Afrodita Fuentes – S08/SED697
5/7/08
LEADERSHIP – SLO5
Grant Proposal – SED610
Assignment Description
In the leadership (SED610) conducted by Dr. Berry, I was required to write a $1000
grant proposal to a funding source. The purpose of this grant was to fund a project for
educational improvement at my school where I teach. I researched agencies that fund nonprofit
organizations, including schools. In order to make my project worthy of funding, I prepared a
compelling statement of the problem, a mission and vision of the project, a timeline and a list of
activities to implement the plan, along with a budget.
SLO Connection and Competence
I have been fortunate to be part of a small learning community (SLC) for the past four
years, of which I am a founding member. We are a learning community of about 425 students
and 15 teachers. The establishment of this SLC has been difficult, but we have been successful
in creating a family-like atmosphere where students’ are valued and encouraged to reach their
full potential, and where students’ culture and accomplishments are celebrated. Students do feel
a sense of belonging. Since the beginning of this SLC, there are five of us who are dedicated and
determine to make this community successful. I personally have contributed and implemented
several ideas, two of which I will describe in this paper. One of them is a personalized 4-year
plan created with and for each student as a motivational tool for completion of high school
graduation. I started by visiting every homeroom and made sure that every student had prepared
a four-year plan. It turned out I did not have enough time to continue doing this every semester
and so I trained students in the 12th grade and teachers to help. It has been successful however in
the last year because of the many new demands of the bigger school we could not continue our
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three-year effort. Another idea is our Annual Spring Festival of Academic Student Work, we
had the 4th last month. This is a big celebration in which every teacher is required to participate
in the preparations of this event and every student is encouraged to share their academic work,
their family and culture (food, music, poetry, etc.). In addition, we have offered many other
services to students and parents, but we have been unable to be consistent with them because of
the lack of funding and time
Our SLC has gone and continues going through a lot of hardships, mainly because of
the lack of appropriate support from LAUSD. Most of the work and time we have invested to
make this community successful has been at the expense of the five core members personal and
family time. Unfortunately, our lead teacher for the first three years quit from frustration and
exhaustion and our lead teacher for the past year has been forced out because of seniority issues.
I personally have not stepped up to take the lead, despite constant requests from my colleagues
because I do not feel I have the necessary leadership to inspire and manage such a large
community. However, Dr. Berry this spring has thoughtfully, purposely, and fairly educated and
encouraged every member of his leadership class to become a leader. And so, with this
encouragement and the need of a lead teacher that has been presented, I am just beginning to feel
confident that I may just have what it takes to lead an SLC.
Learning and Teaching Influence
In the grant proposal, I had the opportunity to put in writing a plan to solidify our SLC
goals and plans. While writing it, I realized that we the teachers have the desire and ideas to
improve education in our school community, but we lack funds. I also became aware of the
many funding opportunities and resources for communities like ours, but we need to invest some
of our personal time to do research and learn how to write proposals. I know that the change that
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needs to happen will happen when we the teachers decide to make it happen. I will show
leadership by communicating my missions, visions, and goals, by collaborating with my
colleagues, and by valuing what everyone has to offer, and by supporting everyone to
productivity to accomplish our goals. I am very eager to continue developing my leadership
skills and putting them into use. In addition, the next four months I will be reading books and
working on establishing real opportunities to connect students’ school experience to the real jobs.
I will be reading Change Leadership: A practical Guide to transforming our schools by Tony
Wagner and The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman; both books recommended by Dr. Berry. I
will also work with work with a couple of colleagues in developing a career strand for our SLC,
and well as finding and establishing community connections student internships and volunteer
opportunities.