001so we can uh go ahead and start recording. Um let's jump right in. My name is Chris Dit. I'm the director of the division of system support at TEA. Um and that means that all the things we do in uh in this division are about helping districts get more kids in highquality best fit seats every year. And uh the next initiative fits right in with that as a as a support for uh underperforming elementary campuses. I'm going to uh this is how we're going to spend the time today. I'll give you a a quick overview of uh Lasso 4. Um if you've been in other uh lasso webinars, this is the same content. Um then we'll get into a deep dive and I'll I'll bring member child's on to to talk about her vision for
002next. Um then I'll get into some of the the elements and grant requirements and we'll wrap up with some next steps. If you have any questions throughout the webinar, don't hesitate to use the Q&A function. Um, if I'm able to answer the question live, then I will. Otherwise, we'll add it to our Q&A and get you an answer in writing. Um, all of the webinar slides will be added to our Lasso4 uh website uh at the conclusion of this webinar. And if you have any follow-up questions lasso related, uh you can use this one-stop shop email address and uh they will route your question to the right uh right team or individual. Um okay. And uh just to check to my team here. Can everyone see my screen? Am I coming in? Okay. You good?
003>> Great. Okay. Um, so quick overview of lasso. Um, lasso stands for learning acceleration support opportunities. It's a single consolidated application that combine it combines grants, aotments and inind supports into one uh easytouse uh platform. Um there are uh the the total amount of services and supports in lasso4 total $500 million. There are 15 initiatives uh that support learning acceleration and innovation and one uh application to access that funding. Um there are four buckets of learning acceleration strategies that we're supporting in lasso 4. Uh first is curriculum instruction, education and training, more time and innovative school models. And that's where uh the next initiative fits in. You can see the full menu here. Um and uh next highlighted in red uh below is uh one of the newest additions to the lasso uh portfolio. Great.
004Um so like I said, this is the first time uh this is the first grant cycle for next. Um and I am so excited um that we have a guest speaker here um member Stacy Childs. I'm going to um bring her in here and uh this is the first uh time we've had a a guest speaker as a as a panelist here. So um and it's going there you are. I can see uh Member Childs, thank you so much for being here. >> You can call me Stacy. It's it's fine. >> Yeah. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Stacy. Um this is your uh this is your brainchild. This is your baby. So, um would love to give you a chance to talk to us, talk to the pan, uh the participants here about your vision
005for next, why um you felt like this was a need and and what your vision for the grant is. >> Sure. Thank you. And I will keep it very brief because I know everybody on the call is busy. Thank you. If you can hear me and see me, this is definitely a day that's a dream come true for me. If you're on this call, you have no idea. I first want to just thank the TA staff that's helped me along this journey. And I want to also um recognize my former chief of staff, Mr. Isaiah Davis, who was also a co-thinker of the next program, and my current chief of staff, who is probably on the call, Dr. Selene Bhopathy, who has helped me continue to um see this journey through. I have the pleasure
006of sitting on the state board of education and throughout that process we get to tour schools all across the district and we also get a lot of data a lot of data from the commissioner and a lot of data from our um schools in our districts and a lot of times we just see who's failing and who's not who's almost beating grade level and who's not and sometimes when a school or a district is resorted down to a number, you really don't get the full story. You don't get the clearest picture of everything that happened during that school year for a district or for a campus to get a certain rating or a certain score. So after a while, I said, well, what are we specifically doing for the students that are at the most
007lowest performing campuses statewide? And I thought not only could these students take a slowed down approach where they are getting as much intervention as possible um at the earliest years of their life. So in elementary school math and reading but what can we do for the parents of those students because they're impacted by this. And then what can we do for the instructional leaders on those campuses too? Because some of the feedback that I've heard um during these three years since I've been an SBE member is that we have a lot of professional development for teachers. We have some tutoring for students, but what about us? What about the instructional coaches? What about the assistant principles? What about the principles who may be thwarted into campuses or um halfway into that story without the professional
008development and guidance they need to get them um to succeed, right? So that is where next came from. It is to primarily help students um at the lowest performing campuses statewide. Uh, it's also to help those parents and those instructional leaders at the campuses that we choose. I know five seems like a very small number to start with, but I figured a pilot program can be small enough and slowed down enough to figure out if we take these campuses and all the instructional leaders, teachers, and parents through the same process and through the same program over a year to three years. If it works, we can continue to grow it and add more campuses to this. And it's my goal that maybe in five, 10, 20 years, we won't need the next program anymore. But
009right now, I'm really excited um that you guys are joining. I hope that you apply. Um and I hope that it works. So again, thank you for letting me speak. Um here's my email address if you have any specific questions. I love touring campuses. So, if you have an opportunity for me to come to your campus, even if you're in district 4 or not, I will happily come. God bless you all. Good luck. >> Great. Thank you so much. Um much better um messenger than I could ever be. So, thank you for being here and thank you for sharing your uh vision and for your advocacy for this work. Um so um I will break this down a little bit further kind of uh um talk through some of the the key elements of the
010program guidelines and then we'll uh we'll wrap up with some next steps at the end here. So um like uh like uh members child like Stacy was saying um this is about holistic support for the most struggling campuses in in the state. Um our analysis is there are nearly 300 DNF- rated elementary campuses that are not eligible uh for additional title one support. So those are that's kind of the the niche that we're going through for in the next program. And it is designed for these uh lowest performing campuses uh to move them into um some of the highest performing elementary schools in the state. Um so how are how will next support these campuses? Um it really comes down to four main buckets that align with with uh what we just heard. Um the
011first is grantees will get intensive support around uh the implementation of highquality instructional materials and math and RLA. Um there will be research backed high impact tutoring and blended learning to provide more personalized support for students. The quarterly family and parent labs are something that I'm uh really excited about because it's not something that we support in in other uh grant programs that come out of our division. Um and this per these performance management routines to drive continuous improvement to support educators give them the tools through observation and feedback and coaching and scaffolding to make sure that they are at the top of their game and to drive uh continuous improvement as we learn and grow through this pilot. Um, in terms of eligibility, um, we're looking at campuses that are rated D or F
012in 2025, uh, that are not federally, uh, designated as comprehensive, targeted, or additional targeted. Uh, that's the niche that, um, that I mentioned on the previous slide. And campuses that serve preK or kindergarten through fifth grade. That's our, uh, those are our targets to get students, as Stacy said, uh, as early as possible. um these are this is not kind of a a part of your campus right if we're going to do next right it is the whole school so these are holistic supports to address uh low performance to transform the campus system to get better results um to do that we need strong superintendent buyin this isn't like you know one program this is a this is the whole school we need uh buyin from from district leadership on down and We need um
013uh districts that are committed to engaging parents and community members as partners in this. Um part of the part of the requirements are are bringing them in um and and seeing them as partners and and educating their students. Um so we're looking for districts that um share that commitment. Um and then the timeline for for next is the same timeline as last. So, um, the application opened on the 3rd and they'll be due on December 3rd, 2025. [sighs and gasps] Um, so this is our first cohort of next. Um, this is what we're awarding through Lasso4. U, but as you know, holistic transformation of a campus system is not a one-year project. This is um a multi-year project to really set the systems in place to do this, right? So, uh what we're uh what
014we're looking for applications for now is this first cohort for planning. Um if you if districts and campuses meet the uh planning requirements, then they will be eligible for up to two additional years of continuation support. Um that would take you through spring of 2029. And over the course of four years, um, we're this is the investment that we're making in each campus. Um, so um, you can see the the school system grant over that three-year period will be 325K to spend on staffing, materials, and technology. Inind technical assistance will not come out of the school system grant. It'll be uh through a separate contract with um, uh, one of our regional partners. Um part of being in next is having this best-in-class technical assistance and coaching for uh campus uh leaders and teachers and
015uh the additional INC kind supports to fund the quarterly parent labs uh the next convening so that the campuses and districts in this pilot can work together and share their best practices. And we'll cover uh travel as well. So I'll break down each of those four buckets of what next is all about um over the next few slides. So I mentioned that one of the main requirements is the implementation of HQIM and Arby's. By this we are defining that as IMRA approved uh materials. So materials that have gone through the SBOE's IMER process and have been approved as full subject uh tier one materials and um the expectation is that these campuses implement Arby's with fidelity. Right? The HQM is one thing, but the instructional strategies that really put the cognitive lift on students is
016a core component of making sure that the the HQIM uh delivers the results that we need. The high impact tutoring is also a component here. Um there is a a a separate part of the agency that is dedicated to uh collecting best practices and high impact tutoring. Um they've done a lot of work on outcomesbased contracting to make sure that vendors uh who are delivering that high impact tutoring are held accountable to results. And those are some of the best practices that we get to learn from and implement through next. Things like embedding tutoring throughout the in the school day or immediately before after having a certain number of uh a student to tutor ratio that is backed by evidence. um students working with a consistent tutor and aligning the tutoring to the highquality um
017instructional materials and state standards. Uh we'll also, like I mentioned, enlist parents as partners in this, bringing uh families onto campus at least four times a year for these labs to make sure that parents understand how can they help their student at home? What uh what should their expectations be for their students as they um uh engage in this transformed system at uh at the next campus? And then embedding all of that work in this continuous improvement framework like what you see here. Getting really clear on what is the what are our expectations in terms of fidelity of implementation. What should we see in classrooms? What should we see in terms of the implementation of the high quality instructional materials? collecting data um aligned to each of those things and then having regular stepbacks with
018teacher teams, with campus leadership teams, with the district to understand where are we, where do we want to be, and what are we going to do in the next period of time to get closer to our aspirations for this these campuses. So in terms of our grant scoring and methodology, um we are the the goal is to identify some of the lowest performing elementary schools in the state that are primed for this type of transformation and give them a high level of support uh to achieve great outcomes for kids. Um, so we've put these priority points together u to help us identify what those campuses are in a really objective and transparent way. So 10 points will be awarded to school systems uh with at least 5 years of unacceptable ratings. Uh 10 points to
019school systems that have already participated in strong foundations to give us the uh kind of a demonstration that these campuses are committed to high quality instructional materials. 10 points to school systems that have a fully approved teacher incentive aotment system demonstrating the commitment to changing some of the operational aspects of their district. Um 10 points to school systems that have at least one campus with an ad calendar again showing a uh a demonstration that campuses are committed to evidencebacked innovative practices. And then 10 points to school systems with a 5day school week. um that's a standard uh priority point across lasso. And so once we get all those priority points, we will rank order all of the um uh applicants by their scale score, lowest to highest. Again, trying to prioritize those lowest performing campuses.
020And then we'll map those scale scores onto the priority points that uh that I just mentioned to uh land on the five campuses that have the look fors we're most interested in and the need for dramatically improved student outcomes. In the case of a tie, we will award uh a grant to the the campus with the highest percentage of economically disadvantaged students. So definitely refer to the pro program guidelines for the full list of program as assurances and commitments uh we're looking for for next grantees. Some of the highlights here in terms of fidelity of planning. These are the things that we're really going to prioritize going into this planning year um to to award uh any continuation funding for the uh for the additional two years of support. But we're looking for districts that
021have made significant changes to their master schedule and their assessment calendar that are aligning to u the uh highfidelity implementation of their high quality instructional materials and Arby's. We're looking for a stakeholder engagement plan which will include how are you going to engage families as partners. And we're looking for um professional learning calendars that align with uh high a high degree of support for teachers and instructional coaches. Um there will be u a lot of project management here. Um, and part of the requirements of being a NEX grantee will be naming a project manager that is dedicated to Next at least 50% of the time to keep all of the moving parts together. Um, grantees will uh adopt and fully implement IMRA approved high-quality instructional materials in math and reading and commit to um hosting
022these quarterly parent labs for parents and caregivers to better understand how to support their students. Um, the biggest lift here, this is a this is an all-in strategy, right? This is a campuswide. Um, we need high degree of buyin from superintendent, from district leaders. The main lift here is going to be with the project management managers and campus leadership staff. the project manager I mentioned at least 50% commitment to next and campus leaders who are dedicated to yes we're going to uh participate in this best-in-class coaching from our technical assistance provider. We're going to um adopt these continuous improvement uh routines to make sure that all the shifts we're making are bearing fruit and that we're pivoting where necessary. And here's a a more exhaustive list of uh of all the different roles and the
023time commitment. Th this is a part of all the materials that are available on the lasso for website. Um we need some time for superintendents and district leaders to stay engaged, do walkthroughs, get data, ask important questions. The main lift here is going to be for um the uh district project manager, the campus leaders to receive individualized coaching, lead observation and feedback cycles, manage the campus level uh implementation and teachers who are getting coached uh participating in the bi-annual convenings, learning from their uh fellow teachers across the next uh cohort. So that is next. Let me talk about some next steps and um then I'll uh we'll see if we have any questions from the group. [gasps] [sighs] So uh we are in fall of 2025. The application window is open. We're in program webinars
024now. Um in the uh by the end of the month we'll start office hours. We'll have office hours for next by the end of uh of October. [snorts] There'll be a frequently asked questions document released uh by early next month. Applications are due at uh on December 3rd at 5:00 p.m. Central time. So um don't wait till the last minute there. Um we have um and then right after uh those applications are due, we'll get into scoring, vetting um our applicants. We do not anticipate an interview for next um uh the awards will be allocated based on the methodology I mentioned on a previous slide. Uh the anticipated announcement for um lasso awards is February 2nd and then um NOGAS will be issued in the spring. Um I'll say once more. >> Yeah. Uh, applications
025for lasso4 are due on December 3rd, 5:00 pm central time. Um, t TA already emailed unique application links to superintendent. Um, if for any reason you need uh a new link, then there is a form available on this uh on this deck as well as the lasso website. A PDF of the application is posted already. Um however, eleas's must submit the application through Qualrix using the unique application link and applications must be signed by the superintendent um upon submission. If you have questions about LASO in general, um office hours uh for technical assistance will be held on October 29th. Application support will be available on these two dates. The FAQ will be available in early November. And just another plug for that lasso um email address. If you have any questions about the process or
026technical assistance, um please reach out to that website or that email address. Um quick disclaimer, LASO is an informal um discretionary competitive grant process. So declines and um change requests are not advisable. If declines are requested, then they will be um considered on a case-byase basis. But the um the main thing here is to be really uh strategic about what you're applying for in LASO. Um we want to make sure that districts are applying for the grants that best meet their needs at the campus and district and campus and district level. uh so you have the the knowledge uh that to make informed decisions. Um we will have another of these webinars tomorrow at 9:30. Um same content and um we'll have our office hours on October 27th to answer any questions about next uh
027specifically. Um and then all these resources are available on the lasso website. One pagers, eligibility and prioritization guidance, the initiative select selection tool again to help districts make informed decisions about what they apply for [snorts] roles and responsibilities uh related to the um the uh information that I I provided on the previous slide. And that is the information that I have for you. Um I'm happy to stay on for um uh and answer any questions that I can. Let me take a look at the chat and um let me see if I can answer any of those questions here. There we go. Okay. Are there any requirements for specific uh tutoring providers that can be used? Great question. So other than um you know compliance with existing uh legislation and guidance from the agency around
028tutoring providers there's nothing um separate and apart from that through the next grant. Um the the main goal here is that this is the best tutoring available. Right? So I think that is that is the main guidance here just like finding tutoring supports that are based in best practices and as much evidence as possible. Embedding outcomesbased contracting there is an emerging best practice to really hold tutoring uh programs and providers accountable to the results that you need. Um these are all things that the technical assistance provider will be able to support grantees with. um HQIM in reading or math for all grade levels or just one. Um the expectation for NEX is that it's high quality instruction materials that are IMRA approved full subject in math and reading in all grade levels at the campus.
029And last question here, if a campus is on the eligibility list, but they only serve grades five and six, then they would really be a good candidate for this grant as it would be a holistic school program. Um, that is a great question. So, um, I believe on the eligibility list, if there are campuses that served any grades within pre preK through five, then we kept them on the eligibility list. I think this is a strategic question for the district. Is this something that really needs the holistic support that Next would provide? Um if so, we invite you to apply. If uh if not, if this is one grade level that could really benefit from some other strategy, then um those are those are the decisions that districts making right now. Uh, member trials, thank
030you for sticking around. Yes. Uh, we love to bring you in. >> I put a a screenshot that I got from our superintendent. If I just can read it. We aren't under federal supervision because our closing the gaps rating was a C, but we are under state level supervision because of our 3F rating. Are we still eligible? Um, let me make sure I are they currently D or F rated on the state accountability system. >> Correct. >> And they're not comprehensive targeted or additional targeted, >> right? >> Then I believe they should be eligible based on those two criteria. If if that superintendent is not seeing their campus on the on the eligibility list, just have them reach out to me and I'll um I'll I'll make sure to double check that. Okay, great. >>
031Those are the questions. Oh, where do we find the eligibility list? Um, Donna, maybe we can uh copy that link in. It is on the lasso website um under uh under next and we will um we'll make sure to send that out. Um, we'll see if we can grab it now and put it in the chat. Um, as we hunt that down, I'm happy to stay on for uh a few more minutes if anyone has any additional questions, but let's go ahead and um let me go ahead and stop recording. And um thank you so much for your uh for your interest in Next. Thank you, Stacy, for being here and and sharing your vision for for next. And thank you for your advocacy. Again, um we look forward to seeing everyone's applications.