001Hey, welcome everyone. Uh you are attending the webinar on virtual and hybrid program accelerator for lasso cycle 4. Um my name is Ann Rajin. I'm the division director for virtual and hybrid education here at the agency. I'm joined here today with my colleague Donna Wkert uh who will be going over uh some lasso information. If you have questions that are uh related directly for virtual or hybrid education, the inbox is on the slide. Um so we you can send those via email if you need to. Here's our agenda for today. Uh we're going to start with a brief overview of the lasso 4 cycle. Um then we'll go into a deep dive for the virtual hybrid accelerator. Um if you have questions that come up as we are presenting, you can use the Q&A feature
002to submit those and we'll try to answer them in the chat and if not um respond to them via the FAQ document. And there's some additional information on the slide um if you need it. Okay, I'm going to hand it over to Donna to talk about Lasso. >> Hello everyone. So, let me provide to you an overview of the Lasso cycle 4 portfolio that virtual and hybrid accelerator program is part of. As you can see, what is Lasso? Solasso is a learning acceleration support opportunity, a single consolidated application that combines grants, aotments, and incind supports bundled around a few key strategies that we'll name shortly to accelerate academic gains. Lasso 4 will offer 15 opportunities focused on these strategies in a $500 million package accessed through one application. The loss of cycle 4 will be
003anchored in these four learning acceleration strategies, curriculum and instruction, education and training, more time and innovative school models. And you will see this depicted on our portfolio slide. So here is the entire portfolio spanning multiple years. The funding view has been updated to display the total allocation across all years beginning with the Lasso cycle and including continuation grants where applicable. As you can see, we are focusing on the virtual hybrid virtual and hybrid program accelerator here and the details for the portfolio that are listed here can also be found on our website. Now I'm going to turn it over to my colleague an who will do a deep dive into the virtual and hybrid program accelerator that we're very excited to have part of our laws of four portfolio. Ann, thank you Don. All right,
004before we get started to on the accelerator, we want to give you a brief overview on virtual and hybrid education. So, we know for most students uh a brickandmortar campus is the correct setting for them in order to be successful. However, for some students, they have other needs that need to be met. Virtual and hybrid program and campuses offer flexible personalized learning for students and families while enabling school systems to expand access, optimize staffing, and reimagine programs. Some of the use cases for how virtual and hybrid programs are used is to offer more course offerings at at a school system where students have access to advanced courses or or have specific courses that they want to try out but they might not have a teacher for it. It provides an opportunity for school systems to
005design around flexibility. Um maybe there are students who have health challenges or um you have a staffing issue that you have to resolve and virtual and hybrid programs help with that. Or you have some very niche programming within your own school district that you would leverage virtual or hybrid for. So during this past legislative session, Senate Bill 569 uh was passed and what this bill does is it restructures the framework of virtual and hybrid education. School systems have three delivery formats that they could use to offer virtual and hybrid learning. They are individual courses. So think of these as one-off courses that students may take. These courses have to be uh certified to meet certain requirements that are outlined in the bill. Schools could offer virtual and hybrid programs. So, think of this as a
006school within a school where you have a subset of students who are engaged in um a virtual or hybrid program and the rest of the students attend um a brickandmortar schedule or are just not a part of that program. Or you could offer a virtual hybrid campus. Our focus for today will be mostly on programs and campuses. Since the definitions for virtual and hybrid can differ, we want to start with being very concrete about what virtual and hybrid means in this context. Now, there's a lot of information on the slide, but uh it's all in one place and you can go back to refer and refer to it as you need to. So when you think about a virtual campus, we're talking about uh students who are attending this instruction uh mostly online. There's minimal
007to no in-person attendance required for those students. In a hybrid model, students have some of that instructional time in a brickandmortar campus and they may be learning the rest of the time virtually. In a hybrid model, if you look on this class schedule, there are a couple ways you can think about this too. One is that you could have a student that is engaged in hybrid courses. So, some days they come to school and they take their class in person and some days they learn uh the work uh remotely. Or you could have a student who has traditional classes in the morning where they come in person and then they have online classes in the afternoon or some combination of both. So that's the difference between a virtual and a hybrid model. And then within
008those you have a campus option or a program option. Campuses have to um have to go through an authorization process. And a campus is structured where at least 50% of the students who are in that campus are participating in that virtual or hybrid model for a program. Uh it is again like a school within a school if you can think of it that way. Um and less than 50% of the total enrollment of that campus participates in that program. Instructional delivery in both these models can leverage synchronous or asynchronous instruction. Synchronous instruction means real time scheduled learning sessions where instructors and students interact you over the internet uh through video or tools. And then asynchronous is online learning where students access instructional materials and complete assignments in an on their individual pace and schedule. Again,
009minimal to uh no mandatory real intime sessions for an asynchronous model. So for both these models, you could use synchronous, asynchronous, a combination of both. And then for hybrid, you could also have you would have that inperson component as well. Okay. So campus or program, there are a couple things you have to think about if you're considering offering a virtual model or a hybrid model and deciding between a campus and a program for campuses. Uh the funding model is going to be enrollmentbased funding where the students the number of students enrolled or assigned the um district's um ADA and then in a program it's it's ADA funding for a campus. Again you would be authorized uh by you would have to go through an authorization process and receive authorization to operate. Whereas um for a
010program, a school system may launch it independently. You don't need any additional authorization. As long as you meet the requirements outlined in 569, you can operate a program. For um campuses, you're launching some you're launching a virtual or a hybrid campus with a very specific focus. Um you know, you're going through the authorization process with that design in mind. And then for a program, again, it exists within a current campus. uh you have a subset of students who are um engaged in that program and you serve less than 50% of the students at that campus uh through that virtual hybrid program. Okay, so that was uh just all the definitions and just giving you an outline of all the options available. Now I'm going to get into the virtual and hybrid program accelerator. So the
011virtual and hybrid program accelerator uh supports uh school systems in designing, launching and operating uh highquality virtual and hybrid programs and campuses. Um we've been engaged in this work for a few years now. Um and school systems that are part of the BHPA show significantly stronger outcomes. Um so in our most recent uh ratings um 88% of our schools who were BHPA schools who got VHPA support uh got an A through C rating of which 75% were rated A or B. So having the support of the VHPA um enabled strong launches of these virtual and hybrid programs and campuses. Like I mentioned earlier, here are some uh reasons of why uh school systems choose to offer virtual or hybrid programs or campuses. And just bringing it back uh here so because to ground our next
012slide in some of the examples that uh we can talk about. Okay, here are a few schools that have received VHP a partnership and they've re-imagined how learning happens leveraging virtual and hybrid education. So, I just want to showcase a couple here. Uh, for example, South Texas um ISD launched a virtual academy and their focus was to expand course offerings over three counties. um they wanted to offer advanced courses um early um early advanced courses for their students uh in 6th through 12th grade. And they also part of their design was that they wanted to make sure students could come in person and do in extracurricular activities. And then another example is HUD ISD where they also run a virtual component but they have a hybrid and virtual and hybrid campus where they have tailored
013schedules for students who uh need a lot of flexibility. Um, how do I serves um a population of students who are training to be Olympians uh and and they're that's one of their uh uh one of the one of the one of the uh people that they focus on as serving using this model. And then um for IC is another um IC that receives uh support from the HPA. They've designed um a virtual campus, but they also offer those courses that are in their campus uh to other students in the districts to take as one-off courses. Um and again, they have structured it where students could come on campus for extracurricular activities or CTE programs while leveraging the online um online courses for the flexibility that they need. So just some examples of how folks
014have used it. With part of the VHPA, not only do you get um the funds as an opportunity to uh start up the virtual hybrid campus or program, but you also receive technical assistance. The design of the technical assistance is uh rooted in a cohort-based workshop. So um the the technical assistance provider engages monthly or uh once every few months in topics where everyone who is part of the BHBA come and engage in uh topics that are relevant in launching a hybrid or virtual program or campus. Um there's also a coach that's assigned to every LEA to work through the individual design and context. Um and then um the coaches and the uh team at the school system engage in data action cycles to see how can the model be improved on. And so what
015does the school system walk away with? You walk away with a hybrid hybrid education plan or um you've operated um in some capacity whether it's a pilot or you've operated and launched a program as part of the 2-year process. If you're applying or if you're thinking of applying to get campus authorization um at the end of year one of supports uh you would be ready to apply for that authorization. So this is just a slide that includes some information on um best fit for a school system and what you're looking for. I'm going to leave this here for um a few seconds for folks to look at it. Again, it reiterates um some of the things that we've already addressed. And so if this resonates with you, um there have some questions on the slide
016here on questions to consider um to see if this is something you want to pursue as a school system. Here's a tenative timeline for authorization. So, if you are a school system and you uh are considering going the campus route instead of the program route, uh this is what it would look like in terms of um when you would start with uh when you would receive the lasso grant um when the planning year would start and um when you would apply for um authorization. So as part of a requirement in 569, a school before they can operate a new virtual hybrid campus have to engage in a planning year. And so if a school uh is part of the HPA, they would engage in a planning year uh from August to August um well August
017to May. they would apply for um authorization in February and they would be notified in May uh to get their CDCN. They would notify in April and then they would receive their CDCN in May then launch the campus in in August. So that would be year one would be the planning year and then year two would be the implementation support year. The rest of the items in the following slides are information that can be found in the program guidelines as well. To be eligible to uh for the BHPA grant, um it is open to school districts and open enrollment charter schools serving K12 students. Uh participants of a previous VHPA program are not eligible to apply. There are some uh program asurances and requirements uh that uh the school system team will need to commit
018to um as part of this work. I'm not going to read through all of them. Again, they're in in your program guidelines. I will highlight a couple of them. Uh one is that they they would need to be a BHPA school system team and um in that the program lead would have to have um the equivalence of about 2 days a week of time um dedicated to work on the program or campus. Again there's a technical assistance part partner as part of this work. So there will be a requirement to engage in meetings with that technical assistant pro uh partner engage in a cohort workshops uh setbacks um and then complete the deliverables um and planning sessions as needed. There are a few more asurances here that have been broken down by different um categories.
019So I'm not going to go through all of them. I will highlight a couple here. So, if they're if you're considering partnering with uh a vendor to um run your virtual or hybrid program, um there are some requirements on um how to engage with that um and demonstrate that you uh the technical assistance partner has uh supported in that uh plan and how that meets your local needs. There's community engagement um and some deliverables around that. Um and then there also asurances that um address academic and operational planning requirements that would be needed. So um as part of the BHPA uh school systems have to develop their plans for academic um so the curriculum the instructional methods you know how would you uh design progress monitoring in a virtual hybrid environment. How would you serve
020students who are at risk? So there are workshops that walk you through these things and as the um outcome of those uh would be the plans or even piloting some of this um work as part of the program. There are also um datadriven cycles uh that are embedded as part of the 2-year process. So this would include looking at student progress and um seeing how to best serve students and support teachers uh in a virtual and hybrid environment and see what action steps can be taken to align what the design model was and uh what the implementation is. Uh there are some requirements around uh receiving formal approval from the school systems governing board to launch a program or or a campus. Um if you are looking to go the campus route, you would have
021to receive that uh approval before applying for authorization. And uh at the end of year one of supports um there's a requirement to launch a full-time virtual hybrid program or apply for authorization u to operate a full-time or hybrid campus that would then operate in the school year 2728. I already mentioned uh some of the requirements around if you plan to partner with a third party provider. Again, it's um it's optional. It's not required, but if you do plan to engage in it, then there would be some additional requirements and assurances from that. Again, this is all available in the program guidelines. So, I'm not going to go through each one of those. This is a highlevel um example of what the time commitment and um the requirements from the LEA team would be as
022part of the the VHPA. again with an emphasis for program leaders um needing to do um the weekly work and committing to that time in order to be transparent with the scoring criteria for the the grant application for the BHP. A it's been outlined um here and in the program guidance as well. So and then based on the the application and the priority points calculated uh the following applicants will be invited for a virtual oral interview. Um so school systems who apply would have to declare if they want to um open a campus or operate a program and um if you you can select as uh to be decided and then you would automatically be placed in the program category and then 15 of the highest scoring applicants from the campus category who meet the
023minimum cut score would be invited for uh the interview and then 10 of the highest scoring applicants from the program category who meet the minimum cut score will be invited for the interview. Um, VHP is currently procuring technical assistant providers and um, potentially be scheduled to announce that the provider in March of 2026. Uh, school systems will be partnered with a provider through the VHPA program. Uh, this is the evaluation criteria that we're using u to select the provider. In accordance with the recent executive orders, um if a grant requires districts or uh to contract with a provider, then uh they have to include the following language in the contract. So we just share this as an FYI for uh as part of the program contract guidelines. All right, I'm going to hand it back
024to Donna. Hello everyone. So now path forward. Now that you have the information of what virtual and hybrid program accelerator is. Um, and if you have any for more information or seek any additional questions, please throw your questions in the chat and we will work to providing the answers here and collecting all of your questions and providing answers in a posted FAQ doc that is anticipated to be on the laws of four website by November 3rd. Here's a timeline of overall for the laws of war. Applications opened on October 3rd and will close on December 3rd, 5:00 p.m. Central time. That means you must submit your application, your final application by December 3rd, 5:00 p.m. If at any time you would like to revise your application, please see the retake link or the re the
025request for application link on our laws of website. that will then guide us to provide you a link that will be open through four o'clock on December 3rd to allow for time to revise and submission. So we are currently in the application window currently in a program webinar sessions and office hours will also begin shortly. I'm noting that once the application closes on December 3rd, the scoring and interview window then will open. TA may reach out to districts for interviews based on individual needs um aligned in aligned to program guidelines and stated in this webinar and others. At that point, if you are awarded, there is an egrants window that opens um tentatively February 3rd if we announce on February 2nd. And this is the opportunity for districts to accept or decline any of the
026awards received for lasso. There is a 60-day window for NOVA issuing, which means that your notice of grant award is expected to be received by districts um 60 days upon submission and they are processed in the order received. If there's a delay in your acceptance of your grant opportunities, then that may impact the NOGA date. Again, school systems must submit uh the loss of our application by December 3rd at 5:00 p. p.m. Central time. And here are a couple reminders that are located on our laws of our web page. Um TA emailed unique application links to school superintendent on October 3rd. If you do need and did not receive or need to revise your application, then you request an application link through the form that is linked on our website. There is also a PDF
027copy of the application located on our website. Again, applications must be signed by the superintendent to be accepted. If you have any questions regarding this um or an application question, you can reach out to lasso@ tea.ex.gov and we will respond within 24 hours. So, if you have any further questions, you may continue to add them into the Q&A and we will work uh diligently to provide you answers in this session. But rest assured, we will have all of your questions and answers published in an FAQ document by November 3rd. So, you will be able to receive answers to all of the initiatives that you are interested in. for VHPA. The office hours are October is on October 29th, 11 to 11:30 central time. The registration link here um on the um in the webinar deck
028which will be posted in a couple weeks, but you can go to the law of website to then um register for any of the office hours or remaining webinars that you would like. We have specific application support across two opportunities if you need support for um application completion, not specific uh program questions, but in terms of the Qualrix application. And then again, here are some contact information for us. If you do reach out to either of us, we will respond um as soon as we can. Um technically between uh one and two days, you will receive a response. Something to note. So after the um egrants window has closed and you have effectively accepted an award um do note that lasso has an informal discretionary competitive grant process. So declines and change requests at that
029point are not advisable in typical competitive processes. If declines are requested, they will be considered on a case-byase basis for the school system and knowing that it could raise the school systems federal grant risk level in the coming year. As a summary of what to expect, the application window is currently ongoing from October 3rd through December 3rd. 5:00 p.m. Central time is the last time to submit your application. Program webinars are occurring now. October 6th through 24th and office hours will will follow. So next steps for you. Visit the laws of website to familiarize yourself with included grant offerings. Communicate and share the information with your internal teams to support decisionmaking process on which sets of grants to apply for and register for any upcomingformational webinars and office hours. Um at the bottom of the
030law of website there are some guidance documents. We encourage you to look through the initiative. One pagers provide preliminary grant eligibility and key commitments. The eligibility and prioritization guidance doc provides information to help determine the likelihood of being awarded. The initiative selection tool provides a scenario map with guiding questions to help you determine the right fit initiative based on your need. And the role and responsibilities insight tool new this year identifies the types of responsibility for each role and shows where the overlaps occur across initiatives. And it's cut off here, but um for any lawsuit related supports include timelines and questions and webinar links, feel free to reach out to Lasso at tea.ex.gov. At this point, um an Thank you everyone for joining our uh webinar on the virt hybrid program accelerator. Again, if you
031have any questions uh please put it in the Q&A feature. Um and at this time the uh webinar has concluded.