Year Five Recruitment

We are excited to begin recruiting for Year Five of the Smart Start Grant! The Smart Start Grant is a NYSED-funded grant opportunity. In partnership with NYIT, its goal is to improve the expertise of grade K - 8 teachers in computer science, engineering, and educational technology to prepare their students to be successful in college, careers, and citizenship.  We hope you will be able to identify teachers to participate in this amazing grant- so amazing in fact, that a participating teacher from last year stated, “This experience permanently impacted my teaching.” 

We are opening up this opportunity to include new districts. Participating districts would need to sign an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) to participate in the grant.

We are able to enroll 14 buildings -with up to 70 teachers- this year. All participating teachers will receive a stipend of $1075 for their participation and the creation of CSDF standard-aligned lesson plans. Teachers must be new to the grant and cannot have participated in previous years (exceptions may apply for a few previous teachers to participate who propose completely new projects). Up to 15 teachers can take a 3-credit graduate course at no cost through NY Tech; this course is asynchronous and runs from July 9 -August 13, 2025.

Professional Development Schedule for Year 5:

• Teachers will be enrolled in an asynchronous Smart Start grant module beginning in June 2025. Teachers will be expected to work asynchronously for approx. 4 hours over the spring/summer in BUZZ. They will go through a few modules introducing them to the grant, the CSDF standards, the action research process and PD model. Teachers will review videos, readings and participate in activities. Facilitators will schedule a two-hour session to meet with teachers to assist in choosing their grant work focus; date TBD and will be determined based upon a mutually convenient date/time for facilitator and teacher cohorts. Teachers should complete the asynchronous course prior to meeting with facilitators. Teachers will receive 6 CTLE hours for completing the BUZZ course and meeting with their facilitator virtually. We expect to have the course completed by mid- June.

• All teachers will attend two full-day regional workshops, dates TBD.

• NYIT Facilitators will schedule 3 push-in days per school to support teachers as they choose a desired area of improvement/problem of practice (POP) and develop a CSDF-aligned lesson plan through an action research project.

• Facilitators will conduct ongoing PD throughout the school year through virtual correspondence.

• Teachers who take the NYIT course will be responsible for providing a turnkey training in-district.

Additional Components for Year Five include:

• Purchasing of up to $1000 per building towards STEM/Robotics materials to support teacher projects or building/district STEM-related initiative

• Opportunity to participate in a drone program and receive drones and drone curriculum for use in the district (see the flyer attached for our drone-focused event on May 27th).

• Additional workshop opportunities for teachers and administrators

• Extended grant year ending June 30, 2026

School/Cohort/Teacher Identification Form:

Once you have identified schools/teachers, please enter their information on the Google Form below. If you have more than one building interested in participating, please enter in order of preference. You will be notified whether more than one building is approved based on interest.     

✅https://forms.gle/V1tXuQvDswtaPHCS7

Year Five Information Session

June 3, 2:00 p.m.

Zoom: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/ZGb0ghxWSxyVKNj7zwfk-w