Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center Logo

Galion City Schools Awarded 21st Century Community Learning Center Grants

August 26, 2020

Launch the media gallery 1 player

Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center, in conjunction with Galion City Schools, has been awarded two 21st Century Community Learning Center grants, one for Galion’s elementary schools (the Primary and Intermediate buildings, collectively) and one for the Galion Middle School. Each grant award is in the amount of $200,000 per year. Since they are renewable for five years, Galion City Schools has the potential to bring in $2 million in grant money. The grants will provide before and after-school programs for Galion City School students in grades K through 8, including students from Galion’s St. Joseph’s Catholic School. 

The Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) grant program provides opportunities for children who come from economically disadvantaged families to receive academic and positive youth development supports. These programs must focus on helping students meet state and local student standards in core academic subjects, such as reading and math, and offering students a broad array of enrichment activities that complement their regular academic programs. 

For the Elementary, the program will offer literacy and other educational services to the families of participating children.(i.e. math, positive youth development, and parental engagement). Galion Public Library will be a collaborative community partner helping with the Elementary programs. For the Middle School, these programs will focus on college and career readiness and dropout prevention strategies, as well as additional supports and programming as required under the grant (i.e.  reading, math, positive youth development, and parental engagement). Galion has brought the Crawford Success Center on board to assist with the Middle School programs.

Since the awards were just announced earlier this month, details are still being worked out for the specifics of the programs. The plan is to start the before and after-school programs in October, which will then run through the spring. Information on how parents can sign up for the programs will also be released in the forthcoming weeks.

Mid-Ohio ESC will oversee the grants by serving as the fiscal agent and assist in that facilitation of the grant activities to ensure compliance. Mid-Ohio also assisted in recruiting Dr. Sandra Powell, a retired former Galion City Schools administrator, to oversee these programs. 

"We are incredibly grateful for all the work and time that the MOESC staff and leadership dedicated to helping the Galion City Schools secure the 21st CCLC grants," Galion Superintendent Jennifer Allerding said. "These grants give us the capability to offer programming that is critically important to the success of our Galion students."

Kevin D. Kimmel, Mid-Ohio Superintendent, also expressed his excitement. “This is a tremendous opportunity for Galion City Schools to increase and improve their outreach to students. We are thrilled to be a partner in this and to see Galion students flourish with their 21st Century Community Learning Center.”