“In my experience, one of the biggest obstacles for rural schools is that their administrative team is very small, and they’re already wearing many hats,” said Ginny Lays, a grant writer for The Write Group Inc., who has worked with rural schools since 1988.
Grant writing is a time-consuming experience, especially when federal grants are involved, and Lays said many rural school administrators don’t have the time to write grant proposals or the funds to pay for grant writers.
Rural school administrators might be lucky enough to find a teacher in the district who is passionate about a particular area and would be willing to assist in completing a grant application for funding in that area, although teachers in rural districts are as time- and resource-strapped as rural school administrators.
In its Request for Proposal (RFP) documents, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) estimates it will take applicants 100 hours to complete a federal education grant proposal. For a grant writer, that estimate could be more or less, depending on whether it is the grant writer’s first time preparing a proposal for a given grant.
“It’s very time-consuming, and there is lots of research that must be done,” Lays said. “Even if you’ve been in the funding stream before and you’re composing another [grant proposal], you have a framework, but you still have to update all the research.”
She added: “One of the things that gives me great joy is when I get a grant for a rural school district and a teacher says, ‘I don’t know how to spend all this money.’ These schools don’t have grant writers on staff; they don’t even know where to begin to access the resources.”
Rural school educators hunting for grants that specifically target rural schools will not find many, and they often must compete with much larger districts when it comes to federal grants.
“Rural people don’t have the power,” Lays said. She noted that while high-powered legislators often don’t represent truly rural jurisdictions, more people are becoming aware of rural districts’ needs—and various organizations are working to bring attention to rural schools.
Lays offered five key pieces of advice for those hoping to secure education grants for a rural school or district.
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