"Success begets success" is the secret to SVVSD's $27 million in grant awards

Innovation and building partnerships are key to the St. Vrain School district bringing in around $24 million in grants over the last four years.

SVVSD looks for ways to provide “current and future generations a strong competitive advantage so that all students can achieve success in a globalized world,” according to its website.

This is achieved through programs like P-TEACH — a program designed to introduce students to a career in education, P-TECH — programs which allow students to gain a head start on a career path by gaining an associate degree while in high school, the SVVSD Innovation Center, the Mobile Lab and more. 

Many of these programs would not have been possible without the assistance of grants, said Hilary Sontag, director of competitive grants and strategic partnerships.

As new ideas are formed for various programs, grants allow the district to test the idea before committing tax dollars to the effort. When a program looks promising, grant funding also gives the district’s finance team a “runway” to build sustainable funding into the budget, Sontag said.

Superintendent Don Haddad has said at board of education meetings that the district does not use one-time funding for ongoing expenses such as teacher salaries. According to Sontag, grants allow for tax dollars to be devoted to ongoing expenses while allowing more opportunities for innovation for students.

When building programs that rely on grant dollars in the beginning, the district is conscious to look toward the future to be sure new sustainable sources of funding will be available to carry it forward. Sontag provided the example of looking at a high school’s feeder system enrollment numbers to determine if the high school will receive higher enrollment resulting in more funding. 

With more than 100 grants funneling into the district, Sontag said the funding has touched almost every aspect of the school system and has impacted every student in some way through counseling services, capital improvements, security and safety, early childhood and much more. “It’s kinda everything, it’s touched a lot of different places,” 

Those areas of innovation could not be done without strong partnerships, Sontag said. 

“... Sometimes having outside resources further lends to the outside credibility of an approach we are taking … Particularly in the case of if we are trying something new, it is even more exciting doing it with a partner,” Sontag said.

According to Sontag, other places seek grants by approaching grant-seeking as the only way a project will be funded. SVVSD takes a different approach by sharing the community’s investment and trust in education with would-be funders. The community’s support plus the district’s lean toward innovation draws in grant dollars.

“It’s really a success begets success story,” Sontag said. “It all comes from the stability of leadership, strong board of education that has created really strong leadership conditions within the school district which has allowed it to be successful.”

The following are the seven largest grants the district has received over the past four years:

“We will continue to look everywhere,” Sontag said, adding that the future will continue to look toward innovation, capital investments and professional development.