Securing Funds

Goal: To secure the $2400 that the videographer has quoted for the Five Days to Focused Cornell Notes Project.

Action Steps:

1. Meet with Principal to run through project idea and get ideas for ways to finance the project.

2. Contact Middle School CNUSD AVID coordinators to see if they would be willing to use part of their 2014-2015 AVID budget to finance the project.

3. Meet with Philip Saxena to share my vision for this project to seek his advice and securing funds for this project.

4. Meet with Kelly Bruce to share my vision for this project and to secure funds for this project.

Reflection:

This goal really required me to inspire a shared vision. I knew this project was important but I had to convince others to think it was important too. So much so that they would be willing to give me money to make the project happen. I first started with my principal, Dr. Gina Boster. Although she was on board with allowing the project to proceed and saw the value in it, she was not willing to financially support the project other than allowing me to use our school's district office AVID budget to help fund the project. She encouraged me to speak with the other schools and try to recruit funds from them as well. She also put in a good word with the other middle school principals about the project at their monthly meeting. I calculated that in order to collaboratively fund the project, each AVID middle school would need to provide $343, I shared the project and what I was trying to do and why I thought it was so important and I was able to get three of the six schools to pledge the amount to the project. Two of the other three schools were also very excited about the idea but unfortunately I was racing against the clock because the end of their school year quickly ended and they didn't have enough time to persuade their administrations to let them support the project. Even so, with the $1,029 I had raised, I was confident that we could use the AVID budget from CFIS to finance the rest of the project. However, I decided to meet with Philip Saxena, Director in Curriculum and Instruction, to share my vision for the project and see if he had any ideas for financing the project. I shared the idea of the project and Philip was very impressed and eager for the project to take place. He felt that Focused Cornell Notes really fit in nicely with the direction the district was already going. However he felt the project could be completed for less money if I shot the video with an iPad and edited it using iMovie. At first I was very interested in the idea, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I did not want these videos to look unprofessional and being as I have never used iMovie, I decided I still wanted to try to make the professional videographer work. I knew I would have to be concentrating so much on the details of delivering the lesson, I didn't want to have to take on this added role. Especially since it was a role I was not familiar with or confident I could do well. I decided to use the money the other schools had pledged, along with most of the CFIS AVID budget to make the videos happen. But first I had to get the idea, and expenditure approved by the CNUSD. At the time, Kelly Bruce, Administrative Director of Educational Services, was in charge of the AVID budgets. I met with him, merely hoping he would approve using the money the school had pledged. I showed him the lesson plans and story boards I had mocked up. I showed him how Focused Cornell Notes align with Marzano Strategies, Antonetti, and the Common Core. And to my utter shock and absolute delight he didn't agree to use the money from any of the schools. Instead he was going to finance the project directly through the district. I could not have been more proud of myself and I truly believe it was my ability to share my vision that allowed me to secure the funds for this project.