The Office of Special Services and Inclusive Education at the Maine Department of Education is now accepting applications from school administrative units for the Maine Transition Regional Interagency Collaborative (MeTRIC) grants. The purpose of these grants is to provide students with disabilities the necessary support and resources to seamlessly transition to post-secondary education or employment.
To qualify, applicants must demonstrate innovative and sustainable partnerships among multiple agencies to provide inclusive transition services such as vocational training, job readiness, financial literacy, and advocacy.
The MeTRIC initiative also encourages inclusive transition opportunities like apprenticeships, work based learning, mentoring, and community college partnerships. Applicants must facilitate a forum for sharing best practices and resources with students and agency participants.
The Maine DOE, Office of Special Services and Inclusive Education applied and received a $$750,000.00 ESSA grant award to develop regional transition collaboratives. Each SAU applying and approved will receive a minimum of $100,000.00 each to establish their seamless and sustainable coordinated set of transition program(s) in their region. The number and size of awards will depend on the number of applications received and available funds. The Department reserves the right to eliminate the lowest scoring application(s) and/or make awards for amounts less than requested, whichever is in the best interest of the State.
Eligible schools interested in the Maine Transition Regional Collaboratives (MeTRIC) Grant Program opportunity may access the application through the Grant RFPs and RFAs webpage.
A timeline for the RFA process is provided below.
| Deadline | Action Steps |
| Fri – 06/30/23 | Questions due date from SAUs emailed to titus.orourke@maine.gov |
| Mid July | Answers will be posted to the public via Procurement |
| Wed – 07/26/23 | RFA Applications due |
All questions related to the Maine Transition Regional Interagency Collaborative (MeTRIC) RFA should be submitted to:
Titus O’Rourke, Transition Specialist, Office of Special Education and Inclusive Education, titus.orourke@maine.gov no later than Friday, June 30, 2023.