Green Hills AEA Career and Technical Education (CTE) Regional Planning Partnerships (RPP) Award 2020-2021 Mini-Grants to 22 Districts

The career and technical education regional planning partnerships within the Green Hills AEA service area have awarded over $155,000 in mini-grants to 22 districts for the 2020-2021 school year. Through this year’s grants, 32 career and technical education programs received funding ranging from $1,000 to $10,000. This is the fourth year the regional planning partnerships have provided mini-grants to districts. Applications for the mini-grants were scored across multiple categories including how projects would help students become college and career ready, how projects would support the development of each career and technical education program, how proposed projects would support students in special populations, as well as the impact and priority of need for each project.

The mini-grant funds supported a variety of items across multiple fields of education. In the area of agriculture, mini-grant funds were used towards Bovine Artificial Insemination and Injection simulators, portable greenhouses, farrowing crates, and ultrasound equipment. In the area of health sciences, mini-grants were used for manikins, hospital beds, wheelchairs, and walkers. In the area of industrial technology, programs were able to acquire portable table saws, welders, VEX engineering equipment, computers, storage shed kits to build and sell, laser engravers, drill presses, and CNC lasers. In the area of business computers, heat press, vinyl cutters & printers, software, Cricut makers, tripods, and teleprompters were among the items requested. In the area of family and consumer sciences, the mini-grant funding was able to provide potting tables, refrigerators, ranges, microwave ovens, convection ranges, mixers, and cookware.

This year’s mini-grant recipients are:

• Boyer Valley
• CAM
• Central Decatur
• Clarinda
• Council Bluffs
• Creston
• Essex
• Fremont Mills
• Griswold
• Harlan
• Lamoni
• Lewis Central
• Logan-Magnolia
• Mormon Trail
• Mount Ayr
• Nodaway Valley
• Sidney
• Southwest Valley
• Stanton
• Treynor
• Tri-Center
• Woodbine

As school district budgets continue to be pressured, these mini-grants have provided needed equipment for the oftentimes costly career and technical education programs.

“We have been incredibly fortunate to receive regional planning partnership mini-grants in the past. The mini-grants have provided us with equipment that is invaluable, not only in the classroom but also as we present to students of all ages. Through mini-grant funds, we were able to purchase interactive and engaging products that enhance the study of agriculture,” said Rosa Sondag, an agriculture teacher at Central Decatur Junior-Senior High School.

“The Sidney auto tech program received a regional planning partnership mini-grant award last year and it enabled us to purchase more tools for diagnosing problems and making repairs. This has also helped students to get more hands-on experience and has allowed more students to work at stations and projects at the same time. The mini-grant was a great boost to our program,” said Terry Whitehead, an industrial tech teacher at Sidney Junior-Senior High School.