The federally-funded School Improvement Grant — or SIG – program provides additional support and focus to help turn around schools identified as persistently lowest achieving. Des Moines Public Schools currently has six schools receiving assistance through the School Improvement Grant program.

The SIG program was begun by the federal government in 2009 to provide extra help to persistently lowest-achieving schools and to advance educational reform efforts across the country. We talk to Wilma Gajdel, the district’s Director of Federal Programs about how the School Improvement Grant program is making a difference in Des Moines …