Ohio has secured an $8.4 million federal grant to build a three-year initiative aimed at recruiting, supporting and keeping strong teachers in the state’s classrooms, the State Board of Education of Ohio announced Tuesday in Columbus.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Philip H. Wagner announced that the board secured the funding through the U.S. Department of Education’s Teacher and School Leader grant program for 2026. The money will launch ELEVATE Ohio, a three-year effort whose name spells out its focus areas: Educator Leadership, Evaluation, Vision, Advancement, Talent and Excellence.
According to the State Board of Education’s announcement, the grant funds will support the creation of comprehensive, research-driven resources, evidence-based tools and systems designed to help K-12 districts and community schools address challenges related to recruitment, retention and effectiveness of licensed educators.
“Teachers are among the most important people in our children’s lives. The work they do every day is shaping the future of Ohio,” Gov. Mike DeWine said in the State Board of Education’s announcement. “We want every child to have the opportunity to learn from great teachers. This grant funding will encourage more of our best and brightest minds to step into this profession and remain educators for a long time.”
In the first year of the initiative, a subset of Ohio school districts and community schools will work with the State Board of Education to pilot ELEVATE Ohio, reaching an estimated 70,000 students statewide during the inaugural year, the announcement said. The resources developed through the grant will also be made available to all schools in Ohio.
“This grant marks a significant step forward in creating more opportunities for both Ohio educators and students,” Wagner said in the announcement. “By strengthening employment licensure pipelines and support, we are making an investment in the high-quality teaching every student deserves.”
State Board of Education President Paul LaRue added in the announcement that the board is dedicated to improving teacher recruitment, retention and effectiveness, and that the grant will give districts and stakeholders tools to make informed hiring decisions that ultimately benefit Ohio students.
The timeline is set by the grant itself. The award comes through the federal Teacher and School Leader program’s 2026 cycle and funds a three-year initiative: a pilot year in which the selected districts and community schools collaborate with the State Board on the first resources and systems, followed by broader use as the tools are refined and extended statewide. Because the resources will be available to all Ohio schools, even districts outside the pilot group stand to use what ELEVATE Ohio builds.
For district hiring managers, the announcement’s emphasis on licensure pipelines matters as much as its leadership language. Wagner’s statement in the release tied the grant directly to “strengthening employment licensure pipelines and support” — the path by which would-be teachers are credentialed and backed in their first years — while LaRue’s comments pointed to better information for hiring decisions at the district and stakeholder level.
The initiative arrives as districts across Ohio continue to describe difficulty filling licensed teaching positions and keeping experienced educators in the classroom. State education leaders have framed the educator workforce as a pipeline problem as much as a hiring problem: drawing new candidates into the profession, supporting them through licensure, and giving them leadership and advancement paths that keep them in schools over the long term. The ELEVATE Ohio focus areas, from licensure pipelines to evaluation and advancement, map directly onto that chain.
The effort also lands alongside other recent investments aimed at the adults and institutions surrounding Ohio students, from the new Signals of Hope addiction-prevention exhibit announced at COSI this week to school-based health centers expanding inside five southeast Ohio districts and a new children’s crisis center in Bowling Green awaiting state certification.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on. We know the grant totals $8.4 million over three years, that it comes through the federal Teacher and School Leader program, and that a pilot group of districts and community schools will reach about 70,000 students in year one. What has not yet been announced is which districts and community schools will form that pilot group, or the exact schedule for rolling the new resources out to schools statewide.
What happens next is the pilot selection: the State Board of Education will identify the districts and community schools that collaborate on ELEVATE Ohio’s first year, begin building the initiative’s resource and support systems, and then extend what is developed to schools across all 88 counties over the three-year grant period.
Photo: Ɱ, CC BY-SA