$600 million available to Marion County public, private schools from Lilly Endowment

Hundreds of millions in grants are available to Marion County K-12 schools from the Lilly Endowment to help improve student academics and outcomes.

The multi-year initiatives, introduced last week, are available to K-12 public and private schools across the county. The philanthropic foundation set aside $600 million for these initiatives, including up to $450 million for traditional public and public charter schools and $150 million for private schools.

Schools can apply for the grants through a three-phase process.

Applicants may request planning grants of up to $50,000 to help them develop plans that align with the initiative’s goal to improve academic programming and post-secondary outcomes. Applications for those planning grants are due September 13.

Implementation grants are also available in the second phase, and the competitive grants in the third phase. Money awarded in these two phases can be used in the next five years.

“We are encouraging school leaders to take full advantage of the opportunities under these initiatives to identify and implement promising, local, national or global, evidenced-based approaches to address the relevant educational challenges and opportunities of their students,” Ted Maple, Lilly Endowment’s vice president for education, said in a statement. “We hope that the programs and projects funded under these initiatives will significantly enhance their students’ academic achievement and prospects of success in their future endeavors.”

The average pass rate for the state's math and reading test at the county's 11 public school districts is 11 percent. That's lower than the state average of nearly 31 percent of students considered proficient in both the math and English language arts state standards, according to ILEARN data.

More information, and links to upcoming information sessions, can be found here.

Lilly Endowment is one of several financial supporters of IPB News — a collaboration of the state’s nine public media newsrooms and a shared statewide team based at WFYI.