U.S. Department of Education: Statewide Family Engagement Centers

The Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFEC) program works to provide financial support to organizations that provide technical assistance and training to state educational agencies (SEAs) and local educational agencies (LEAs) in the implementation and enhancement of systemic and effective family engagement policies, programs, and activities that lead to improvements in student development and academic achievement. The SFEC will award grants to statewide organizations (or consortia of such organizations) in partnership with an SEA to establish SFECs that (1) carry out parent education and family engagement in education programs, and (2) provide comprehensive training and technical assistance to SEAs, LEAs, schools identified by SEAs and LEAs, organizations that support family-school partnerships, and other such programs.

The SFEC program seeks to promote high-impact cradle-to-career family, school, and community engagement by funding centers that build the capacity of all stakeholders—including families, SEAs, LEAs, school-level staff and personnel, and community based organizations—to engage in effective partnerships that support student achievement and school improvement and increase the number of high-quality educational options available to families.

The program contains two competitive preference priorities:

Competitive Preference Priority 1: Priority will be given to projects that are designed to:

(a) Create SFECs that will provide direct services to parents and families through evidence-based activities. Evidence-based means an activity, strategy, or intervention that demonstrates a statistically significant effect on improving student outcomes or other relevant outcomes based on promising evidence from at least one well-designed and well-implemented correlational study with statistical controls for selection bias.

(b) Provide families with evidence-based strategies for promoting literacy. This may include providing families with access to books or other physical or digital materials or content about how to support their child’s reading development, or providing family literacy activities.

Competitive Preference Priority 2: Priority will be given to projects that are designed to provide families with the information and tools they need to make important decisions regarding the educational choice that is most appropriate for their children.

Amount: A total of $9,700,000 is available to make up to 10 awards that range from $500,000-$1,000,000 per project year. The project period is up to 60 months. Grantees must obtain matching funds or in-kind donations equal to at least 15 percent of the grant award in project years two through five.

Eligibility: Statewide organizations (or consortia of such organizations) in partnership with at least one SEA.

Link: https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=306650

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