With guidance from her department head, Irving Independent School District (Texas) Health and Physical Education Coordinator Sandi Cravens applied for and received $35,000 from her district’s Every Student Succeeds Act allocation.

After working with her supervisor and the district’s director of federal funding, Cravens researched the program she wanted to develop and gathered supporting material to create a proposal to purchase a set of IHT’s IHT Zone heart rate monitors and physical education assessment software in each of her district’s middle schools. Irving ISD funded Cravens request through the district’s ESSA’s Title IV allocation, which designates that funding be used for Student Support and Academic Enrichment.

Though the Department of Education is still approving ESSA implementation plans from several states, funding for the current school year has already been distributed. Physical educators are still adjusting to the new reality that they can — and must — seek out the funding that can only be used for specific programs.

“I was familiar already with Title IV but I didn’t pay too much attention to it because I assumed the money would go to another group of people in our district because that’s usually how it works,” Cravens said. “They discussed that a certain percentage of Title IV money had to be spent on the health and safety of kids. My boss, thankfully, said he knew exactly who to talk to about it.” Read More