{"id":873,"date":"2018-07-13T01:54:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T01:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stand.org\/illinois\/?p=873"},"modified":"2022-07-09T01:57:09","modified_gmt":"2022-07-09T01:57:09","slug":"confused-about-early-childhood-grants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stand.org\/illinois\/our-stories\/confused-about-early-childhood-grants\/","title":{"rendered":"Confused About Early Childhood Grants?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sometimes I feel like my work life and home life are totally disconnected, competing elements in my world. But that certainly wasn\u2019t the case the day I was at work drumming up info on how early childhood programs were being defunded and I received a text that the program for the 3-year old of my teenage foster daughter was ending because they lost their state grant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This program, Parents as Teachers, is among hundreds of early child providers who responded to the Request for Proposals (RFP) from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). Many programs got funded. In fact, because Springfield added $50 million more this year to the Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG), there will be 5,000 more kids getting access to programs this year. However, a hundred or so did not receive a grant, and some long-serving programs are planning to close their doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we get into why,<\/em> let\u2019s start with the basics: What is the ECBG? It\u2019s a program in the ISBE budget that funds preschool and birth-to-three programs. This year, there was almost $500 million appropriated to the ECBG. Programs serving children ages 0-3 receive about 20% of the funds and the remainder goes to preschool programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State law requires funding to be awarded through competitive grants. That is, districts and other providers apply for grants, and ISBE funds the ones deemed to be high-quality. This year, the RFP process was opened to new applicants, which is a change since the last RFP process in 2012. At that time, the RFP was only open to providers that had previously received grants. Not only was this year\u2019s RFP process open to new applicants, so the pool was bigger, applicants were encouraged to write their proposals for the actual costs of providing a high-quality<\/em> program, so a lot more money was requested than there were available funds. Providers could apply for Prevention Initiative funding (for birth-to-three programs), Preschool for All (for Pre-K programs), and Preschool for All Expansion grants (to expand infrastructure and fund full-day programs in high-poverty areas\u2019 Pre-K programs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISBE Rules outline what the agency looks for in the proposals and require programs to earn at least 60 points, with 100 points possible:<\/p>\n\n\n\n