Carroll Education Foundation Inc.

Carroll Education Foundation Inc. (CEF) is not a conventional grantmaker and grant seekers outside Carroll Independent School District (Southlake, TX) should not expect to apply here. Despite IRS records showing a Flora, IN mailing address, CEF's operational base, mission, and every grantee is Carroll ISD — the 'Dragons' — in Southlake, Texas. The foundation's mission statement is explicit: "a great education begins and ends with great teachers, which is why Carroll Education Foundation is committed to funding ALL Dragon teachers." It exists as a single-district education foundation with one beneficiary population: the roughly 1,000+ classroom teachers, librarians, CARE, ESL, and SPED staff employed by Carroll ISD, plus paraprofessionals pursuing further education. There is no open call for proposals, no discretionary grant committee reviewing outside applications, and no history of funding organizations beyond CISD itself — the DB record's `application_instructions` field is flagged `__no_filing__`, consistent with a foundation that files a 990 but runs no competitive process. CEF's own history page confirms this structurally: after a 1996-2017 era of broader classroom/program grants, the foundation deliberately narrowed its model in 2018 and again in 2023 to three fixed distribution channels rather than an RFP. The only two doors into CEF are (1) the annual community board-member application (opens roughly January-February, historically closes March 1) for residents and local business leaders who want to shape fundraising and allocation strategy, and (2) direct-to-teacher scholarship applications open exclusively to CEF/Carroll ISD staff. First-time outside applicants — nonprofits, other school districts, or education vendors — should redirect effort elsewhere; CEF's board (chaired by Dr. Meghan York, with Executive Director Alexandra Martin and Development Director Cristie King running operations) is focused entirely on donor cultivation (Superintendent's Circle, Club Charlie, the Culinary Celebration gala, and an annual telethon) to fund its existing three pillars, not on evaluating incoming requests.

CEF reported $3,280,449 in total assets and $846,215 in annual income in its most recent IRS Business Master File snapshot (updated 2026-08-15) — a mid-size single-district foundation, not a large discretionary grantmaker. The DB record contains no itemized grant-level financial history (empty grantee and financials tables), so dollar patterns below are drawn from foundation and press reporting. CEF's giving is structured around three fixed programs rather than variable grant sizes: (1) an End-of-Year Appreciation Gift to every Carroll ISD classroom teacher, which rose from $1,200 per teacher in 2024 to $1,600 per teacher in 2025 — a roughly 33% year-over-year increase; (2) Teacher of the Year cash awards of $1,000 per campus honoree, with the two district-wide Teachers of the Year each receiving $5,000; and (3) continuing-education scholarships for teachers and paraprofessionals (amounts undisclosed publicly). Press coverage (360West Magazine) reports CEF distributed $2,265,000 to Carroll ISD over a recent four-year window (~$566,000/year average), and in one cited year community and business donors gave over $500,000, which combined with investment-account returns let CEF donate $650,000 toward teacher salaries. Because every classroom teacher receives the same flat appreciation gift, CEF's effective 'median grant size' is closer to $1,600-$1,600 than a typical range-based foundation — there is no small-to-large grant spread to report, since 100% of the base program is non-competitive and geographically confined to one ISD in Tarrant County, Texas. No health, arts, or general-nonprofit funding lines exist; 100% of disclosed giving is education/teacher-support, concentrated on non-state-mandated positions (arts, music, foreign language, science lab) historically and on direct teacher compensation supplements today.

CEF's closest asset-tier peers in the dataset are all Education-focused private foundations sitting within roughly $10,000 of its $3,280,449 asset base — but the resemblance is limited to balance-sheet size, not funding mechanism. Most are scholarship-only vehicles with no public application process, similar to CEF.

All six organizations cluster tightly around $3.27M-$3.29M in assets, suggesting the peer set was built on asset-matching rather than functional similarity — none of the five peers have public websites on file, reinforcing that this asset tier is dominated by small, closed-door scholarship and family foundations rather than institutions running competitive RFPs. CEF stands out even within this group for its unusual transparency (active website, published 990s, Candid Platinum seal) despite also running a fully closed distribution model — grant seekers should not read 'has a website' as 'accepts applications.'

CEF's most visible recent activity is administrative rather than grant-related: the foundation opened its 2025-26 board-member recruitment window in February 2025 (Community Impact, 2025-02-06), with community members and CISD-area business leaders invited to apply for open board seats through a historical March 1 deadline. On the funding side, the foundation increased its flagship End-of-Year Appreciation Gift from $1,200 per teacher in 2024 to $1,600 per teacher in 2025, a public signal of fundraising strength heading into the 2025-26 cycle. Current leadership is Board Chair Dr. Meghan York (Loving Life Chiropractic), Vice Chair Andrea Honig, Treasurer Trey Knapp (Sewell Automotive Companies), and Immediate Past Chair Dr. Andrea Gonterman (Ebby Halliday Realtors); day-to-day operations run through Executive Director Alexandra Martin and Development Director Cristie King. A 360West Magazine feature on Martin frames CEF's ongoing strategic question as how to keep funding non-state-mandated teaching positions (arts, music, foreign language, science labs) as Carroll ISD continues to lose local property-tax revenue under Texas's Chapter 41 'Robin Hood' recapture system — the foundation was originally created in 1996 in direct response to the 1993 school-finance equity law (Senate Bill 7) that first exposed Carroll ISD to redistribution. No major leadership departures, new program launches, or controversy surfaced in current search results; CEF's trajectory over the past three years has been incremental growth in per-teacher gift size rather than any new grant vertical.

There is effectively no competitive grant proposal to write for CEF — the single most important piece of advice for any grant seeker researching this foundation is to confirm eligibility before investing time. CEF funds only individuals employed by or serving Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas; it has never funded outside nonprofits, other school districts, vendors, or general community programs, and its `application_instructions` field carries a literal 'no filing' flag reflecting this closed model. If you are a Carroll ISD teacher, librarian, CARE/ESL/SPED staff member, or paraprofessional: your appreciation gift and Teacher-of-the-Year eligibility are automatic (no application needed) tied to active employment and, for the $1,000/$5,000 awards, a campus-level nomination and selection process run through the district — the strongest path to a Teacher-of-the-Year award is building a strong nomination case with your campus administration well before the annual selection window, since CEF itself does not solicit nominations directly. If you're pursuing a continuing-education scholarship as CISD staff, apply promptly once the annual window opens (historically communicated via district and foundation channels in spring) and emphasize how the coursework directly strengthens classroom instruction, since CEF's mission language repeatedly centers 'great teachers' as the lever for 'great education.' If you're a community member or local business leader seeking a relationship with CEF, the real 'application' is the annual board-member call (opens ~January-February, deadline historically March 1) — tailor your board application around fundraising capacity, CISD/Southlake community ties, and willingness to support events like the Culinary Celebration and the annual telethon, since the board skews toward realtors, healthcare professionals, and local business owners already embedded in the Southlake community. The single most common mistake outside organizations make is treating CEF like a typical community or family foundation and submitting an unsolicited LOI — this will not be reviewed, as CEF has no mechanism to receive or evaluate outside funding requests. Corporate donors seeking recognition should look at the Superintendent's Circle and Club Charlie giving tiers rather than a grant relationship.