Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/166026
Contest Turn your idea into reality with an IFT Grant! Four things you should know T H E M O S T R E C E N T Institute for Teaching (IFT) grants were awarded to promote parental involvement, to develop or enhance school gardens, to encourage physical fitness, and to increase involvement in the local community. "It's all about teacher-driven change," says Dick Gale, CTA IFT program director. "The IFT believes school change should focus on what's working: the great teaching taking place in our classrooms." Are you interested in making a change? Then apply for an IFT Grant. Gale offers these tips: 11. Picture This! to the winners in the CTA "Picture This" contest. Go to cta.org/picturethis to see all the photos and video from the winning entries. C O N G R AT U L AT I O N S 1 st Plan ahead: For this school year, the grant application period opens on Jan. 1, 2014. Applications are due no later than April 30, 2014. The Grant Selection Committee will meet in May. If approved, grant checks are mailed in late July or early August for use in the 2014-15 school year. 2. 2 Go online: Find the grant application and tons of supporting information under the "Grants" tab at www.teacherdrivenchange.org. 3. 3 There's a matrix: Grant requests are evaluated by the IFT Grant Selection Committee, made up of four educators and an IFT support staff person. They use the IFT Strengthbased Matrix as the lens to evaluate the proposals. See www.cta.org/iftmatrix for more information. 4. 4 Local accountability: As part of the application process, local association presidents are asked to sign off indicating their willingness to have the local association serve as a fiscal agent on behalf of the grant recipient. This increases accountability and insures that the individual member incurs no tax liability. Your contributions make these grants possible Since 2009, the CTA Institute for Teaching has utilized CTA members' voluntary dues contributions to fund strength-based, teacher-driven projects at schools all over California. To date, IFT has funded 90 grant projects totaling $876,508. New members are automatically enrolled in the default contribution of $10 for the CTA Foundation and $10 for CTA's advocacy efforts through a reverse dues checkoff created in 2008. Members may change their allocation or opt out. New members have 30 days from the date of enrollment; previously enrolled members have a window from Aug. 1 to Nov. 1. Find out more at www.cta.org/contribution. First Prize: Fire and Ice: A geology tour of Iceland ANNETTE DEBRUYN, Valley Center Teachers Association My husband and I rode motorcycles 1,600 miles around the perimeter of Iceland, including the Westfjords and the Snaefellnes Peninsula. I made the video as a complement to a nonfiction story to tell students about the power of glaciers, the beauty of icebergs, and how you see deep down into the mid-Atlantic ridge, which is moving apart at 2.5 cm per year. She wins $250 in school supplies. 2 nd Second Prize: See the country, take a road trip. LARRY VOLPE Franklin McKinley Education Association Photos from my road trip from Spokane, Wash., to St. Louis, Mo., serve as a starting point to pique students' interest in American history. The trip builds my knowledge base of many aspects of our country and opens up a world of resources. He wins $150 in school supplies. 3 rd Third Prize: U.S. history tour ROBYN AND WILLIAM REINHART United Teachers Los Angeles We drove 6,600 miles across the United States. We created a mini civil rights tour as a learning adventure for our family and as inspiration for teaching in our respective classes. (He teaches AP Government, AP Economics and U.S. History; she teaches second grade.) They win $50 in school supplies. SEP TEMBER 201 3 Educator 09 Sep 2013 v3.6 int.indd 19 Know&Tell www.cta.org 19 9/3/13 2:25 PM