The CTAP Educational Technology Grant is funded by CTAP, Region 9 and coordinated by the Orange County Department of Education. The goals of the grant program are to:

Grant Details

CTAP, Region 9 has set aside $120,000 for selected grants. These are to be divided into individual grant awards of up to $3,000 each and team grants (2 or more applicants) of up to $7,000 each. The funding will be released to the recipient(s)' district during the three months following the announcement of grant recipients. It is the grant recipient(s)' responsibility to make certain that their district invoices OCDE by June 10 of the academic year during which their are declared a grant recipient. It is an expectation of the grant that the award will be implemented during the next school year (i.e. 2010 Grants should be completed by June 30, 2011).

Grants selected for the award will automatically be considered in the selection of Orange County's representatives at the next California Student Technology Showcase, to be held in conjunction with the annual Spring CUE Conference in Palm Springs. Those chosen to represent Orange County will be videotaped and their projects will be showcased on the OC Student Technology Showcase web site.

Grant Eligibility

Any K-12 teacher, administrator or other certificated staff currently employed by an Orange County public school district is eligible to apply for the grant. Teams of certificated educators from any school or schools within a district may apply for a team grant. Substitute teachers may not apply for grants. Educators on shared or part-time contracts are eligible (see below for specifics). Non-teaching site or district educators or "TOSAs" may apply, but the grant MUST show direct impact in the K12 classrooms they serve.

One educator can only apply for one individual grant per year. Individuals' names cannot appear on both an individual AND a team grant. A grant winner is not eligible to apply again until one complete grant year has passed since they received their award. They must also have fulfilled all grant requirements, including project evaluations. For this reason, no 2009 grant recipients are eligible for 2010 grants.

Teachers on shared contracts may apply using the individual submission form, as long as they currently work with the same class(es) of students and their combined percentage FTE does not go beyond 100% of a contract. If they do, they should apply using the team submission form.

Requirements of Grant

• Grant funding will only be given to those projects which directly address the California Curriculum Content Standards. These should be listed by name and number only, not retyped in the body of the grant.
• All grant submissions are expected to be the unique work of the indiviudals or teams submitting them. If identical, or nearly identical grants are submitted, all will be deemed ineligible. Do not use a "grant template" for submission of your grant request. It should be wholly the work of the individuals submitting the grant. Others may advise in the writing of the grant content, but cannot write it on their behalf. OCDE does not encourage the hiring of grant writers for these grant submissions. Educators will receive these grants based on their own work, not the work of professional grant writers or templates.
• The Grant cover sheet must be completed, signed (with original signatures) and carried in to OCDE or postmarked by 4:00 p.m. on the due date. Grants submitted after the deadline will not be considered for the current funding year.
• In an effort to maintain fairness and impartiality, grant submissions must NOT refer to the school, mascot, district, teachers or administrators involved in the grant project by name in the body of the submission or its appendices (e.g. "Perfect Elementary School's ESLRs," or "To satisfy XYZ Unified School District Technology Standards," or "Mrs. Smith's 3rd Grade class will participate..." To avoid this, use the words "SCHOOL" "DISTRICT" and "TEACHER" as generic elements within your grant.
• All grant objectives should be measurable and attainable within the academic year for which they were written (i.e. the 2010 Grants are written for the 2010-2011 year, and should be attainable by June 30, 2011).
• All grant winners will give OCDE permission for the showcase selection committee to view the project in progress during October or November of its implementation year, and will furthermore agree to allow video cameras to capture the grant activities for the purpose of showcasing the project on the OC Technology Showcase. Additionally, grant recipients agree to sit for a brief video-taped interview regarding the grant.
• Grant funding given to schools and districts must be spent only on grant activities within the implementation year. Grant funding can not be "rolled over" into additional years for any activity. If grant equipment or software changes, it is up to the district technology leader to determine an appropriate replacement that supports all grant goals and objectives.
• Grant recipients who leave a school after receiving a Grant may take any equipment and/or software purchased with grant funds with them to any other school within the district, but if he or she should leave the district, retire, take a leave of absence, or otherwise end their employment at the school, the grant equipment and materials will stay at the last school in which the recipient was employed. Team grants will stay at the school(s) for which they were written, regardless of any recipient movements between schools or districts. In the case of intinerant teachers, TOSAs or district-level educators, the placement of the grant equipment, software and/or materials is left up to the district technology leader.

Grant Selection

Shortly after the grant submission deadline, a team of experienced technology-using educators from CTAP, Region 9 will gather to read, evaluate and score the grant submissions. If you are interested in being a grant reader, please contact Stacy Deeble-Reynolds.

Grant submissions will be reviewed by at least two readers and evaluated by the Grant rubric. Each reader will give the submission a score between 1 and 100. These two scores will be added to create a final total between 2 and 200. Submissions with a difference of 10 or more between the score given by the two readers will be given a third read. The three scores will be averaged and the final score will be an average of the three scores, multiplied by two.

Winning grants will be those with the highest combined scores for individual and team submissions. It is expected that approximately 25-30 individual grants and 4-6 team grants will be awarded, depending on the submissions received.

Grant awards will be announced two-three weeks following the grant reading on this web site.

Benefits

In addition to receiving the grant award, some winners will be showcased on the OC Student Technology Showcase web site and at the Showcase events during the implementation year of their award.

Grant recipients that have fulfilled all grant requirements will be given recognition during the implementation year for the successful completion of their grant project or program. At this time, the completed videos of their showcase videos will be presented.

Local news media, legislators and other community entities will be notified of their grant and its scope and could bring attention to recipients' schools and curricular program.

Teaching and learning will be enhanced in Orange County!

Students will become more engaged.