GRANGER — Four rural educational systems including the Granger Independent School District received a multimillion-dollar grant to improve healthcare, information technology and skilled trades.
In addition to Granger, the Thrall, Lexington and Thorndale independent school districts will share the $1.3 million Moody Foundation M-Pact Grant.
According to a foundation press release, the Rural M-Pact initiative targets educational communities with customized, district-specific funding to support local student vocational success.
“The funding is split among the districts because strategically we will use it together and with one another as students from all the school districts are served,” said Granger ISD Superintendent Stephen Brosch during the June 17 school board meeting.
The M-Pact award is a three-year grant providing school districts the time to implement new programs into their curriculum.
Amber Thorsen, Granger’s director of federal programs and curriculum, said, “The first year (of the grant) is a lot of planning, working on building the program and getting a lot of stakeholder data.”
The second and third years are when the programs launch.
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Brosch pointed out that Granger, Thrall, Lexington and Thorndale already have welding programs, but with the M-Pact grant districts can add different subjects they may not have had the funds to implement on their own, such as the healthcare trades.
Brosch also noted the M-Pact grant is a boon to all the collaborating school districts because they will now be able to offer new learning opportunities to their pupils. “It helps us build a better (career and technological education) program so our students are more successful after graduation,” Thorsen added.
Brosch said the districts will tailor the funding to support programs reflecting students’ vocational interests, preparing them for job markets doing well now and ones predicted to promise success in the future.
“And then we can put those things together to really add something new to the curriculum that we haven’t been able to (in the past),” Brosch said.
The next trustees’ meeting is 6 p.m. June 24 in the board room at 300 N. Colorado St.
