Grant Awards

David Julian, Program Director of Equity, Engagement and Evaluation

The Ohio Head Start Association, Inc. (OHSAI) is a professional membership organization committed to high quality services for the most vulnerable children and families and fostering positive change in early childhood endeavors at the local, state and national levels.

The Ohio State University’s (OSU) Center on Education and Training for Employment facilitated a planning process that resulted in the identification of strategies intended to yield positive impacts for the Black children, parents/caregivers, and professionals engaged in Ohio’s Head Start system.  This plan is designed to support implementation and monitoring of recommended strategies. In this current work, members of the OHSAI will engage in a structured implementation process alongside other representatives of the system from across the state.

Bridget McHugh, Senior Research Specialist, CETE

Local, state, and federal mandates require schools to assess their students’ learning. Ohio public schools offer hundreds of Career Technical Education courses that prepare high school students for future careers. Drawing on our expertise with credentialing and other high-stakes occupational assessments, The Center on Education and Training for Employment provides assessments for over 300+ CTE courses to Ohio students.

This includes working with dozens of CTE instructors from all regions of Ohio to create course-specific assessments, delivery of over 350,000 assessments, and maintenance of a customized scoring and reporting system to serve instructors, school administrators, and other stakeholders.

Meredith Wellman, Program Manager, CETE

The purpose of the “Family Engagement Professional Learning Supports for Ohio’s Model Literacy Sites” project is to provide Comprehensive Literacy State Development (CLSD) Grantees, and Ohio Department of Education and regional staff who support them, with increased knowledge and resources related to effective, research-based family engagement in education. The Ohio State University will provide a series of professional learning sessions and coaching services. This will ensure that CLSD grantees and staff who support them have a foundational understanding of effective, research-based family engagement, and access to resources they can use to engage families in enhancing student literacy achievement.

Jeff Volek, Professor, Department of Human Sciences

“Many Americans, including a significant number of military service members – and especially veterans – are suffering from poor metabolic health.  Despite billions of dollars in investments by the private and public sectors, traditional drug and lifestyle treatments have had limited success in curtailing the complications attributed to poor metabolic health, which include disrupted sleep, obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart failure and chronic kidney disease.  We expect that whatever we find here will have huge relevance across the board both within and outside the military.” – Jeff Volek

More Information: https://news.osu.edu/can-achieving-beneficial-ketone-levels-improve-metabolic-health-in-the-military/

Sunny Munn, Director of Evaluation and Innovation at the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy (CCEC)

Read It Again! (RIA) is a curriculum supplement that promotes language and literacy foundations.  The curriculum focuses on building phonological awareness, print knowledge, vocabulary, and narrative skills.

In this project, the Crane Center will develop and scale the provision of Read It Again training, materials, and technical assistance to all 0-5 early childhood providers in the state of Ohio. The Crane Center will work closely with the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services (ODJFS) and/or The Ohio Child Care Resource and Referral Association (OCCRRA) to develop train-the-facilitator materials to facilitate engagement of the ODJFS licensing specialists and/or other support professionals in delivering training and technical assistance during a gradual roll-out during 2022-2023.