Partnership Awarded Over $27 Million in Federal Grants
Los Angeles, August 25 - The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools today announced that five of its schools have been awarded federal grants that will be worth more than $27 million over 3 years as a result of a vote by the State Board of Education last evening.
Gompers, Markham, Carver, and Stevenson Middle Schools, as well as Griffith Joyner Elementary, could receive approximately $5.5 million each of the next 3-years in the form of State Improvement Grants (SIG), a federal program to support the transformation of low performing schools. These five schools represent all of the Partnership schools eligible for SIG.
“We are so proud of our school leaders and teachers who focused on writing these grants with LAUSD in a very short period of time. Not all schools deemed eligible in LAUSD for SIG received funding, so having high quality grant applications definitely helped,” said Partnership CEO Marshall Tuck.
“We are also thankful to Mayor Villaraigosa, his team, LAUSD leadership and signatories to the LA Compact for pushing aggressively in Sacramento for this,” added Tuck. “If they hadn’t engaged, our schools would not have been awarded these grants. The State Department of Education originally did not recommend LA schools for any funding, but the intervention and perseverance of the Mayor, his team, and LAUSD helped turn that around.”
After the State’s initial decision to deny funding to all LAUSD schools, Partnership, Mayoral and LAUSD staff flew to Sacramento and pushed to reverse the decision, ultimately playing a central role in negotiating an agreement with the federal government allowing California to fund more schools.
The money will be used to give students more time in the classroom, to hire more teaching coaches and social services; for more summer school programming, parent engagement programs, new technology and more. Each school submitted grant applications detailing their proposed use of the funds prior to receiving the award.
About the Partnership
The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools was founded in 2007 as the cornerstone of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s strategy to improve education in Los Angeles. It is a unique collaboration between the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District to turnaround LA’s lowest performing schools and to create a model for doing so district wide. The largest non-district school operator in Los Angeles, the Partnership currently manages 21 schools with approximately 20,000 students and 1500 employees. The Partnership is a 501(c) 3 non-profit education management organization with nearly 30 employees.
