State of Georgia Announces New 21^st Century Grants

by Mike Geoghagan, 21st Century CLC Director

The State Board of Education announced a new round of 21^st Century Community Learning Centers grants are open for applications. Turner County has been the recipient of an afterschool grant for the past 11 years and has received over 3.5 million dollars during that time. The new round of grants announced will be for a maximum of $500,000 per year for 5 years and will begin this August.

The 21^st Century Program’s parent organization, Turner County Connection-Communities in Schools is marshalling its forces to secure this new grant for Turner County. The 21^st Century Program has been extremely successful in the past 10 years, consistently raising student’s grades, increasing the pass rate and even having a positive impact of attendance and discipline. The new grant will allow us to continue this fine program for another 5 years and perhaps beyond. Turner County is competing with 159 other entities for a share of the projects 40 million dollars in grant money available in the State of Georgia. Our county has a singular advantage over many of these applicants in that we have a demonstrated level of achievement that is seldom matched throughout the state.

The economy has forced Turner County to have teacher furlough days, reduced instruction in the arts and has had a deleterious effect of all of our youth. While the 21^st Century Program is not a panacea it goes a long way toward ameliorating these effects. In addition the money spent by the program is, for the most part, spent here in Turner County thus improving our economy. While there are some who decry taking money from the Federal Government we must remember that this money ultimately goes to helping our children and we should be unanimous in supporting that endeavor.