I had been trying to keep an eye out for this announcement and just must have missed it – but there’s still plenty of time to apply – deadline is Aug 31, 2012…

MINNESOTA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION ANNOUNCES AVAILABILITY OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS GRANTS FOR K-12 EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

St. Paul, Minnesota – The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (“Commission”) is seeking proposals from qualifying primary, middle, and secondary school educators, both public and non-public, in application for grants to fund telecommunications projects for the benefit of K-12 students in Minnesota.  The actual corpus of these funds is held by Qwest Corporation (dba CenturyLink) and will be distributed by Qwest, but at the direction of the Commission.  The fund balance is approximately $2.8 million.

Minnesota Statutes and the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 grant the Commission authority to facilitate competition and interconnection between competing local service providers.  Acting under this authority, the Commission has required Qwest to make contributions to this fund for failure to meet specified wholesale service quality commitments. Pursuant to its authority, the Commission will facilitate the distribution of these funds held by Qwest.

The Commission and Qwest have determined that this fund should be distributed through a grant process to promote telecommunications for institutions in Minnesota that provide primary and secondary education.  This K-12 Telecommunications Fund is expected to provide single-time grants.  The Commission does not expect to provide additional funds in the future. The deadline for applications is August 31, 2012.  For a copy of the application instructions please refer to the Commission’s website at http://www.puc.state.mn.us/PUC/index.html, or contact Kevin O’Grady at 651-201-2218 or k12grant.puc@state.mn.us.

Got more info.