A Victory for Wisconsin Kids!

​School districts are now eligible for DPI gifted education grants! For more than a decade, Wisconsin has made a (small) pot of money available for gifted education. In the last several years, this pot has included $237,200 and was available in the form of grants of $30,000 or less. The problem was that the grants had to be used for direct student services, but only CESAs, non-profit groups, UW-System campuses, and Milwaukee Public Schools were eligible to even apply. That all changed in the 2017 – 2019 budget! WATG board members worked with DPI to include additional funds for the grants as well as the eligibility change in their budget request. The DPI agreed to include both, but only the eligibility change was included by the Governor in his Executive budget. This change made it through the process and was included in the budget that was signed into law a few weeks ago.

This means that your school could get one of next year’s grants (due around May)! The DPI website still has this past year’s grant application posted (here) if you want to get an idea of what is required. We want to see more of this money go to supporting gifted education in school districts. If you’re interested in seeing some past funded applications, email Scott Peters at peterss@uww.edu
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Click here to see the full 2017-2019 state budget, which includes the changed eligibility language. ​