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Politics & Government

Manassas City Schools Racing Against Deadline for $10 Million Federal Education Grant

Board Gets Update on Race to the Top Competition

The Manassas City School Board received an update Tuesday night on district efforts to win a $10 million high-stakes federal education grant that would cement ongoing reform efforts while changing classroom instruction for all of the district’s 7,000 students.

Details of the application for the U.S. education department’s Race to the Top grant were not released to the public, but were made available to members of the school board. District officials are scrambling to meet an Oct. 30 deadline for the grant, which will mean about $400 million for up to 24 winners.

District officials are aware they are facing keen competition, said Michaelene Meyer, deputy superintendent for curriculum for Manassas schools. More than 800 school districts have indicated that they will apply for the grants.

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“We feel this is a good opportunity for the district,” Meyer said. “We feel this will revolutionize the way we think about learning and teaching.”

Because preparation for the grant application was so arduous, Meyer asked the board for a slight extension until next week, to present them with a final draft application. Once approved, it will be sent for review to state and local officials before being voted on by teachers at the three schools involved in the effort: Metz Middle School, Mayfield Intermediate School and Osbourn High School. The reforms being proposed will eventually reach all the classrooms in the district, Meyer said.

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This competition is focused on issues such as student achievement; higher-order skills; competency-based pathways; collective capacity of educators; the dynamic use of data; and the development and dissemination of rich instructional tools and use of technology.

District officials said they felt they had a good shot at winning with an application that targets personalized education, blended learning and instruction that prepares students for a college/career path, Meyer said. Such reform elements have been tightly embraced by federal education officials and supported in previous rounds of Race to the Top grants.

“We have to start preparing our kids for the 21st Century,”  Osbourn High Principal John Werner said.

The application “is not a one-size-fits-all. Education has been a one-size-fits-all for too long. That’s got to change," he added.

“School has been a 7 a.m.-to-3 p.m. proposition,” Werner said. “Why is that? Why can’t it be a 7-to-9 day where some students come in and work at school from 3-to-9? It’s this kind of outside-the-box thinking that we are talking about.”

Board members said they liked what they saw and encouraged staff members to finish before the deadline.

“You guys have a real winner here,”  Manassas City board member Ellen M. Purdy told district officials. “You talk about (teaching) critical thinking and that is what is so desperately needed.”

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