001us this morning for this session. And I do want to make sure if everyone can hear me okay. Am I coming through okay, Melanie? Okay. >> [gasps] >> So, [sighs] we this session this morning is about the local accountability plan informal discretionary competitive grant opportunity, which is a very exciting, and I'll be providing an overview of that competitive grant opportunity and also a brief overview of what local accountability systems are. And I will also share with you that we have a webinar series coming up, one at the end of this month and two in June that will go more in-depth specifically about local accountability systems. So, I encourage you to sign up for one or more of those sessions and addition to attending this session today, which is more focused on the competitive grant opportunity.
002My name is Laura Wake, and I am the manager of local accountability systems within the Department of Authorizing and Policy. I also have Melanie Robinson here with me, my amazing supervisor, and she will be monitoring the Q&A and anything that might come up in the chat. Um with the Q&A, we will be capturing your questions and if it's relevant in or the uh frequently asked questions document that we'll be putting together and officially posting, um then she will be capturing that and will incorporate those. So, thank you so much for your presence here this morning, and I'm excited to share the more information about this competitive grant opportunity and how it aims to support local accountability system uh plans and implementation. Before we dive into the content, I do need to share with you two
003legal disclaimers. This first one essentially states that we are operating on our most current understanding of the content that is within this presentation. It is subject to change. It does not constitute legal advice, and if you should require legal advice, you would want to seek legal counsel. And then everything contained within this presentation is copyrighted by TEA. This next legal disclaimer is a sign of the times with artificial intelligence and um some of the things that are important to keep in mind with attending these sessions and AI. Uh TEA prohibits third-party recordings of its grants-related trainings. This prohibition includes the use of artificial intelligence services, summary services, language models, applications, interfaces, or assistance to attend, review, or record trainings. TEA further prohibits attendees from using the information in its grants-related trainings to train AI technologies.
004Any attendees who violate these prohibitions may be removed from the trainings and barred from future grants-related trainings. All right. Now that we have that out of the way, our objectives for our session today, as I mentioned at the onset, is a brief overview of the components associated with the local accountability systems. And as I also mentioned already, we do have a webinar series for going more in-depth into local accountability systems. Please sign up for one or more of those. There are links to those in the PDF that Melanie has dropped into the chat, and also the links to register for those sessions are on our webpage, which I encourage you to visit. The other objective we have for our session this morning is a more in-depth overview of the local accountability accountability plan informal discretionary
005competitive grant opportunity. We'll be looking over that, the purpose behind that grant, uh where the funds have come from for that, the steps in the application. We'll walk through every section of the application that is required. I'll talk to you about navigating eGrants for those of you who aren't as familiar with that system. That will be helpful for you. And then we'll be looking at critical timelines, and then a rubric that will be utilized for scoring the applications that are submitted. Okay. So, the local accountability systems. What is a local accountability system? The local accountability system allows districts and open enrollment charter schools to create local accountability system plans to measure outcomes reflecting locally determined needs and strengths. So, at a local level, you're able to determine how your schools are measured. You're creating those
006goals. You're You're creating how things will be tracked in terms of the progress within your schools. Like the state A through F accountability system, the local accountability system is a tool to drive continuous improvement for students. Campuses with an overall state rating of A, B, or C, so C or better, can combine their local accountability system rating with the state level rating. According to state law, the purpose of the A through F accountability is to continuously improve student performance, to eliminate achievement gaps that are based on race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status, to ensure Texas is a national leader in preparing students for post-secondary success. And we know that at a district level that you all are using many more measures than what is than these uh particular components that are part of the state level
007system. So, that's where the local accountability systems come in. So, the benefits of local accountability systems, you have the local relevance. So, it's allowing schools to tailor their local accountability measures to their community-specific needs and values. It also is very specific on the community engagement piece. So, involving parents and students and educators and community members in the process, which fosters a sense of ownership in the educational outcomes within your community. And then empowerment. Schools and districts can customize their accountability measures to align with their specific goals and have flexibility in determining how those things are measured and and what success looks like. It is more of a holistic approach than what you see at the state level. Um the local accountability system can include many components such as student engagement, extra- and co-curricular activities, and
008community service participation. It's also focused on continuous improvement, just like the state level system. The local accountability system can provide timely and relevant feedback, helping schools to improve. And then there's the public reporting piece, which creates that transparency. So, as I mentioned earlier, if the campus has a state level rating score of C or better, they have the opportunity to combine that local accountability system rating with the state level rating for an overall weighted score. And all of that is publicly reported. >> So as I mentioned, if the campus level state rating is a C or better, then you're able to combine your local accountability system rating with the state level rating. What is important to keep in mind is that the state level rating must account for at least 50% of the overall campus
009rating. So what I've provided here are three different examples of what that could potentially look like. So in the first example, 50% could come from the local accountability system rating, and 50% could come from the state level rating. In the second example, 40% could come from the local accountability system rating and 60% could come from the state level rating. And then the final example would be 20% from the local accountability system rating and 80% from the state level rating. This is an example of what the public reporting looks like. You have at the top the overall rating, which is that combined state and local accountability system rating. And then the state rating, combining those domains, the student achievement, school progress, and closing the gaps. And then the local accountability system rating, as I mentioned earlier,
010has more domains that can be utilized as a part of that plan. This represents academics, culture and climate, and locally determined. There are active links as well on that local accountability system public reporting view, where it's there's one that's tell me more, and it has specific details derived from the local accountability system plan. And then the local accountability details is where it's a direct link to the district's website with a full plan accessible to the public there. So it's a a of transparency as a part of that process. Now, that was a very brief overview, but we do have our webinar series that will go way more in-depth about local accountability systems, and I encourage you to sign up for that. Also, please visit our website, the local accountability system website. There's a lot of
011resources and training materials on the website, as well as links to register for those upcoming webinars that are specifically focused on just the local accountability systems. Okay, so now we will look more closely at the local accountability plan informal discretionary competitive grant opportunity. And this grant came into existence as a result of House Bill 8, which appropriated funds for a grant program to assist at least one school district in each educational service center region in developing local accountability plans and and helping with that process of planning and implementation. So, the purpose behind this grant, this competitive grant opportunity, is to provide school systems with funding to support the development and implementation of local accountability plans, including resources for local accountability system planning activities such as data management, if professional development needs to take place, stakeholder
012engagement activities, data collection tools, and innovative initiatives aimed at continuous improvement of student performance. There's also a non-competitive technical assistance grant to complement this competitive grant, where it will provide technical assistance providers, uh, which would advise you in this process and they have expertise in local accountability system frameworks, approaches, and strategies. So, the non-competitive piece of this, the non-competitive technical assistance grant, uh, will be uh, running through TEA. A provider will run a request for proposal for technical assistance advisors who have demonstrated expertise in local accountability system so they can provide that support to you with the frameworks, approaches, and strategies. The request for proposal is anticipated to take place in July and it's important for educational service centers to understand that they are not expected to provide the support, um, associated with this technical
013assistance grant and anything related to the competitive grant. In terms of the application funding, as stated in statute, one, uh, school system within each educational service center. So, we're looking at and anticipating 15 to 25 applicants. The applicants will be awarded a range of $136,000 to $225,000. Applicants may be awarded on a proportional share of their original submitted budget. Important to note here is that final funding amounts depend upon the number and quality of applications and the feasibility of the applicant's budget plan and the discretion of the TEA program area. Also, should additional funding become available for this program, the agency may fund qualifying awardees additional amounts till all funds are exhausted. Okay, so this is a critical timeline for the informal discretionary competitive grant that came into existence in the eGrants system on April
01427th of 2026. So, it is already active in eGrants. And then here we are today, May 13th of 2026 for the webinar. And then the recorded version of this webinar will be posted on the TEA Grant Opportunities page as well as our local accountability systems webpage on May 15th of 2026. On May 22nd of 2026, that would be the last day to submit your frequently asked questions to TEA local accountability team. And I'll be sharing with you later two avenues to do that. But, that is the deadline if you have questions to submit those questions to us to where we can create that formalized frequently asked questions document, which will be posted on the TEA Grant Opportunities page and local accountability system page on May 29th of 2026. If you intend to apply for this
015amazing competitive grant opportunity, the deadline to do so is June 26th of 2026 at 11:59 p.m. Central Time. So, please make sure and get your application in if you are interested by that deadline. The review period for all the applications will be June 26th through July 28th of 2026, and we anticipate announcing awards on July 29th of 2026. If selected for funding, the official begin date of the grant would be July 29th of 2026. If you should need to submit amendments, the deadline for all amendments is January 31st of 2028. And on April 30th of 2028, if you're selected for funding, that would be the end date of the grant. This is a simplified overview of the process, so we publish the application in eGrants. And the supporting documentation is on the TEA grant opportunities
016web page. So, I encourage you to look through all that supporting documentation that's on the grant opportunities web page when you navigate to the grant. Um eligible applicants, you would submit your application and any optional attachments. So, I'll be talking to and a little further on in the presentation about optional attachments and priority points associated with those. The applications are reviewed and scored, and the highest scoring applicants may be required to attend an oral interview or respond to questions regarding their application. We'll announce the applicants uh that are funded on the TEA grants awarded data web page. And then, if they're accepted, uh if you're accepted for funding, then the application that you've already submitted will be the application moving forward. You won't have to submit anything beyond that. What will need to take place
017though is to negotiate the budget schedules within the application. And I'll go into a little bit more detail about what that means in a moment. But once you complete that negotiation process through grants administration with your budget schedules, and that's all completed, you would receive your NOAC. So, with any grant opportunity, you have your allowables and unallowables. So, I'm going to provide you with a brief overview of what those are, but also please look over your programmatic guidelines because it goes into more depth about the allowable and unallowable activities as a part of this grant opportunity. Before I get into the allowables, I do want to highlight down at the bottom underneath the table, the resources that are actively linked there. There's the budgeting cost guidance handbook, which is an excellent resource to reference. The
018grant administration division's grant resources page, that is a a wonderful place to go to learn more about grants and and applying and the process in e-grants. And then also there's an active link here to the programmatic guidelines. So, general allowables uses of funds would be payroll costs that are associated with the requirements of the grant, hiring and funding one full-time employee, so one FTE full-time to manage the local accountability system planning process, costs associated with the development of all requirements of the grant, professional and contracted services associated with requirements of the grant, consumable and durable supplies and materials that are associated with the requirements of the grant, local accountability system planning expenditures for plan creation and component data management, educator training associated with the requirements of the grant, community engagement activities that are associated with
019the requirement of the grant, and then data collection tools that are associated with the requirements of the grant. The unallowables would be out of state travel, travel for students to conferences, field trips, stipends for non-employees other than those included in 6419, non-employee costs for conferences, travel costs for officials such as executive directors, superintendents, or board members, cost of membership in any civic or community organization, hosting or sponsoring of conferences, advisory councils. And there is an exception here. If the advisory council is a parent advisory council or a community advisory council and they're directly focused on components of the local accountability plan, then those may be allowable. With state-funded grants, audit services are unallowable, and then the debt services are unallowable for this particular grant program. So now we'll get into the eGrants system. I will
020walk you through um if you don't have access to to eGrants, we'll talk about that, getting your TEAL account and getting the access that you need in eGrants. And then we'll walk step-by-step through the pieces of the application that are required for the initial submission. So, probably many of you that are in our session this morning already have access to TEAL and eGrants, but for those of you who do not, these are active links to go in and create an account in TEAL. And once you have that account established, you'll want to go into my application accounts, and you'll want to select eGrants. You'll want to add that. It's also critical that if you are the individual that will be submitting the initial grant application, you must have grantee official status in the eGrants system.
021Otherwise, you will not be able to submit the initial application. Another really excellent resource that was created by grants administration is linked here. It's e-grants roles and it's a PDF document where it outlines the roles and the the rights and responsibilities of each one of those roles. So again, if you are the individual that is going to be submitting, you need to have that grantee official status. Once you're in the system, the way to find all grants that your particular school system is eligible for, you first you hover over the grants tab and then apply for eligible grants and then all the grants that you're eligible for are going to be listed there. In this particular scenario, we're looking for 2026 through 2028 local accountability plan grant application. And even though it says application, the
022first step it will take you to is the ADC, which is the designation and certification. You have to do that step first before the application will present itself to you. So when you click on the link for the ADC, this is what it looks like. Part one is the designation and you can see here that there are sections that are grayed out. That means they're not relevant for this particular grant program. Your choices here are apply on own or not apply at all. And then down below, you'll be entering information about the authorized official and the submitter information. Once all of that's complete, it's very important that you save your work in the system and you always want to make sure with when it's time to do so that you certify and submit schedules. Sometimes
023folks think that they've certified and submitted and it's still in draft status. And that would be a shame given that this has that critical deadline. Once you submit the ADC, the application itself will present itself to you and then you would click on that link. This is what it will show you first, which is the overview of all the schedules within the application. I want to draw your attention here to the column that says required. And then the red asterisks. There are only a few schedules that are required for the initial submission of this application. You do not want to fill out any of the schedules that are not required because it will give you error messages. So, please focus on the schedules that are required and leave the other ones blank for the time
024being for this initial submission. So, the ones that are required under general information is the applicant information. And that would be information about your school system. And then the primary and secondary contacts for the application. And we'll look We will go through each one of these schedules, but it is very important to make sure that the primary and secondary contacts, one, that they're always current. Because those are the folks that we would be reaching out to if there were an issue with the application. The other thing that's very important is to make sure those are two different people. The primary contact needs to be different than the secondary contact contact. The next required schedules are under the program description. So, you have the PS 3013, which is the program plan. And that's essentially assurances that
025you're checking off. You're assuring that you are agreeing to the terms of the grant program. The other piece, which is the meat of the application, is the PS 3014, which is the program narrative. So, we'll be going through that step-by-step. And then the final schedule that's required are the provisions, assurances, and certifications. Within that schedule, for those of you who are not familiar with these grant applications, there are active links to documents, and I'll show you this in a moment. You want to make sure and open up every one of those and read them thoroughly because you're certifying that you have read them and you're agreeing to those terms. Okay, so the first required schedule is the applicant information. It's pretty straightforward. You're putting information in there about your school system. You're providing that primary
026and the secondary contact. Make sure as you work again that you're saving all your work. The second schedule, which is the PS 3013, is just this one section where you're checking the boxes, the assurance boxes, and make make sure again that you're saving the schedule before you try and move on. And also double-check yourself that you've checked all the boxes because it will not save. You won't be able to move on if you have not done so. Okay, so the meat of the application is the program narrative, and it begins with part A, which is the summary of program. So, here you're going to want to provide a description of the rationale for initiating a local accountability plan, and you must include how the plan will drive student outcomes and align with the school system's
027mission, vision, and goals. The second set of questions, part B and part C. Part B is about goals, objectives, and strategies. So, here you're going to describe the major goals and objectives of the proposed program. Detail any strategies that will be implemented to meet those goals and objectives. C is about performance and evaluation measures. So, here you're going to describe the performance management routines that will be developed to ensure progress monitoring will drive the achievement of predetermined grant outcomes. Part D is focusing on qualifications and experience for key personnel. So, here you would describe the qualifications and experience of the existing staff member responsible for this program. Include information about their experience with leadership, project management, problem-solving, the state accountability systems, and engaging with the community to support educational outcomes. The budget narrative describe how
028the proposed budget will meet the needs and goals of the program, including staffing, project design, and resources needed to support the implementation of the grant. Now, earlier I mentioned that completing the budget schedules is not required for the initial submission because there's this piece within the narrative where you're providing that budget schedule information just for the initial submission. So, within the request for grant funds, it goes through all these class object codes, and in there, you're going to for every one of them where you're requesting grant funds, you're going to include a description of the cost or costs and a dollar amount. If you will not be budgeting in that class object code, please enter NA or zero $0. For the total grant award section, include the sum of the amounts in all the class
029object codes and any administrative costs. There must be a dollar amount for this answer, and it must not exceed $225,000. Down here at the bottom, drawing your attention there is what I mentioned about how the budget summary and then the correlating budget schedules on this application for the initial submission, you're not filling them out. You will put all of that information in part F of the program narrative section under the request for grant funds. The final narrative piece is part G. And these are additional TEA program requirements. So, one, describe how families and community members will be actively involved in providing input on the components to include in the local accountability plan and how family engagement will be measured because that's a very important piece of the local accountability systems. Two, describe how existing programs
030and measurement tools may be included as components in the local accountability plan. Include the grade level or levels that are currently used in current baseline data. Three, describe how new programs and measurement tools may be included in the local accountability plan. Include the grade levels or levels that will be used and the anticipated baseline data collection. And then four, describe how the program will be sustained beyond the life of the grant. It's very important that this is sustainable beyond the life of the grant. The final required section is the provisions, assurances, and certifications. Please, on the on the actual application, every single one of these is an active link to a document. So, you're going to want to review all those documents and then certify and set accept the terms of those. Also, please make
031sure that at the end of this, this would be the last required schedule that you've saved everything, and that it's the grantee official that's that's working with the application, and that they're the one certifying and submitting it. Earlier, I mentioned that there are some optional attachments where you can earn priority points on the rubric as a part of this review process. So, I'm going to show you now the optional attachments. So, the following are optional attachments for priority points to be awarded to applicants. And again, I want to reiterate that there are very detailed instructions in the programmatic guidelines as to how to attach these to the application. So, please review those steps involved. One of the optional attachments is evidence of innovation office. The school system must have hired a school transformation or innovation
032officer to support the school system's planning process. The applicant may attach either a copy or a hyperlink URL to the school system's organizational chart highlighting the eligible position. Evidence of teacher incentive allotment. The school system must have a teacher incentive allotment program fully approved. The applicant may attach a copy of their teacher incentive allotment status. Evidence of Texas Strategic Leadership participation. The school system must have been invited to engage in the 2026-2027 Texas Strategic Leadership Grant and be actively participating. Active participation includes submitting signed assurances to TEA by May 29th of 2026. The applicant may attach a copy of the signed assurances submitted to the agency. And then finally, evidence of campus 2025 A-F accountability ratings meeting standards and not subject to state interventions, sanctions, or turnaround requirements. The school system must have all campuses
033meeting academic accountability standards as indicated on the 2025 accountability ratings. The applicant may attach a statement that their district or open-enrollment charter school 2025 A-F accountability listing meets standards and are not subject to intervention sanctions or turnaround requirements. So now we'll be looking at the rubric that will be utilized as a part of the scoring process for the competitive grant applications. So as you see here, the the review criteria is lifted listed in the left column, so that directly aligns with all the questions on the application. And then you have the description column, which goes into greater depth about what we'll be looking for as we review your answers on the application. One, needs improvement, did not describe how the required component component would be achieved. Three, meets standard response contains the required elements but
034may not have the clarity or specificity for a comprehensive response. And a reading of five, outstanding response, response is complete, clear, and specific providing the reviewer with a comprehensive understanding of the requirement. And you'll see here that the maximum points available for each one of these is five. This next slide is just a continuation so that you can see the full rubric. And again, all the criteria align with the questions on the application. The description, it details out what we will be looking for as a part of our review process as we utilize this rubric. The total points possible are 50, and then you have those priority points possible, which are 20. Now, I'll be sharing with you resources, guidance, and then you showing you the links to our webinar series. So, here there are
035active links to a variety of resources. One is the local accountability plan informal discretionary competitive grant programmatic guidelines. Please read over those thoroughly. Um there's the general and fiscal guidelines. The TEA grant opportunities webpage, which is where, you know, your jumping off point for finding this um grant opportunity and looking at the supporting documentation. And then there's a local accountability system technical guide. And that's uh just a quick glance at some of the components of the local accountability systems. And then a link to our local accountability system webpage. There's all uh there's a lot of resources, guidance materials, training material, and then links to register for those webinars that I've mentioned earlier. And then there's a link to the local accountability system planning tool. It's a very in-depth planning tool to help throughout the process
036of the planning and implementation of a local accountability system. And then a link to the budgeting cost guidance handbook. These are the the webinar series that will take place. The first one will be on May 28th at the end of this month, and then we'll have two in June on the 11th and the 18th. The same content will be covered in each webinar, but feel free to attend at one or more. Even though the same content will be covered, sometimes hearing it more than once is helpful. Um and we will just be going a lot more in-depth on local accountability systems with less of a focus on the competitive grant aspect. That will be a part of it, but not to the level uh of depth that we went over this morning. Also, always please
037feel free to reach out to us at our email uh web our email >> [snorts] >> at LAS.TEA.texas.gov. Okay, so the frequently asked questions piece that I mentioned earlier, there's the deadline of May 22nd to submit frequently asked questions to us. And then we'll create that formalized document, the frequently asked questions document, that you can use as a resource. That will be posted on the TEA grant opportunities webpage and on the local accountability systems webpage. But the deadline to submit those questions, again, is May 22nd of 2026. And then we'll have that finalized document posted on May 29th of 2026. There are two different avenues for submitting questions to us. One is the email that I just shared with you a moment ago. And then the other one is a link to a smart sheet
038submission. So, either one of those avenues is just fine. We will get your questions whether you email them to us or where you whether you submit them through the smart sheet form. >> [snorts] >> We just wanted you to have those options to do so. I do want to extend a thank you to you for attending this morning, for your interest in local accountability systems. And I hope that you take advantage of this incredible competitive grant opportunity to support the local accountability system planning process and implementation. Um please submit your questions to us. Thank you for your attendance. Thank you so much for all that you do for children across the state of Texas.