National Signature Project Award: Now Accepting Applications!

The National Rural Education Association (NREA) and Rural Schools Collaborative (RSC) are proud partners of the National Signature Project Award. Each year NREA and RSC provide a $2,500 grant to an outstanding and innovative classroom project that exemplifies the very best in place-based education and is open to any rural classroom teacher in the United States.

Due to the vast amount of incredible place-based education project proposals received over years past, the NREA and RSC have proudly expanded the program, and plan to award two additional rural teachers with $1,500 each toward their individual place-based education projects as National Signature Project Award runner-ups.

In addition to the awarded funds, the NREA and RSC will compensate all of the awardees' travel and registration fees for their attendance to The 2024 National Forum to Advance Rural Education - happening in Savannah, Georgia on October 31-November 1, 2024.

To qualify for the National Signature Project award, teachers currently working in a rural school district will be considered for this grant opportunity. Rural areas 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).

Thank you to the National Rural Education Association for co-sponsoring this program. NREA is the nation's oldest rural education organization, and we are honored to partner with them in this effort.

We encourage you to read and find inspiration from our previous National Signature Project Award recipients and their projects:

• 2023 Winners Kim McCully-Mobley, Will Miller & Carrie Guillaume
• 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

Learn more about place-based education principles from our partners at Teton Science Schools.

About the National Signature Project Award:

The National Signature Project is part of the Rural Schools Collaborative Grants in Place program, a multi-organizational effort that has awarded more than $700,000 to teachers in support of place-based learning since 2015.