001All right, welcome to the school improvement curriculum and instruction support grant webinar. This session is part of the lassto cycle 4 and focuses on a campus level grant designed to strengthen curriculum and instruction in school improvement campuses. We're going to walk through the purpose, eligibility, funding, and how to apply. But first things first, my name is Amanda Galvin and I will be your presenter today. I am excited to walk you through all the details of the school improvement and curriculum and instruction support grant or or as we call it SICSG and answer as many questions as possible during our time together. I'll note that there's several of you on the call today and just a few people answering questions. So, we're going to try as hard as we can to answer every question, but the
002likelihood of this going into a frequently asked questions document um after the webinar is pretty high. So, go ahead, put your questions in there. if they're not answered today, we will for sure answer them at some point. So, go ahead, um, find that Q&A button so you know where to answer the where you can ask the questions. Um, but if any of your questions, if you have any follow-up questions, you can always email us at that email there at the bottom, lift.ex.gov. We can answer them there as well. So, here's our agenda for today. It's short and sweet. We're going to start with a quick overview of lasso cycle 4. Then we're going to take a deeper look at the school improvement support grant. We will close with key dates and how to apply and
003next steps. So what is lasso? Let's dive into that first. Lasso stands for learning acceleration support opportunities. This is a single streamline application that gives districts across Texas aotments and inind support. Lasso cycle 4 offers over 500 million in estimated services and supports. There are 15 initiatives available and districts only need to submit one application to be considered for multiple opportunities. Lasso cycle 4 is anchored in four strategies. Curriculum instruction, educator training, more time, and innovative school models. These strategies are designed to help districts accelerate student learning and improve outcomes. The grant we're going to talk about today, SICSG, that acronym I mentioned before, falls underneath that curriculum and instruction strategy. So, you can find that there. Like I mentioned before, there are 15 grant initiatives in Lasso this year. This table gives a high-level
004overview of the Lasso portfolio, but we're going to zone in to just one in particular right here underneath the curriculum and instruction umbrella. Um, this one right here, the school improvement instru I'm sorry, school improvement curriculum and instruction support grant, that's a mouthful, so we're calling it SICSG, is just one of the UN initiatives that's underneath this umbrella. It's campus level grant with up to $200,000 per campus with an anticipated of 50 awards statewide. So, let's just dive in. What is this grant? We're going to start with the why today. Why is it why are we giving a support grant out to Texas? So, here are some data here. The case for HQIM for highquality instructional materials starts with student performance. As of 2025, only about half of Texas students in grades through 3 through
0058 are reading on grade level and nearly a quarter do not meet the approaches standard. These results show why campuses need access to rigorous TEICSS alliance materials and strong implementation support. The same story goes for math. Math performance has not fully recovered to precoid levels. About onethird of our students do not meet the approaches standard and only around 40% are on grade level. This reinforces the urgency for highquality instructional materials and align systems to accelerate learning. HQM has lots of benefits. It benefits students by ensuring access to rigorous grade level content. But it also benefits our teachers by reducing the time spent on creating materials from scratch and allowing them to really focus on teaching effectively meeting students where they are rather than what to teach. Teachers are spending a lot of time creating materials.
006They spend 7 to 12 hours a week curating, creating, trying to locate the materials. Yet they only have 3.75 or right at four hours for planning. SICG helps shift that balance by providing readytouse highquality materials so teachers can really focus on that instruction. Instead of building lessons from scratch, teachers use HQIM to focus on internalizing content, understand the lesson deeply, and planning how to best deliver it. HQIM provides the what so teachers can really focus on that path. HQM is especially important and really critical for school improvement schools. It helps students who are furthest behind make academic progress. Supports really novice teachers by reducing those planning burdens and provides consistency across classrooms. In schools with high teacher turnover or student mobility, HPM really supports those initiatives. So now let's dive into what is SICSISG. Well,
007at a high level, it's a oneyear campus level grant. So I know we have another grant underneath our portfolio that's a three-year, but this one is really focused on oneyear campus support level. It's targeting our most needy schools, our Title One campuses that are in school improvement and supports highquality instructional materials improvements. It awards up to $200,000 per campus. The school improvement curriculum and instruction support grant is a one-year campus focused grant. Like I mentioned before, it's designed to strengthen um all of the campuses and it targets those title one campuses identified in CSI, ATS, TSI, and supports the implementation of highquality instructional materials. It's really thinking about those eligible grade bands and each campus can receive up to $200,000 to ensure students have access to rigorous TE saline materials that teachers have um to
008support that need for strong implementation. So let's talk about the eligibility now. So there are two points to eligibility here. So it applicants are title one campuses identified in those um supports I mentioned earlier CSI, ATS or TSI. um they have to remain C title one in the 2026 through 2027 school year. But there are two ways to qualify. First is that your campus plans to adopt and implement a state board of education approved highquality instructional material that's not Blue Bonnet learning. So thinking about the list that's on the SBOE, if there's a product out there that your campus is thinking about adopting that's not Blue Bonnet, this would be a grant that would be that would work for you. Second, the campus is implementing curriculum instruction improvements, but it's in a grade level where
009the SBOE approved list does not exist yet, meaning materials have not gone through the EMR review process. Both pathways ensures campuses access funding to strengthen curriculum and instruction, whether they're adopting an approved HQ or just improving instruction where approved curriculum is not on the EMR list yet or has not gone through the EMR process yet. Superintendent and CEO um sorry awarded campuses must meet several asurances. These include securing leadership approval, implementing eligible HQM or instructional approve improvements and contracting with one approved provider, submitting required reports and participating in TEALE activities. So take a moment to read through this these asurances just to see if um your campus will can meet these asurances um going forward in the process. Applications are scored using a tiered system just like other lasso grant applications. When we look at
010each of these priorities we're using priority tier 1 through tier three. Priority tier one includes CSI campuses followed by ATS and TSI. Within each campus, within each tier, campuses are ranked by star scores from the lowest to highest. Additional factors like calendar length, feeder patterns may influence prioritization. On there, we note that there are 165 days. So we so districts that have 165 days or more are prioritized. The reason why is HQIM scope and sequence is typically built on a 165day instructional calendar. So we really want to put those supports in place for teachers to ensure that they have the the time allotted to support students with really implementing HQM with fidelity. Implementing implementing um SICSG requires a time commitment from key roles across the system. Superintendents will provide strategic oversight while district and campus
011leaders will engage in planning, coaching, and performance management activities. Teachers will participate in training and implement instructional practices aligned to HQIM. These commitments ensure the program delivers impactful meaningful and sustainability. So, if you take a look at these roles, it gives an overview of what each role will have in this process within the grant. But know that if you are a smaller district that may not have this role, you may have another person in your district that has a different title that wears that hat and they will also be um a part of the grant. Each campus participating receives up to $200,000 and at least 70% of the funds will go to an approved provider. There are no cost share requirements and we anticipate about 50 awards to be statewide. Applicants will contract with one
012approved provider from the lasso cycleore list. This includes education service centers and vendors. They've all gone through a vetting process and the provider list is posted on the lasso website and will be updated as needed. So, like we've mentioned before, they've gone through a vetting process. So, these are really high quality um providers that we know will give the best service to these campuses. If your district is awarded this agreement and when you do contract with a provider, you must include some specific language in the contract. So, I'm just going to give you a moment to read over this slide just so you know the types of um language that you need to put into the contract. So our path forward as you move forward just review the eligibility and prioritization guidelines and just determine
013if this is a good fit for your districts or your campus. Begin by identifying those campuses and potential providers. Preparing early will really ensure a smooth application process and our window is currently open. So let's talk more about what that timeline looks like. So, looking at this timeline, the application window opened October 3rd and it closes December 3rd at 5:00 p.m. So, that's a key date to remember right down on your calendar when I set a path forward to work with your instructional team, instructional leaders. You want to make sure that you're doing it within this timeline because on December 3rd at 5:00 p.m., the application closes. After applications close, scoring and interviews will run through January and awards are anticipated February 2nd. TA email.unique link applications to superintendent back on October 3rd. If you
014need a new application link, you can request that on the lasso website. There's a specific form for you to fill out. Remember, the application must be submitted through Qualrix using that unique link and signed by the superintendent to be accepted. If you need to request a new application, please find that request form on the lasso website. Like I mentioned before, if you have any questions, we encourage you to attend office hours for one-on-one support. We're going to take all the questions from today and put them onto an FAQ that will be posted on the Lasso website probably towards November. You can also email lasso tea.ex.gov if you have any application specific questions. If you have any programmatic specific questions, right here at the bottom is our contact email, lyft tea.ex.gov. We're happy to answer any
015questions that you need to help you through this application process. Lasso uses a competitive grant process. Change requests and declines are not standard and will be considered on a case-by case basis. A quick note that Lasso operates on a competitive grant process like I mentioned before. So applications windows will open again on October 3rd. A unique link was sent and it will close on December the 3rd. We're going through program specific webinars. So if you went through this webinar today and you have somebody that you think would um benefit from this information again, we will post again at in a later date in October. You can find those all on the LASA website. Go ahead and visit that last four website to familiarize yourself with any of those other 15 grant offerings like I mentioned
016before and attend some of those webinars to have a better understanding of what um is is um grant assurances and program guidelines um for those specific grant opportunities. There are some additional resources that are available on the lasso website. the initiative one-pagers, eligibility and prioritization documents, initiative selection tools, and the roles and responsibilities. Those are all great insight tools to help you determine if this grant or other initiatives within LASO are a good fit for your school system. That concludes our webinar today. Thank you so much for joining us. Like I mentioned before, you can post questions that you have in the Q&A. We're going to try to answer them today, but most likely we'll post those in the FAQ moving forward. or you can email us on this um this email that's on the
017slide right now list.ex.gov. So, thanks again for joining and we hope to hear from you Yeah.