$68 million to help 12,000 state students
NORMAN — Three federal grants to boost success beyond high school will target 12,000 pupils in 46 schools across the state, including every sixth- and seventhgrader in the Oklahoma City Public Schools.
The University of Oklahoma K20 Center announced Wednesday it was awarded GEAR UP grants totaling $68 million to work with three cohorts of middleschoolers — one urban, one rural and one suburban.
“This is absolutely a game-changer,” said Gregg Garn, dean of the OU College of Education and executive director of the K20 Center.
“The GEAR up program is focused on getting kids ready academically, financially and emotionally to get into college and successfully graduate,” Garn said. “It’s getting kids to see the finish line is not high school, but postsecondary opportunities.”
GEAR UP — an acronym for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs — is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to increase the number of low-income students
prepared to succeed in postsecondary education. Schools must have a student poverty level of at least 50 percent to be eligible.
Garn thanked 4twwh District Congressman Tom Cole, R-Moore, for being “a fierce champion at the national level” for education in Oklahoma.
Cole said GEAR UP is a program that offers a bipartisan way forward because both Democrats and Republicans identify education as a priority.
“You’re building the human infrastructure here with the work you do,” Cole said.
The K20 Center for Educational and Community Renewal received two previous GEAR UP grants, one in 2008 and one in 2011.
This time, the center
submitted three grant proposals. All three were among the 60 proposals nationwide selected for funding, Garn said.
“Three at the same time is very big, but very exciting,” said Leslie Williams, director of the K20 Center.
The three grants will provide seven years of services and development to 46 partner schools across Oklahoma. After seven years, those schools will have built the capacity to continue helping future students, Williams said.
The funds will be used to hire 80 to 90 new education experts who will work with teachers, counselors, principals, superintendents and families to support students through the process.
Students will be exposed to various careers and business partner mentors, will visit multiple college campuses, and will be assisted with applying to colleges and writing admissions essays, Williams said.
The GEAR UP OKC “opportunity is difference-maker stuff,” Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Sean McDaniel said.
“We often focus on outcomes first. We need to address the cracks in our foundation first,” McDaniel said.
Grant recipients must match every GEAR UP dollar awarded with $1 in state funds. Oklahoma does that through the Oklahoma’s Promise scholarship program administered by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.
Regents spokeswoman Angela Caddell said the scholarship dollars awarded to students in the three new GEAR UP programs should amount to more than $7.7 million per year over the sevenyear grant period.
Previous GEAR UP grants to the state have proved successful.
“For Oklahoma GEAR UP, the state grant administered by the State Regents, data show exciting growth following the recent completion of the third grant cycle,” Caddell said. “From 2011 to 2017, the college-going rate in Oklahoma GEAR UP school districts increased 6 percent, and the college persistence rate beyond the first year increased 18 percent.”
The University of Central Oklahoma, Eastern Oklahoma State College and Seminole State College also have current GEAR UP partnership grants.