Schools across Georgia are competing for a portion of E-Rate funding, the $2.5 billion in federal technology funding awarded each year by the School and Libraries Program of the Universal Services Fund, and Richardson Technology Systems Inc. (TSI) has established an E-Rate support team to help the schools.
Over the past 10 years, Georgia schools that have used Richardson TSI have received over $15 million in E-Rate funding for integrated technology solutions installed by the company. One school that has seen improvement is Mt. Zion Elementary in Carroll County, GA. The school received E-Rate funding for its curriculum presentation system installed by Richardson TSI in 2008, and experienced an increase in overall test scores after a year of using the new integrated technology.
Due to the increased difficulty in meeting the grant criteria, Richardson TSI established an E-Rate support team that can be used to help busy and understaffed schools in each stage of the grant application process. The support is especially helpful during today’s trying economic times—since E-Rate funding is awarded to schools based on their poverty level and rural-urban status, and the number of schools qualifying for the funding has been steadily increasing, the competition for funding has also increased.
