External Resources

Overview

External Resources drives new and innovative program development through competitive federal, state, and foundation grants. These activities include:

Matching district priorities with grant program opportunities
Recruiting appropriate CPS central office units and external partners to participate
Developing criteria in collaboration with CPS central office units to determine school selection for district grant applications
Providing writing assistance that can range from critiquing, editing, and rewriting drafts to writing an entire proposal
Ensuring the submission of complete and accurate applications within grant deadlines

Goals

External Resources garners competitive grant funding for the district. To that end, department objectives are to:

Identify appropriate competitive federal, state, and foundation grant opportunities for CPS units and schools
Collaborate with CPS units to develop and submit grant applications
Maintain a database of all CPS grant activity and records for all district-level grant applications
Manage, disburse, and submit accurate reports for grants administered through the Children First Fund
Support individual schools in their pursuit of grant funds through External Resources

Current initiatives

Align programs in major grant applications with district priorities such as funding for the CPS High School Transformation Project, the CPS School Turnaround strategy for struggling schools, and continued program funding for improvements is reading, math, science, social studies, and the arts.

Accomplishments

CPS was awarded $200 million in competitive grants over the past two years, of which the Children First Fund provided fiscal agent services for $32 million.