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Summer is Ideal Time to Build New ESSA Title IV, Part A Proposals

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) continues to be a reliable source of funding for teachers and administrators adding IHT heart rate technology to their physical education programs.

In the 2018-19 school year, the U.S. Department of Education made $1.1 billion available to local schools as part of ESSA Title IV, Part A, which supports programs that provide safe and healthy schools, well-rounded education and demonstrate the effective use of technology. For the coming year, the Title IV, Part A budget increases to $1.17 billion to be divided among the states. Read More

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Colorado District Uses ESSA Title IV Funding to Add Wellness Technology

Heart Rate Monitors, Software Allow Teachers to Connect with Students to Teach Fitness Skills, Measure Results

A Douglas County (Colo.) School District administrator used her district’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Title IV, Part A funding to improve and measure student wellness with heart rate training.

Beginning late in the 2017-18 school year, Healthy Schools Coordinator Laurie LaComb used funds from the district’s annual ESSA Title IV, Part A allocation to purchase sets of IHT ZONE wrist heart rate monitors.

Students receive continuous feedback on their physical activity by wearing the IHT ZONE monitors during their PE classes. Improved fitness, LaComb knows, brings academic benefits as well. Read More

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McAllen PE Administrator Finds Success Earning ESSA Title IV, Part A Funding

Fast thinking and teamwork helped McAllen ISD (Texas) Coordinator for Health and Physical Education Mario Reyna fund two purchases through his district’s Every Student Succeeds Act Title IV, Part A allocation.

For the 2018-19 school year, Reyna worked with McAllen’s State and Federal Programs office to secure nearly $50,000 to purchase the IHT Spirit System for each of the district’s middle school PE departments. In 2017-18, Reyna secured similar funding to add music-based fitness tools to every elementary, middle and high school campus in McAllen ISD. Read More

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District approves request for PE HRMs through ESSA funding

In her search for funding to add heart rate monitors to all eight of the Irving Independent School District’s middle schools, Sandi Cravens learned a valuable lesson: requests never made are rarely granted.

In January, Cravens, Irving ISD’s Health and Physical Education Coordinator, received $35,000 from the district’s Every Student Succeeds Act’s Title IV-A funding allocation to purchase sets of IHT Zone wrist heart rate monitors to be used across her district. If not for some quick thinking by a new administrator, Cravens might not have even made the request for ESSA funding.

“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,” she said.

That feeling dates back to the reality of the No Child Left Behind Act, where schools focused primarily on the core subjects of math, English, science and social studies, leaving little time and even fewer funds available for electives such as art, music and physical education. Read More

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How Irving ISD’s Health and PE Coordinator Secured Technology Funding Through ESSA Title IV

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