Calling all Teachers! Possibly Add Pets to Your Classroom for FREE
Starting today, August 1st, Pets in the Classroom is taking applications for the 2017-18 school year! This educational grant program provides financial support to Pre-K through 9th Grade Teachers to purchase and maintain small animals in the classroom so that children will have an opportunity to interact with pets.
Note that grants are NOT first-come, first served so you do not have to rush to submit the application today. If you meet the qualifications, you will receive a grant. Teachers are encouraged to wait until they are sure that an animal is the right fit for the classroom before applying – consider involving students in the decision-making process and/or have students research and then vote on the best animal for the classroom.
If you’ve received a Pets in the Classroom grant in the past, you are only eligible to apply for a SUSTAINING grant which can be used to maintain your existing classroom pet. If you no longer have your original pet, you may use the sustaining grant towards a new pet and supplies. You may apply for this grant once every school year.
None of the pages on this website are working? Every page I click on gives the error message “Not Found The request URL /grant-app/ was not found on this server. Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle this request.” I tried on a couple different devices.
I went on their Facebook page and they are having issues, especially if using an Apple product. They said the grants are not time sensitive, so just to wait until the issue clears up or try from a different computer. Hope that helps!
Bummer! It does seem that the links take a bit to load up as I click through. Maybe try a different browser. Hope this helps!
Can we apply for our kids teacher?
I would had teacher check with school admin first. Many schools and systems do not allow animals in the classrooms bc of allergies ect.
Probably not but i will check if they include homeschool teachers! We spend a ton every year on our teaching supplies so this would be nice!
I mean for their classroom teacher not homeschool. I know the teacher.
Once it finally loads, the page states that it doesn’t award the grant to homeschools.
Consider inviting a representative from your local animal shelter to bring rescue animals to the class and discuss humane education – the proper care and treatment of animals and the need to rescue animals in shelters. I don’t believe we should teach kids that animals belong in cages, but if you must, rather than buying animals in stores, there are many shelters and rescue groups that rescue small animals like guinea pigs, mice, etc. and make them available for adoption.
Just like there are puppy mills where animals are treated like commodities and forced to breed repeatedly, the same is true for the small animals and birds that are sold in pet stores.
Excellent suggestions, Julie! Thank you!
When I had a guineapig in my preschool class, I had a small basket to put him in when the children wanted to pet him. I put a washcloth in the bottom to make it soft for him.. the children could “hold” him and love him and I never had to worry about him getting squished or him scratching them. They learned a lot about how to treat others and how to take care and responsibility of an animal.
I did this several years ago and got a leopard gecko for my kindergarten classroom. The kids loved him! I applied every year for the grant to give you a little money to keep up with supplies, too.
How cool! Thanks for sharing your experience!
Oh my God, you scared for a second LOL!!!! When I read the word leopard..LOL
Did they cover most of your costs?
I am a gerbil mommy and saw the photo of a child with a gerbil and hope that this group provides information about the different animals and how best to care for them : while hamsters don’t usually get along with other hamsters and SHOULD live alone, gerbils are very social creatures and should always live with a same sex partner or two, my 3 boy gerbils are inseparable, and when I’ve seen solo gerbils at the pet store it breaks my heart, they look so sad.
Don’t really agree with tax money going on animals when there are so much more important curriculum that is underfunded and school upkeep.
What does that have to do with this? This program isn’t funded with tax dollars.
One of the “unfunded” parts in the curriculum is social skills. Having a class pet most certainly contributes to the curriculum. How to care for others and interact with others (people and animals). Animals are often a unit in the Science curriculum, too. This most definitely is a part of school curriculum.
Love Julie’s suggestion above. I hope teachers will consider adopting or fostering their classroom pets from shelters. Many people only think of dogs and cats but plenty of small animals end up needing homes too.
I just applied for this grant and asked for the freshwater fish. Im just wondering what my personal costs will be since it. I guess I’ll just wait and see. This will be a wonderful experience for my firsties.
Thank you for passing this along to us.