Kearney Public Schools Foundation Receives $1.1 Million Grant for Counseling

The Kearney Public Schools has received a competitive, three-year, $1.1 million grant from the US Department of Education's Elementary and Secondary School Counseling program to improve elementary schools' counseling services, staff development, and community involvement activities. KPS Foundation President Bill Kenagy said that in the past 5 years, the Foundation has secured more than $5.2 million in grants for KPS to provide additional learning opportunities for students and staff development.

"The Foundation was instrumental in helping to secure one of 53 national grants awarded by the Department this year. Our staff provided grant writing, coordination, and research services to KPS staff. We worked together to develop the proposal, CADRES (Caring Actions to Develop Relationships at Elementary Schools)," said Kenagy

The CADRES project will be directed by Dr. Carol Renner, Associate Superintendent, and Connie Larson, KPS Special Education Director. The project has three goals:

Goal 1: Expand counseling services available to elementary school students and their families;

Goal 2: To improve elementary school students' readiness to learn and promote their healthy development by addressing their barriers to learning;

Goal 3: To provide innovative professional development for elementary school counselors, social workers, psychologists, elementary teachers and principals.

"We are anxious to begin working with this project. In particular, I'm looking forward to seeing the impact school social workers will have on our families and staff. KPS has never employed school social workers, and I'm excited to see how they work with our families and staff to improve student readiness to learn," said Dr. Brian Maher, Kearney Public Schools Superintendent.