001going to go ahead and get started. Um, welcome to the blended learning grant lasso cycle 4 webinar. Um, we are going to talk through all things blended learning grant. Um, with us today myself, my name is Brian Dorne and I'm the director of expanded learning models. Uh, Mike Strange is also here. He you will hear predominantly from him today um, as he talks through ins and outs of the blended learning grant program. Um on the agenda, I'll give a quick overview of the lasso cycle for application process and timeline and then Mike will take us uh through blended learning grant deep dive. We'll close out with the next steps. Um if you have any questions, please feel free to use the Q&A feature. Uh we will get to what we're able to today. Um and
002then also recognize that some of these questions we might need to uh take back and answer on our FAQ to make sure that we have everything 100% correct for you. Um, so, uh, rest assured, we will be taking a look at all those questions that are popped into the Q&A feature, whether we answer it live or not. Uh, the slides and the recordings will be posted on the Lasso Cycle 4 website after all the webinars have completed um, sometime in the next week or so. And then you can email lasso@ tea.ex.gov with any follow-up questions. So, I'll kick us off with a quick overview of lasso cycle 4. Lasso is the learning acceleration support opportunities consolidated grant application. Uh this year we're excited we have 15 different initiatives that support learning acceleration and innovation. Uh
003and this is representing uh approximately $500 million in estimated supports and services uh across these 15 initiatives. And all of these can be accessed through one application uh to help simplify that process um through the uh lasso psycho for application process. Um, lasso itself focuses on four key learning acceleration strategies. Curriculum and instruction, education and training, more time, and innovative school models. So, each of the 15 different initiatives within LASO um will help you address one of those different learning acceleration strategies. We're of course here focused on blended learning grants. And so, if you are interested in the overall lasso4 portfolio portfolio, I encourage you to take a look at this slide. This will be posted on the Lasso4 website as well. Um, and you can help get a a quick um understanding of what
004each grant opportunity is offering. Uh, the duration, how much is the actual award and the number of estimated awards that we have available. Um, so kind of a one-stop shop there for you. Um, so before we jump into the blended learning deep, I want to set the scene from a data standpoint. Um, and just taking a look at some of the student outcomes that we've seen across the state recently. Um so first for uh reading I believe we have first um based off of star performance level um only about 50% of our grade 3 through eight students in Texas are reading on grade level uh and we've seen uh instead of steady growth over the last couple years we've seen kind of a stagnation of that progress maybe a slight growth but but overall we
005need to be doing a little bit more to help our students make sure that they're reading on grade level. Similar story for math um where uh on the next slide there we go um we haven't yet recovered to pre-COVID levels um and uh honestly we still have work to do even from pre-COVID levels and so these uh components really help us understand like there's work to be done and these are the the founding um uh data points that serve as our why for why we're looking at different learning acceleration strategies through lasso and one of those strategies conveniently enough is bling grants and so I will turn it over to Mike to talking us through that. >> Thanks, Brian. Uh, yeah. So, for blended learning, um, we we kind of the tried andrue version, if
006you will, for uh, for folks is just understand like trying to meet the needs of all students is a challenge. As we know, uh, being teachers or former teachers and that kids come from various backgrounds and so depending on their their knowledge gaps for that standard or that subject, they could be in different places. they're either advanced, proficient, on the fence, or struggling. So depending on um the curriculum, uh where you're at that day depends on where those kids are um in that in that lesson. And so trying to find a way so that knowing where kids are one and then differentiating that content for kids where they're at um can be very very difficult. And so ultimately uh what we're trying to provide here with the blended learning grant is to avoid this teaching
007from the middle which is in that traditional uh um whole group lesson instruction. How can we get to each of the kids' needs um knowing that it's just one teacher? So it's nearly impossible to do that by themselves. And so to do that there needs to be a a change in the system. And so we're going to talk about that and then dive a little deeper in a second. But ultimately for blended learning, we address the biggest part is in the curriculum. How can you tie the tier one curriculum uh with some sort of a diagnostic or or regular formative assessment to then inform the tier 2 curriculum for that uh immediate retach or on demand instruction and independent study for kids. uh and and in addition to that then also looking at uh knowing
008that other things have to change within the system. The master scheduling so that kids actually have time for that tier 2 retach independent study um training and coaching for for teachers and um and instructional uh staff as well as a maybe an overall staffing pattern which we'll talk about with strategic operations here in a second. So just a a quick uh reminder about what blended learning is for us here at TEA. One, it's it's blending two things. One is the online instruction. Um so a quick diagnosis of where kids are differentiating them within the lesson and giving them that immediate or instant um um feedback for adjustment in real time. And then two is the face tof face with the teacher. That the best part of the teacher is that human uh flexibility that that
009human interaction with kids um both from um like an emotional standpoint but then also like really diving into what is it that they need know next and knowing that each kids a little bit different in that. So putting those two things together is that uh blend learning curriculum and what that looks like for us from the tier 2 side that software side is allowing the software to do a lot of the heavy lifting for the teacher in terms of the diagnosis and the customized pathway because again they're just one one person and they they got a lot going on in the classroom. A lot of kids that need needs and they can't do all those things themselves. If you allow the software to do some of that um mastery and differentiation, then the teacher can
010quickly take those uh groupings of students and get them what they need in that small group time. Ultimately looking something like this. Um this is kind of an idea of like a a lab rotation which we'll talk about later on today. Um but knowing that I have that room uh group of kids that I need to get small group uh target instruction with and then those other uh students can be on the software getting their differentiated uh pathways. Now in addition to that we also have a second cohort called strategic operations. which we'll talk more about in a little bit, but that's thinking through if you are a district that's already been through blended learning and you've you've gotten down the the classroom model of tier 1 and tier 2 instruction and we're trying to
011think of of a bigger impact we can make. How can we use a blended model to address um a larger operational shift issue? And we have three approaches with that. One is how can we get more kids to that teacher leader uh for that grade level. Two is maybe we we want to do more of a mentorship to uh to build capacity of our younger teachers or teachers that haven't been certified yet and working on that pathway. So that co-eing mentorship um or that schedule and staffing optimization especially in your smaller districts where there may only be one third grade math teacher. Uh so thinking through how can we um kind of create some more uh staffing positions with a blended model approach so that um we can give that that teacher flexibility and and
012in all of these approaches uh the the biggest uh uh focus here is getting impact a larger impact for that teacher leader your your veteran teachers your best teachers uh with that targeted uh instruction from the uh tier 2 software Some results from this previous school year are very promising. Um on the right side is our RLA, our reading instruction. So the the nonBL campuses there, a little over 8,000 campuses versus just our BL uh RLA campuses, 88. And we've see um pretty good growth between uh from from 24 to 25 school year. And the same in math. In math, there's actually three charts here. um the nonBL campuses versus our U blended learning um MIS campuses, math innovation zone campuses. U positive growth there. And then even on that third one, our math innovation
013zone designated campuses. Um we'll talk a little bit more about that at the towards the end of this webinar, but those are ones that uh have proven to do all the work of the grant and show software fidelity. And so there's no surprise here that they had the largest growth out of out of everybody. For research purposes, uh we use Texas Tech. Um have had them for several years now and they came out just I think two years ago with the policy briefs. So for those that are interested, you can go in and find uh those policy briefs there um through the through the webinar or you can just find them online. And uh four four briefs that have shown us not only the positive effects for blended learning um from like a student experience
014and teacher experience, but then also um data from coinging that you know everyone had a dip, but there was even a a larger uh positive influence through blended learning. So for our the rest of our time here, we will talk about um the grant in one of two ways. Either the academic cohort or the strategic operations cohort. And then at the very end, we'll say like there are some things that happen in both. Um but for the academic cohort, this you're going to select in your application one or the other. You cannot do both. for academic. These are for districts um that have not previously done blend learning through TEA and are looking to launch and design a high uh quality blend learning model through either math, reading or both uh and using uh HQM
015material for strategic operations. These are only open to our districts that have previously done blended learning through um through TEA and are looking to do a larger um operational shift, leveraging their blended model and thinking through how can we optimize our CA campus staffing models for teachers ultimately giving us the biggest bang for our buck uh academically for our students. So, academic cohort, you'll see that green icon as we go through these slides here. And as you review them later on, that's how you'll differentiate between the two criteria. Uh, these are for folks that have um previously uh completed or currently in lasso 3, strong foundations um implementation, as well as lasso 2 and lasso one. Our scoring and prioritization is here. Um, we're starting with lasso two folks. So they've already done a full
016year and now into their second year. Lasso three are just starting and then lasso one. We also have a few other uh priority tiers um as we work down the list until um till our funding uh runs out for the academic cohort when we're awarding. And then our overall grant timeline uh is here. It's uh it's a this lasso 4 grant is actually just a one-year grant, but it does provide then opportunities for a continuation year um in 2728 and a second continuation year in 2829. So, a possibility of three funded years uh assuming that the at end of each year that the uh grantee has satisfactory grant requirements whether it be um health score like overall just running through the grant and doing the things that you need to do for the grant side
017as well as that software fidelity. We'll talk a little bit more about that later. Uh as as far as your overall um scaling out this first year, the 26 27 school year, um you'll pilot with at least three grade levels between K and 8. The second year, that continuation year one, um you'll fill out the rest of the grade levels. So you'll be fully K8 for math and or reading. And then year two, continue on uh with that participation. At the end of each year, you have that ability for that MIS designated status. Again, um we'll talk more about that at the end, but ultimately, are you doing everything for the grant requirements as well as the software fidelity? To give you a little insight of what this would look like um this next spring
018once the the grantees are awarded, um we will go through a rigorous fidelity of planning process. will walk you through all the different steps of starting from overall vision into the different infrastructure and scheduling and then ultimately your your um professional learning for the summer so that teachers and and leaders are ready to go on this 2627 school year. And then in the end uh what we look for then once you start to implement uh the big two things that we look at is one did you have enough time and our students are using this so the tier 2 software with fidelity in your blended model. Two we have a monthly observation rubric where um campus leaders can give feedback to teachers and kind of see where we at in our progress. And then ultimately
019at the end of the year, we have a BL defense where um as a district, you can say here's here's our goals at the beginning of the year. Here's our artifacts leading up to it and here's where we're at right now. We still have some room for growth and here's where we think year two will take us. The other cohort is of course strategic operations. Again, the the the shift and focus here is more at a operational shift level. So, one of the pieces of data we we've um used from our prep program, strategic staffing, is this one here. And that is um pretty um important to look at and notice that our uncertified teachers from way back in 2014 15 till now has increased dramatically. Um and and school districts, it is what it
020is. you you need to hire good adults and sometimes they're not certified, but you got to get them in and then get them certified. Uh and so we feel like in the strategic operations, this is one of those ways to um introduce these teachers that maybe pair professionals, maybe they've been in the school system, but they just didn't get their certification before, or they're a brand new teacher coming in and they're an emergency certified. um or maybe they are certified but they're new at first year and they're still trying to figure out um how to work their way into the the school system. And so what we want to provide then is a a new way to think about operational shifts and staffing um for for teachers ultimately going away from the status quo which
021is you're now the teacher in classroom 4. You've got these 100 kids. Here's the curriculum. will be around to help you. Opposed to now thinking through the strategic operations model of there's still this teacher leader, but now they're going to take um the bulk of the tier one instruction and now you as the associate teacher may be only in charge of a smaller portion of the lesson. Maybe just the collaboration time or the independent time. Maybe it's just the like in a lab rotation you're the software. um you're still a part of the daily instruction, but you're just not taking that heavy um burden of the full learning cycle. And again, there's a couple different approaches for this that we'll talk through. One is um reaching more students and that target instruction overall, uh the
022teacher leader taking more of that role where the associate teachers are there. Uh but again they're they're not doing that tier one instruction. The co-eing me uh mentorship where that tier one instruction may be happening together with the associate teacher in a larger u classroom. And then that staffing and scheduling optimization uh where there's more some sort of a rotational uh shift between students or teachers um so that you're able to free up that um free up that teacher later to go in to other classrooms. to see a a better view of this. Um we have aligned this with strategic staffing. Um they have several models. We've only aligned it one per each of our approaches here. And so for the reach for more students, we've aligned that to that team teaching approach. And you
023can see that link uh there in the deck. I do want to note that there's no requirement to be a part of the strategic staffing initiative uh for this. We're just using this as an alignment um kind of educational purposes to kind of get a visual for what this could look like that's already happening at TEDA. Second is that uh co-eing or approach where for strategic staffing we we align that to the pair teaching um model there and you'll see that video again on the link. ultimately thinking through more of a mentorship uh model to to build capacity for teachers that are there or young teachers that are coming in. And then that um staffing optimization is very similar to the release time support from strategic staffing. Thinking through um again how can we be
024more efficient with the allocation of all of your FTEES criteria um for strategic operations. These are grantees that have previously done one of the blended learning uh grants. So lasso two last year whether math or reading lasso one from the year prior math or reading or any of our previous um grantees from prior to that. I do want to make that um one more at the bottom there that rationale like we want to make sure that we have districts that are very familiar blended learning understand how tier one and tier 2 work in concert with each other before you start making these other systematic shifts can be very difficult to try to do both at the same time. So um that's why we only open it up to these folks here. Scoring criteria. Let me
025get my face out of my way there. Here we go. scoring criteria. Um so board of managers, we want to open this to the districts that have the biggest need first. Um so board of managers are there if they want to apply. Um are then we we move down to think through again proving that as a district you have worked out your blended model and you know that you can meet the software fidelity uh master schedule before we making these larger operational shifts. Um so the way we we do this is there is a um attachment that you'll submit and in that attachment uh based on the um the responses you put in there we'll have a percentage of how many students uh are actually participating in blended learning versus all of your campuses points
026are there and then secondly out of those blended learning participating students how many of them are meeting percentage-wise meeting high fidelity usage um so you'll report that in the attach attachment. There'll be a screenshot for that and then um we'll follow up with the vendors um if needed. Secondly then uh for our finalist out of that we'll have oral interviews um and in those oral interviews there we'll have a couple segments that we want to go through. One is alignment to the overall strategy the grant to the district strategy uh understanding of the operational shift and the requirements and plannings that'll be needed. Um, what presence of existing practices and policies do you have that would align to this operational shift? Um, support from district leadership and schoolboard. That's extremely important. As well as the
027awareness of this implementation and any sort of challenges that might come about. Um, and then we do have a requirement that you engage with a technical assistance provider. So, thinking through what's your history been with that already. Um, so out of all of those things, um, you'll have those points there and then we'll award accordingly. As I mentioned earlier, uh, in that attachment, this is just an example of what that attachment looks like. Um, so we give you a scoring attachment to use to for yourself to make your own calculations and you can just submit that along with the screenshots from your supplemental dashboard. Um, we don't have a requirement on which sort of products. It just has to be in that time range from last year. So that would be this previous spring uh
028January to May of of 25. And again, you can kind of see the example what that would look like listing your total enrollment and then total number of students participating in blended learning. Um and then how many of those students are meeting the metric and those percentages there. Biggest thing to include in your dashboard is noting that date range, the grade levels that so that they match the grade levels that you're submitting for your grant as well as the um total number of licenses versus the total number of students that are meeting the usage. For the timeline here, same timeline as academic, but the implement implementation is a little different. So this lasso 4 is only for the lasso 4 funding period for this first school year 26 27. you have to pilot um for
029each of the campuses that you list in your application or number of campuses you list in your application, you have to have at least one grade level per campus. We do not dictate which grade level that is. Again, that'll be part of the planning process this spring of noting um where the need is for you to have this operational shift. And then in the uh continuation year one, if your district meets all the grant requirements and you get uh continuation funding, um you will then implement that by grade band. So if you're an elementary campus K5, you'll have at least two grade levels at math or two grade levels at reading or both. And then of course middle school 6th through 8th. Um and then you'll have that same implementation for year two if you
030um meet grant requirements to get um continuation for year two. MIS designation for those in the math uh cohort of strategic operations uh applies as well as it did for academics. And then a few things that fit within both cohorts here. Um so just want to list those out. One is uh application funding. So for those that have previously been in a blended learning, we again we we've kind of changed it up a little bit to give you up to three years of funding now instead of the two. So that could be more money um that you can put towards um your district and implementation. However, um you do have to show at the end of each year um that you're meeting the grant requirements and software fidelity usage. And so that's what this uh
031essentially is is laying out for you and the dates there that we'll we'll put those there for you. The biggest thing is that you'll get your lasso four funding in year one, year two 75% of that and then year three 50% of that because ultimately we want uh districts to be able to do this program at fidelity but be able to scale it out on your own. So by the time you get to year four, it's now just a part of your school system funding all on your own. No longer needed uh for the grant. The grant is here to launch and start, not to continue on um for for many many years. So these are your three years and we'll slowly take um um um push money away so that you're able to take
032on more of that role. So by year four, it's now part of your school system. And then as I mentioned there, this is just a form um funding formula. Uh we do have it slightly different between academic and cohort. Both of them have an initial amount uh that we give and then an amount per campus that you um um apply for up to five campus maximum and then money per student um up to that certain maximum up to for each campus. Um so you're more than welcome to apply for more than five campuses, but typically your maximum award will probably somewhere cap out around that five campus maximum award there. Uh and then again, academic grantees, your maximum award is 180,000 for this first year. Um strategic operations, 310,000 because you do have other things
033such as stipens for teachers that need to be added to it. Year two, same amount that you'll have for year one just at 75% and then year three, uh 50% of your year 1 award. As far as things in the funding formula that are allowable, um the big things is your online curriculum implementation, whether that be the the tier one or the tier 2, your design and implementation support. Um so thinking through maybe having um trainings or having a a technical assistance provider helping you through this implementation will have approved ones in the um the SAPL list. your licenses obviously. So any of your tier 2 licenses, we'll talk about the um ones that are allowed here in a second. Personnel um the biggest part for this is you do need to have a project
034manager that is able to dedicate 50% of their time for the grant. This is a big part of the grant especially for strategic operations knowing there's a lot of moving pieces and so there's going to have to be someone that can get from campus to campus and support those teachers on a weekly basis. Um and then additional implementation supports whether that be devices, infrastructure, other things that you need to make sure um you have a a uh functioning grant. Overall commitments, I mentioned that just a second ago about the manager, but overall commitments there on the on the left. um things such as your master schedule, stakeholder engagement plan, um the BD uh your BL model implementation, monthly classroom observations, all these things will be listed out and we'll talk through in our planning process
035this spring. Um your project management um should be someone that can has the flexibility to get from campus to campus to support um but really shouldn't be someone in the superintendent's office. So the superintendent themselves or an assistant superintendent that finds themselves, you know, there's there's a lot going on in the district. They can't really pull themselves away from that. We have noticed over the years that districts that tend to struggle um sometimes it's because they they've just taken on too much and you're in a role that really doesn't give you the time and flexibility to go and support at the campus level. Um online curriculum. So that the tier one and the tier two obviously and then for your operational shift. um thinking through that overall largescale implementation. So what that means for the
036role and commitment it's two one for both academic and strategic ops is a project manager 50% of their time making sure that the each parts of the grant are happening on a weekly basis and then two in the um strategic operations there is a steering committee that you'll um make um make a group this spring and then meet on a monthly basis starting the 26 27 school year. And there's there's more than this obviously. Um you you can see all the rest of in the program guidelines. These are just kind of the big um highlights here. Your asurances. Um a few of the things that we'll put at the beginning of the year. One is a technology audit. It's kind of a landscape analysis to think through as a district what are all the softwares
037that we are paying for right now uh or this previous school year. realizing that we may not even know that there's licenses that we're paying for at a district level that um that other campuses are actually paying on their own. We've seen that happen before. Um typically this last year we did the technology audit an average was anywhere between 50 to 80 um licenses that a a district was paying for and oftent times really only 10 11 12 of them were actually being used as they were supposed to be used at the full campus level or district level. many times um you you might have a a teacher that that was able to get a through a grant a district license but then they're the only ones using that thing. So thinking through those things
038there to start the year off uh in your planning and then your fidelity of planning execution deliverables once we get into the school year. Uh and then and then one of the big assurances is you'll see in your application you'll have to choose a BL model that you want to use whether that be a certain grade level a certain product um tier one product tier 2 and then a time commitment. So committing to one of those BL model options is a is a big assurance there. And again, you can look in the program guidelines to see all the rest of them. And mentioning that BL model commitment. Um, so as we've gone through this and we've done a full year of strategic operations last year, one of the biggest pieces of feedback was like we
039really a district really needs to see how does this um dance between the tier one and the tier 2 work. Ultimately, the the biggest piece that we've noticed is the time commitment. making sure in your master schedule that it lists out the time. So, starting with lasso 4, we're going to have you opt into that early. Now, we can make adjustments as we go, but the time commitment will remain the same uh on there. So, for our academic cohort, you can see here um and again in your program guidelines, it's listed here. For K5, uh math, uh it's Blue Bonnet, uh a supplemental product. We're waiting for IMRA to get approved this next month and then we'll give out all the approved products through EMRA or ratio waiver list or Matt supplemental. Uh but it's
040a 90minute time block. So what that looks like for uh the classroom is you do your 60 minutes of blue bonnet um with Fidelity and then immediately you have a 30 minute um lab rotation. We'll show you an example of what that could look like where you'll then spend your time with that software product. As we mentioned earlier for teacher uh target instruction, half the kids, the other half the kids or the other group of kids on the on the tier 2 supplemental 68 math same way that the times are a little bit different there. 45 minutes we want at 15 supplemental. Um we have a high school algebra 1 which is really exciting. We haven't really done high school before but we do have for algebra 1 now. Um 60 minutes and then for
041K5 reading um this is a very large chunk of time. blue bonnet asked for 120 minutes and so then immediately having that 30 minute block there. So we want to be upfront with this on this because we know that it's sometimes in our mind we think yep we can do this and then we actually get into the master schedule into next year we go oh actually we can't do this. So being upfront now and choosing a model getting with your leadership team and your campus leaders to determine what works best for you and if this is doable for you. For strategic operations much the same. um we're a little more flexible between the tier one and the supplemental. Again, noting cuz the main focus here is on the overall operational shifts. And so then that
042those tier ones could be could be a little bit more flexible there. So when you apply or your superintendent applies, they will choose one of these models and and again these are are linked into the program guidelines as well as the application to look through and really think through which one fits uh our district best. Uh the other thing that we listed is just an a visual representation of what that 30 minute lab rotation could look like. Obviously, you could do more than 30 minutes, but 30 minutes is probably the minimum to make sure that you can get through that rotation each day. Um and so in this example here, we have a 90-minute lesson. 60 minutes was with your tier one blue bonnet, and then the teacher and students move into that lab rotation.
043Um you have two options in that. Option one is I want to see all of my kids today and so I'll do two 15minute rotations. We can do that every single day of the week. Or option two is I'm only going to see one group today, but I'm going to get 30 minutes with them and then I'll rotate tomorrow um and see 30 minutes there. We've seen districts that have done that on say like Tuesday's Thursdays and then Wednesday is a flex day and then Thursday's Fridays or Monday through Thursday and then Friday is that is that flex day to get to kids that you know they're still having trouble. And then as always ending with that exit ticket. Sometimes that exit ticket there is at the end of the blue bonnet lesson. Sometimes it's
044the end of the of the lab rotation. But this is just a visual for you. Um the state approved vendor list. We've got um many things that are already approved. There's a few things that are still in limbo as we're waiting for um our technical assistance uh to finish up their applications as well as our IMRA, but we'll have them all done uh before um um before the um grant starts obviously. And then again noting that um we listed out between the academic and the strategic ops cohort. The biggest difference is there at the bottom right the required uh technical assistance providers that's only for strategic operations is a requirement. It's uh it's um highly recommended for academic but not a requirement. And then the uh other thing to note for you um we do
045have this language here uh for Texas u if you do contract with a technical assistance provider or a supplemental this language has to be in there. But a deep dive for our digital supplemental products. Again, this is um not an exhaustive list and it may change uh based on our our EMR results, but this is what we had last year. And so, just to give you an idea of what this would look like, um if you opt into a math cohort, um you would choose a product based on the grade levels. We have some districts that would just choose one product, K through 8. Um you can do it by grade band. We had some some districts that did it by grade band. So, we would have one product for K2, a second product for
04635, um, and maybe even a third product for 68, noting that that's at the middle school in a different campus. The other thing you want to see here is that on the metrics, it does change between minutes and mastery. Um, but these are our fidelity metrics that we have from last year. And then, uh, lastly on the left there, um, we have some that, u waiver list as well. So for those that are doing the ratio waiver list part of the uh the house bill there like this is you can get more bang for your buck kind of two for one if you're using it for blended learning as well. Um but we'll have the more updated version uh with with grades and metrics uh before the the grants u get rolling in March. Same
047thing for reading. Um these are our three that we've uh had for last year. Um grade levels and metrics. You'll notice again the metrics some go by minutes as well as for air they have um by mastery as well. Air is one of our ratio waiver list folks. Um and then just to note we we did have some districts or can have districts that um use a supplemental reading product that's not one of these three uh through a a district selected rubric. So we'll provide you the rubric, you'll review it and um and you can um add in another uh product that way as well. And as we mentioned at the very beginning, we talked about that math innovation zone uh designation. And so one of the benefits to that is we know that u
048it's sometimes difficult oftentimes difficult for a district or a campus to start something new. And what that means that you might have a drop in in this case star scores for the state of Texas. And so to kind of give that relief to try to innovate and not be afraid of of those scores possibly dropping as you're getting early into that implementation. Uh for districts that meet all of the requirements of the grant including both like um the the grant implementation itself as well as the software fidelity. Um we have the math innovation zones uh law. It's a law written in in statute. Therefore, um districts um a campus is not subject to interventions under the state accountability system for the first two years of designation. Again, you have to earn that designation every single
049year, but you will get two years of designation um for that. Now, noting that this is a three-year grant, so if you meet designation the first two years, you will not get the pause the third year because you got it the first two years. Sometimes we see a district that gets it the first year, didn't meet designation in the second year, but did meet it the third year, they'll get their second pause in their third year um of the grant. So, but that's there to to make sure that we're able to innovate and um and take those risks for kids. So, moving through uh the path forward, Brian, you want to take those over? >> Sounds good. Thanks, Mike. Um so, path forward. Um on the timeline here, we have our webinars going on right
050now. Uh the application will close on December 3rd. We'll have uh sorry I skipped a couple things there. FAQs published in early November. Um and uh some office hours. So encourage you to attend those if those make sense for you. Um we will uh be doing the scoring betting and interviews uh the in December through January and then our anticipating award announcement in February. um and then have all the backend work with NOGAS and and that type of stuff that will go through this spring. Um let's see here on the next slide. Um a couple things to call out. So if you're looking for the application, superintendent were emailed a a specific link, a unique link to them on October 3rd. Um and uh if you need that resent, please use the link in these
051uh in these decks uh to request that or on the lasso4 website. A PDF of the application is posted on the website as well. Uh so we encourage you to take a look at that ahead of going into Qualrix just so you have a sense of what you need to answer going before jumping in. Um however, the application does need to be submitted through Qualrix. You can't submit a PDF application. Then finally, applications must be signed by the superintendent in order to be accepted. If you have any additional questions, please attend office hours. We have uh blended learning grants specific office hours on October 30th from 11:00 to 11:30. Um there's application support on October 27th and November 3rd. Uh we'll also have uh updated FAQs posted on November 3rd and um you can email
052any application process or technical assistance uh with the application questions to lasso tea.ex.gov and then any grant specific questions you can contact blended learning at ta.t texas.gov. Uh one note on change requests and declines. uh the time to think about if this grant is for you is now. Um it's not after you receive the grant. So uh changes and declines after the granting uh is actually done is not advisable. This is a competitive process that then inherently means that the person behind that district who was awarded um should have gotten that award if you uh did not accept that award or would not have accepted that award. Um, so we want to make sure that we're we're having the best bang for our buck, the the best use of our dollars, the limited resources that
053we have um for these grant scenarios. So, make sure that you have done the thinking on the front end. Um, and then it also could ultimately raise the school systems federal grant risk level uh in the coming year with with declines. Um, finally, uh, just a overview of some of the things that we were just talking about. Application window closes December 3rd. Program webinars right now through the 24th. Um there's uh the website to go to. Uh we encourage you to share out these opportunities to other folks in your school systems. Um and then resources available on the website including best fit guidance, grant one pages and then eligibility and prioritization guidance document. Um so check out the website, reach out with any questions to both lasso and blended learning grant. And other than that,
054thank you very much for joining us today. Um and we um are excited to uh see folks on office hours and see applications coming in. Thanks.