Community Collaboration Grants

In recognition of the role that our community can play in supporting public education, the most recent addition to our grant programs is our Community Collaboration Grant program. IPEI now awards Community Collaboration Grants to non-profit community organizations wishing to initiate curricular-enhancing programs in the Ithaca City School District. Grant applications that: 1.) offer opportunities not available within the ICSD; 2.) involve multiple classrooms and/or multiple schools, and 3.) affect larger numbers of students will receive priority. The Community Organization should be the applicant, although a teacher should be a partner, and principals for all buildings involved must be consulted and give their approval. Funding is awarded to the Community Organization for these grants - not to teacher partners. Applications may be submitted electronically at any time during the school year. Maximum grant amount is $3,000 per year. Community Collaboration Grants are intended to explore the value of an idea or program as a curricular enhancement and are not designed to sustain a program long term. With that in mind, funding may be requested for one additional year only after the initial grant year.

Current List and Archived List of Teacher Grants are accessible through links at right.

To begin the application process, click application.

A Summary Report must also be filed at the project’s completion. Please review revised summary report form before beginning grant application process.

Examples of recent grants include:

  • Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Pilot at Beverly J. Martin Elementary School, in collaboration with the New York Coalition for Healthy Foods, introducing the students to fresh fruits and vegetables.

  • Transportation Liaisons in all ICSD schools, in collaboration with Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Way2Go program and the ICSD Transportation Working Group. They provide information to students and families about ride sharing, bicycle routes, and other transportation options to meet the needs of students and parents who encounter transportation obstacles.

  • Meet the Alphabet, a collaborative effort among ICSD staff, students, musicians, dancers, artists, and cinematographers, Family Reading Partnership, and The Village at Ithaca, to develop a DVD to teach names, sounds, symbols, and a key word for each letter of the alphabet to over 900 Pre-K through First Grade students. The DVD will be distributed free of charge to households of Pre-K children, to day-care centers and providers, and to classrooms in the ICSD in an effort to increase reading success across all groups in our diverse district.

  • Media Construction of Martin Luther King, a project in collaboration with Ithaca College’s media literacy program Project Look Sharp involving all 800 8th and 11th grade students in ICSD in English Language Arts and Social Studies classrooms, to integrate media literacy and critical thinking into English Language Arts and social studies curricula. Students learn about Martin Luther King through original video material and a study of historical events. Songs, film clips, newspapers, magazines, and other media are viewed to see how different people can interpret the same message differently.

Before applying for an IPEI grant, potential applicants are encouraged to review all information specific to the grant program they wish to apply to. Please pay specific attention to the grant summary report form so that you understand what information will be requested at the conclusion of the grant process.

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