“the Trust” Model Programs and Best Practices Grants

The Public School Districts’ Opioid Recovery Trust provides grants to support evidence-based programs that aid students affected by the opioid crisis. These funds focus on enhancing educational approaches, mental health supports, and curricular innovations tailored for students with specific needs due to opioid-related issues. Districts can collaborate with civic partners to apply, ensuring services are integrated into existing frameworks without replacing mandated funding. The initiative aims to foster recovery and educational success for impacted students.

Public School Districts’ Opioid Recovery Trust
The Public School Districts’ Opioid Recovery Trust (“the Trust”) aims to help public school districts recover from the opioid epidemic and develop responses to enhance educating students harmed by the opioid epidemic. By students harmed by the opioid epidemic we primarily mean students born with neonatal opioid withdrawal symptoms, many of whom require special education support, but we also mean students who have suffered traumatic family loss and educational interruptions because of the opioid epidemic.
Funding from the trust will go where it will have the greatest help, whether classroom services, school-based behavioral and mental health supports, instructional innovations, or other district and school-based supports that directly affect students harmed by the opioid epidemic.
These grants will help districts build or adopt model programs, based on evidence, to support students harmed by the opioid crisis, including programs and best practices in areas such as teaching approaches, curricular modifications, extended learning opportunities, mental health supports and restorative practices, forms of acceleration and enrichment, and using technology to foster student engagement and increase student learning, etc.
Districts can apply for these grants with external civic and community partners or with partner districts. We are primarily interested in improving special education programs serving these students, but we are also interested in the development and improvement of programs that address the needs of these harmed students before classification or in cases when these students have not been classified.
Please see FAQs for additional guidelines.

Eligibility

The grants will be awarded to independent public school districts who demonstrate a clear need for opioid recovery and support services and a plan to integrate these services into their existing support frameworks. The grants cannot supplant funding for legally mandated or existing services. The Trust will consider grant applications from districts applying in partnerships with external civic and community partners or with partner districts but in all cases, grant funds will be awarded directly to the districts.