nathan Deal today announced that 48 local education authorities (LEAs) will be awarded more than $8.2 million from the third round of the Connections for Classrooms grant program, a collaborative funding effort between the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, the Georgia Department of Education and the OneGeorgia Authority to provide classrooms across the state with the high-speed broadband access required for digital and blended learning. These funds will enable the LEAs, which include 47 districts and one state school, to receive $16.8 million in federal E-Rate funds, representing a total investment of $25 million in school and classroom network infrastructure.
“Georgia students gain a distinct advantage by learning skills applicable to rapidly growing sectors of the economy,” said Deal. “I charged the Digital Learning Task Force with developing a strategy to improve student achievement through digital learning implementation across the state. Today, our schools are more equipped than ever to properly prepare students to join a high-tech workforce.”
Connections for Classrooms is part of a broad statewide effort to expand classroom high-speed broadband access in response to Deal’s Digital Learning Task Force recommendations, as well as the state’s efforts to enable personalized learning for Georgia students. Across three grant rounds, the program has provided more than $70 million in grants to 157 LEAs to accomplish this goal and has enabled them to be eligible for up to $110 million in federal E-rate funds for the same purpose.
Round 3 capitalizes on the recent $2 billion expansion of the federal E-Rate program’s Category 2, which provides grants to LEAs for school-level network infrastructure that can provide local match funding. LEAs that had remaining E-rate eligibility for school- and classroom-level network upgrades after the first two Connections for Classrooms rounds were eligible to apply. Applicants had to describe their network infrastructure plans and how the increased connectivity would enable them to implement digital and blended learning to improve student outcomes. Independent reviewers with digital learning expertise scored applications using a scoring rubric released when the grant competition opened.
LEAs must apply for and receive federal E-rate Category 2 funds to receive reimbursement for local matching funds from Connections for Classrooms, and they can only use grant funds for that purpose.
After Round 3 awards, Georgia districts are still eligible for roughly $30 million in local match requirements for the E-rate program, which would enable LEAs to receive as much as $80 million in E-rate funding. Deal’s amended fiscal year 2016 budget includes $14.9 million to further invest in Connections for Classrooms.
Click here for a full list of Round 3 awards.