2023-24 National Signature Project Award: Now Accepting Applications!

The National Signature Project Award is awarded annually to an outstanding and innovative classroom project that exemplifies the very best in rural, place-based education.

The National Signature Project Award is open to any rural classroom teacher in the United States, and it is jointly funded by the Rural Schools Collaborative (RSC) and the National Rural Education Association (NREA).

In addition to the maximum award of $2,500, The Rural Schools Collaborative and National Rural Education Association will compensate both the awardees' travel and registration fees for their attendance to The 2023 National Forum to Advance Rural Education - happening in Chattanooga, Tennessee on November 15-17, 2023.

Last year, for the first time and due to the vast amount of incredible place-based education project proposals received, Rural Schools Collaborative and the National Rural Education Association chose to award two additional rural teachers with $1,500 toward their individual place-based education projects as National Signature Project Award runner-ups. RSC and NREA are incredibly excited to offer two runner-up awards again this year. We encourage rural educators to apply for this year's signature awards!

Teachers currently working in a rural school district will be considered for this grant opportunity. Rural schools are defined as non-urban, non-metro, or fall under one of six categories of the National Center for Educational Statistics classification (you can confirm that your school is eligible by checking your Locale Number to match 31, 32, 33, 41, 42, or 43).

We encourage you to read about previous National Signature Project Award recipients and their projects here:

• 2022 Winners Lara Belice, Abby Jones & Chris Robinson
• 2021 Winner Haley Salitros Lancaster
• 2020 Winner Connie Michael
• 2019 Winner Devon Barker-Hicks
• 2018 Winner Andrea Wood