Governor Nathan Deal today announced six award winners for the Innovation Fund Tiny Grant Program, a competitive grant opportunity that provides funding to traditional public schools, charter schools and school districts to implement small-scale programs that directly engage students.

“The Innovation Fund Tiny Grant unites top educators to prepare students to engage in today’s most important academic areas,” said Deal. “As we invest in young minds and encourage them to reach their fullest potential, we must also invest in opportunities to develop and implement innovative classroom methods. Congratulations to the award winners and we look forward to seeing the impact each Tiny Grant will have on the futures of Georgia’s students.”

Programs funded by Tiny Grants must align with one of the three following priority areas: applied learning with a focus on science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) education, blended and personalized learning, and birth-to-age-eight language and literacy development.

Grantees will evaluate the impact of the programs on student engagement and achievement and submit their findings to the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (GOSA) at the end of the grant period.

The grant award winners and their respective programs are listed below:

Applied Learning with a Focus on STEAM Education

Doerun Elementary School

Colquitt County Schools

Making Thinkers with a Makerspace

Lindley Sixth Grade Academy

Cobb County School District

Let’s Code Lindley

Pickens High School

Pickens County School District

Dragon Table

Fulton Leadership Academy

State Charter School

Innovation in Remediation

Blended and Personalized Learning

Benjamin E. Mays High School

Atlanta Public Schools

Culturally Relevant Computing

Birney Elementary School

Cobb County School District

Bridging the Instructional Divide: Personalized Learning in ELA and Math for Title I Kids

Download this pdf file. Click here to read summaries of the the winning proposals.

About the Innovation Fund

The Innovation Fund invests in public education entities that develop and scale programs that enable Georgia educators to improve student performance and tackle our state’s most significant education challenges. In 2011, The Innovation Fund began as a $19.4 million grant competition created under Georgia’s Race to the Top (RT3) Plan. To continue the Innovation Fund’s work beyond RT3, Deal appropriated state funding for Fiscal Years 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Since its inception, the Innovation Fund has invested more than $33 million of state and federal funding through 142 grants to school districts, charter schools, postsecondary institutions and nonprofit organizations to pilot innovative education programs, ranging in focus from teacher and leader induction and development to STEAM (science, technology, engineering arts and math) applied learning, blended learning, and birth to age eight language and literacy development. More information about the Innovation Fund is available on the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement website.