Area school districts must not give up on Straight A funding

The Trumbull County Career and Technical Center merits a shiny fresh apple and three gold stars for its winning idea to improve student learning environments and reduce taxpayer costs through an innovative nutrition and exercise program.

Specifically, TCCTC’s Mind Body Connection proposal won $297,841 last week from Ohio’s new $250 million Straight A Fund grant program. The TCCTC grant will be used to increase nutritious offerings available in the school-lunch program, create opportunities for physical activity before, during and after school in a new exercise-science classroom and raise student and staff awareness about the importance of a healthful lifestyle.

Mind Body Connection was one of a whopping 570 applications from school systems throughout Ohio — of which only 24 were funded — in the $86 million first round of the Straight A program. TCCTC’s success in beating the odds illustrates the extreme popularity and competitiveness of the Straight A program and speaks to the excellence embodied in the Champion technical school’s grant application.

The program, created as part of the state’s 2014-15 budget, likely drew so many applications because its mission parallels two paramount goals of public education everywhere: enhancing student achievement while reducing school-district costs.

Clearly, the thinkers and writers behind the TCCTC proposal had all the right stuff to satisfy the criteria of those judging them. But many, many other project ideas submitted by virtually every school district in the Mahoning Valley had noble and plausible goals as well.

Clearly, these and other home-grown proposals deserve a chance to bear fruit. That’s why we’d strongly encourage officials involved in crafting the unsuccessful grant proposals to contact the leaders of the Straight A Fund to determine what elements of their submissions caused them to be tossed out of the winners’ circle.

Perhaps it was simply a procedural error in the writing of the grant request. Perhaps it was judges’ dissension over a small portion of the larger mission of the proposal. Or perhaps it was an idea that already has been tried with little success.

Local officials won’t know until they ask. Here are some of the members of the governing board to whom questions can be asked: Alex Fischer, president and CEO of the Columbus Partnership, chairman; state Rep. Gerald Stebelton of Lancaster, R-5th; state Rep. Andrew Brenner of Powell, R-67th; state Sen. Peggy Lehner of Kettering, R-6th; Kristina Phillips-Schwartz, director of education initiatives at the Cincinnati Business Committee; and John Scheu, superintendent of the Sidney City School District.

revising the proposals

Once armed with knowledge on any real or perceived deficiencies in their proposals, district leaders in the Valley can then revise them, resubmit them and stand greater chances of approval in next year’s new and larger $150 million pot of Straight A grants.

Short of that, school leaders could look at ways at implementing all or parts of their progressive proposals without the boost of state funding or through exploration of a multitude of other potential grant agents. Boards of education throughout the region likely would be receptive to any and all strategic plans that promote academic achievement while reducing costs.

The worst thing that those who failed to get Straight A rewards this year could do would be to bury their proposals in the trash heap of education pipe dreams. Straight-A programs, like straight-A students, must not only excel in quality aptitude and first-rate workmanship. They must also possess heaping helpings of resilience and tenacity.