16 Next-Gen Schools to follow: NGLC Announces New Planning and Launch Grant Recipients

After two major announcements from Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) in the last week, the education community will have a new set of exemplar schools to watch. Yesterday, NGLC followed last week’s announcement of 21 planning grant winners with the announcement of 16 schools that have been awarded grants to help turn their school visions into reality. NGLC supports schools and visionaries by providing funding through these two phases of grants — planning and launch.
Planning. The NGLC Planning Grant is an unique opportunity for educators and organizations to get the early stage funding needed to support thoughtful design, organization, networking, and other key components of school development. The grants are awarded to individuals and leadership teams that have promising visions for Next-Gen school models. The winners are carefully selected from an extremely motivating and inspired group to showcase realistic and well thought through plans for break through school models.
Launch. Similar to the Planning Grant, the Launch Grants support the NGLC initiative to work with innovative educators and organizations to design and open new schools or redesign existing schools that will utilize blended learning approaches to create a personalized and competency‐based learning experience for kids.
The 16 grant winners listed below will open (or reopen for those redesigned existing schools) their doors for the 2014-2015 school year. Each were chosen for their promising overall design, their strong implementation plans, motivated leadership teams, and a dedication to the NGLC 7 design principles. They will receive a total award amount of $450,000, including an initial $150,000 investment and up to $300,000 in matching funds.
 

“We’ve invested in schools that are willing and able to engage in the hard work of meeting each child’s individual learning needs,” said NGLC Program Officer Sarah Luchs, manager of the grant initiative. “It looks and feels different from ‘batching’ students in age-based cohorts and assuming that they all learn the same way or that they require the same amount of instructional time. Educators in our network are learners too. They are building the system that each child needs to be successful in the future. We’re not there yet, but what’s happening in these 43 schools will continue to guide us to achieve that goal.”
Congratulation to all grant winners and thank you for your dedication to making education better for kids. We look forward to following your journey!
 
NGLC is a Getting Smart Advocacy Partner.