School districts across the state of Iowa are applying to receive first-year grant funding from the Iowa Department of Education for the 2014-15 school year to help create Teacher Leadership and Compensation Programs.

We heard from Guthrie Center Superintendent Steve Smith last month as he discussed his district’s desire to receive first-year funding, and after Monday’s School Board meeting Smith says Guthrie Center is combining with the Adair-Casey School District to send in a joint application for the program.

The application’s January 31 due date is right around the corner, and Smith says all ten parts of the application have been reviewed by School Board members, but there are two areas that still need some ironing out before it’s submitted.

“One of them is the evaluative part–how we really know that what we say we’re going to do is going to do.  What is going to be the measuring stick?  That is always difficult.  And then the other part that also has some difficulty is putting the budget together–make it fit so that it looks attractable to teachers to want to continue to support the district in the way that they do.”

Smith says Guthrie Center and Adair-Casey will benefit from sending in a joint application because it will allow for even more teacher leadership collaboration.  Rather than five or six teachers working together in each respective school, those 12 or more teachers would all be able to dip into the same funding pool for resources and instruction support.

To hear more from Smith as he recaps Monday’s Guthrie Center School Board meeting, tune-in to today’s Let’s Talk Guthrie County on K107 during the 9am, noon and 5 o’clock hours.