001Uh here you have the school action fund team joining you for this webinar. Uh we have Chris Dowit the director of the division of system support. My name is Laura Hyatt. I'm the manager of the school action fund team and Gabby Monreal who is a district support specialist. Uh you have our email here the school action fund at tea.t texas.gov. And here's the agenda. We'll be going through an overview of lasso cycle 4, the application process and timeline, a deep dive, and the next steps. Here's a few FYIs. Please submit all of your questions during the webinar using the Zoom Q&A. We will not be answering any questions during the Zoom uh during the webinar. Uh so we strongly encourage you to submit your questions. The FAQs will be released no later than November 3rd
002and updated weekly. So, we want to be able to answer everybody's questions as fully as possible. So, please submit them in the Zoom Q&A. Uh we will have uh this recording today as well as another webinar tomorrow. And so, the slides and the recording will be posted on the Lasso4 cycle website once all of the webinars have been completed. And remember that uh we also will have uh follow-up questions that uh that you can send to the email address at lasso tea.ex.gov for any follow-up questions. So let's jump straight ahead into an overview of the lasso cycle for uh where we are. So biggest lasso cycle uh $500 million in estimated services and supports. We have 15 initiatives to support learning acceleration and innovation and one more time only one application to access funding. And
003in this cycle we are going to um include in the portfolio and focus on four of the learning acceleration strategies and you have them here. curriculum and instruction, education and training, more time and innovative school models. So all 15 initiatives will fall under one of these four. On the next slide, you will see just a really quick um outline of the 15 initiatives. And yes, this print is really tiny, but again, the recording and the slides will be uh put up on the lasso portfolio. But this gives you an idea as far as where the 15 initiatives will fall under uh the four learning acceleration um strategies. And so we have a lot to cover with you and we are going to now go into the school action fund deep dive. And for that I
004am going to pass it over to Gabby Monreal. >> Thank you. So, as Laura mentioned, we're going to start with a deep dive um including an overview of the school action fund. The school action fund theory of action is that a strong planning process along with fidelity to its implementation will result in improved student outcomes and an increase in the number of high performing schools. The school action fund or SAF awards grants that support whole school strategies districts use to increase access to highquality schools, meet community needs, and address chronic underperformance. The SAF North the SAF grant northstar is for each campus to be ARB rated within two years of implementation, helping districts to provide more students access to schools they need, want, and deserve in their communities. Planning inputs are focused on an ESF
005aligned school design plan and a performance agreement that outlines model elements, flexibilities from district practices, and ambitious student outcome goals. Implementation outputs are focused on highquality instructional materials, research-based instructional strategies, and school model components. We're going to go into the SAF essentials. Um, and before jumping into eligibility, let's cover some basics. A school action is a whole school strategy districts use to increase access to highquality schools, meet community needs, and address chronic underperformance. The school action fund is one of the main ways TEA supports campuses to plan and implement excellent school actions. There are four school actions that we support in SAF. Three of those actions will be available in staff cycle 10 in lasso 4 and they are restart a chronically underperforming campus, create a brand new campus, and reassign students to a higher
006performing campus. To be eligible for staff in cycle 10, campuses must be title one serving and either comprehensive support, targeted support, or additional targeted support identified. The inclusion of additional targeted support identified campuses is new for cycle 10 eligibility. Also, to be eligible for either a restart or create new award, a campus must not have received a previous SAF grant since 2019 2020. For a reassigned grant, a campus may either have never received a SAF grant before or been a prior grantee and is now going to be closed. This option is not available for current staff grantees as in those who currently have planning implementation or continuation grants in cycle six in cycles 7 8 or 9 lasso 1 2 or three. The first year of the staff uh cycle 10 grant is awarded through
007lasso 4 process. Subsequent phases of the grant are awarded based on successful completion of all grant requirements. Applications for each subsequent phase of the grant opens in the spring. So if you start in SAF cycle 10 lasso 4, you stay in SAF cycle 10 lasso 4. You do not then become a part of lasso 5 as a SAF grantee in cycle 11. These are the support and resources included with a SAF grant. On the next slide, Laura will show you the anticipated campus direct grant amounts and staff technical assistance or TAS in kite support which TA pays for. So, as Gabby mentioned, we have three actions that are going to be supported in SAF cycle 10. And here are the amounts uh that are planned for awards for the first phase which is approximately 15
008months uh from March 1st 2026 through June 30th 2027. So for the restart action the planning awards will be $185,000 and that's going to be the same also for create new school and reassign. So across all three actions, the planning amount is going to be the same 185,000. That's the planned award. Uh and then on this slide, you also see that we've included what the planned amount will be for school action fund technical assistance providers. And remember that this amount uh is paid directly by TEA and is not deducted from the direct to district direct to campus grant. And then for grantees that apply for a street implementation grant without a planning grant, you have the amounts here that is uh that are the planned uh award amounts for the different actions. You will note
009that we are not planning to award any implementation grants for create new schools. We really want to make sure that for any applicants who are applying for create new schools that there is a strong planning period for those grants. So if we move on to the next slide, we're going to talk about the commonalities across all school actions. And so regardless of all school actions andor models, all school action fund campuses include the following key elements. Most of these should be familiar. Um, effective school framework that the your school design plan needs to be aligned to that. The inclusion of highquality instructional materials and researchbased instructional strategies. Those are defined and outlined in the program guidelines. Uh, also a strategic use of instructional staff and times. uh there are examples such as adsy or blended
010learning and also a campus leader with a track record of success. We have found that these five uh commonalities uh lead towards better uh outcomes for students and more successful school action fund uh campuses in the long run. So let's move into a deep dive about which actions are available in cycle 10 along with the governance types and models and for that I'm going to hand you over to Chris Dowit our division director. >> Hi everyone thank you for your interest in the school action fund. Um like Laura said I will be talking through all the actions governance types and models to see how they all fit together. So the first question if you're considering applying for the school action fund is to select the action that's right for your district and campus and community
011needs. Um there are three actions we support and kind of click through that. Um restart and on the next slide we're going to talk through why might these be the right fit for you? What are some questions you could ask? So I'll just describe them here and then Laura will talk through some considerations. Um so first for restart um we're going to replace the campus leader and the majority of teachers and incentivize the highest performing teachers to implement a new researchbacked turnaround model. Um this is really the the bread and butter of the school action fund. These um high u hightouch highintensity turnaround strategies. Um, create new is the second action where we're going to launch a brand new campus with an evidence-based school model. And the third action is reassign. Close a low performing
012campus and reassign students to A or B rated campuses. So after you consider the action um you for restart and create new, you need to consider the governance type. Um these uh restart and create new could be run as a district-run campus directly run by the district or as an 1882 partnership campus. And uh Mary Awalt on the line will talk us through uh what that entails, what a Texas partnership is further on in this webinar. for the reassigned model. Since the campus will close, there is no governance type. And finally, uh you'll select the school model. We'll walk through some real life examples of each of these school models in an upcoming section. For districtrun restart campuses, the only model that the school action fund supports this grant cycle is ACE, the accelerating campus
013excellence model. um uh which has a great track record for campus turnaround. For districtr run create new campuses, the district will choose and the only option is advanced STEM. This is the model that has the the best track record through the school action fund. Um for partner managed campuses, the model is really dictated by the district needs and the partner that is ultimately selected. Um, for turnaround partnerships, they must meet certain requirements to qualify for turnaround benefits. Namely, the organization selected by the district needs to have managed multiple campuses for multiple years and have a track record of success. This makes sense when you're thinking about these are campuses that need restart. They're F-rated campuses um, in some cases chronically underperforming. They need a partner who knows how to get the job done at that
014campus. For innovation partnerships, they have more latitude in terms of the um school model and the partner selected and it really depends on the district as authorizer and what they're looking for in a partner. Um but ultimately this partner must be this organization must be ready and willing to fully operate the campus on day one. And as you can see in the uh bottom right corner, um some of these options come with additional per pupil funding. 1882 or Texas partnerships in in many cases bring additional revenue. Smaller districts might not generate as much revenue as larger districts. Resource campuses, which I'll talk about in a in a subsequent slide, will also come with additional dollars to support the campus. Um, and it's actually the same um, funding methodology as 1882. So, smaller districts might not
015generate as much funding as larger districts. And now, Laura will talk through why certain actions might make sense depending on your district needs. Thank you, Chris. So, now that you know what is available in school action fund in cycle 10, we want you to think about what aligns with your campus needs and your school systems context. So, the actions again are restart a chronically underperforming campus that needs new staff. So we have some considerations for you to think about the next action for creating a new school. Maybe you have a need for a new highquality option, especially for students who may qualify for title one. Or you may have a chronically underperforming campus and or a school with low enrollment and you might be right sizing your school system and so the reassign action may
016be your best option. So, I'll give you about 30 seconds to take a look at the considerations and think about whether or not something here resonates with you and whether or not a specific campus within your school system comes to mind. And to Chris's point, he has made uh a note in the chat that really the only SAP action that could result in a pause in accountability sanctions is a restart turnaround partnership. So something for you to keep in mind. So these three actions have shown the highest ROI especially in terms of student outcomes. They are challenging to implement well. However, we have seen that when they are implemented well uh again the result for student outcomes is better than others that we have seen uh for students. So, I'm going to start off u
017by giving you a short example and then turn it over to Chris to talk about resource. So, to give you an example of a restart, a successful restart action in a district-run ACE model. This is Carver sixth grade STEM learning center in Lancaster ISD. Carver had been a consistently underperforming campus and because it's the sixth grade campus in the district, whatever happened at Carver really impacted their secondary results for middle school as well as high school. So they really wanted to do the ACE model to incentivize high- performing teachers in content areas to come to the campus and then assign student needs students with uh teachers based on student needs and teachers uh strengths. And so after one year of implementation the campus has not only moved to a B rating but they've also earned
018two distinctions. So again, the ACE model may be challenging, but in terms of student outcomes, we really do see a high ROI. So I'm going to hand it over to Chris again to talk about resource designation. >> Great. I I mentioned on a previous slide that certain campuses may earn additional revenue through the resource campus designation. So um this is a quick explainer on what that resource designation is. Um designated resource campuses receive additional per pupil funding as long as they meet certain requirements including implementing the ACE model having an ad calendar or additional days school year calendar and having a certain percent of teachers with a teacher incentive aotment or TIA designation. Um, there are other requirements, but those were the main ones. As you can see, there's a nice fit with the ACE
019grant support that the school action fund provides. So, any uh eligible campus that receives an ACE grant will also receive support to apply for this designation by the end of the grant period and thus sustain the model um as long as they continue to meet the requirements. Um, this funding again for larger larger districts it tends to be a little bit more could be u 900 to $1,000 per student. Um, in some cases up to $1,300 per student um as in in perpetuity as long as you uh continue to meet the requirements. Um, so the other governance type that we mentioned for the restart action is the 1882 Texas partnership. And for uh restarts um you're really looking at a turnaround partnership. Um so this example um shows uh Midland ISD who has partnered with
020um an organization to run Sam Houston Collegiate Prep. um which was a chronically underperforming campus that is now rated an A through that partnership. Um the uh as as as you can see they went through a call for quality schools carefully vetted and selected that partner and deolved autonomy to that partner to run the model run the campus uh as they see fit to get the results they're getting. If the campus did not get those results, then the authorizer would be able to to take action on that on that partner. Um, but the the best way to avoid closing a low performing charter school is to not open it in the first place. Do all the strong vetting on the front end to make sure you get the partner who's ready to get the job
021done. Um so now we're moving into the create new action and we'll start with the the districtr run create new actions. Um for districtr run create new actions grantees name a principal fellow to participate in a year-long cohort-based professional learning fellowship in addition to receiving a one-on-one coach. This new school design fellowship is best-in-class professional learning and coaching that sets up that school leader to run a great school on day one. That support continues through uh the continuation years uh if awarded um the the continuation grant after meeting all planning milestones. Um and now we're going to look at some examples of new schools in action and I'll pass it over to Gabby. you Chris. Uh so here we have two examples of districtrun advanced STEM. Uh here you see how one district uh LEC
022ISD has used the school action fund to support the creation of a couple of new schools which are both doing very well. So, Luck ISD shows you that this is a successful strategy. We will go through a few slides to show you examples of how you might use the create new action in conjunction with a brand new building, an existing building and empty facility and a building that is being underutilized. So here we have some examples of uh utilizing a new building. Um for total different reasons, Texar Canana ISD and Ector County ISD open new schools, hired principles early and staff supported this process. You can see here um the initial problems that they started with, their solution and the result. Here we have examples utilizing empty buildings. I'll give you a few seconds to
023read over these examples as well. Um, these examples of empty buildings being turned around into new schools in Aldine ISD and Nectar County ISD. and here are some examples of underutilized buildings. Um so in these two examples the two buildings that were being used as schools but they were significantly underenrolled and were used to create new school options for their communities. So on the next few slides Mary Awalt will take uh will talk about the Texas partnerships as another option. >> Hello. Um so I will give you a high level overview of the steps necessary and um uh to go through the Texas partnerships SB182 process um if you choose so to do so. So under a Texas partnership, um the district is the authorizer. Um they look for a high quality experienced operator um
024to enter into a performance contract. Um where the partner has responsibility for staff, curriculum, calendar, assessments, and other school level decision making. Um you'll hear the word um initial, final, and soul throughout this process. So, it's intended, as Chris explained, to to hand over to the um to the partner these responsibilities. Um the district is responsible for holding the partner accountable for academic and financial performance. And this is laid out in a performance contract. And also, as was mentioned, there are two types of partnerships, innovation partnerships and turnaround partnerships. Um, now the benefits that come with Texas partnerships include additional funding which isn't for all districts but for some. Um, this is additional FSP funds and these additional funds continue while the partnership exists and is not a grant program. Um, there's also accountability exemption
025benefits. um approved turnaround partnership schools with an overall F rating will receive in most cases a two-year exemption from specific accountability related sanctions. Um the school years in which a pause is enacted, it depends on what number uh you are on of consecutive consecutive unacceptable ratings. Um we have lots of resources out there available for you. Um, probably our most important is the Texas Partnerships website, which contains, um, guides, handbooks, um, examples of benefits applications, um, and a preK partnerships guide, and lots lots of lots of resources. And, um, please give me a shout if you want to set up time just to visit about this or for me to answer some questions or review documents. And my email is here at the bottom. Okay. Yeah. So on the left hand side is an example
026timeline. You can see that in a perfect world this is a really long runway but it is um variable depending on your needs and we will work with you as best we can. Um for Texas partnerships benefits that begin in 2627. I'm going to give you a rundown of some of the deadlines. So um we have uh a series of three webinars that uh potential partnerships uh districts are and part and operating partners are required to attend and we have uh we have a series coming up next week and um also October 28th through the 30th and the the um the sign up you can register for these webinars on our website. Um, Friday, de December 5th is an important date to remember. That is when we need to receive the mandatory letter of intent
027um, from districts. Um, and also if a district is developing their charter authorizing policy, partner application, and scoring rubric locally, they need to let us know at least five working days prior to the time that is released or by Friday, December 5th. This is to give us a chance to look at it before it goes out there and make sure it meets all of our requirements. And the very last uh deadline for the Texas Partnerships Benefits application is Tuesday, March the 31st at 5:00 p.m. >> And great, thanks Mary. Um so let's look at some examples of innovation partnerships in action. Um these are some examples that could be created through the school action fund. Um, so this first slide shows how Fort Worth ISD partnered with a a local organization, Neighborhood PreK, to develop
028a preK hub that has um that operates multiple child care centers around the city and effectively braids funding together, matches local federal funding for prek with the um the state uh K12 funding for uh for for Worth ISD, infusing u more funding and capacity into the the prek system and bringing those three and four year olds under the Fort Worth umbrella. Our next slide here shows how San Antonio has partnered with um institutions of higher education in their community to strengthen the ties between higher ed and K12 by partnering with Alamo Colleges to operate three schools as 1882 partnerships. These are early college high schools um that provide students with um access to to dual enrollment um and a really clear connection with uh with a higher ed institution that they're partnered with. Um another
029example is another prek uh partnership in Plemston at Phillips. Um they are partnering with their education service center region 16 um to uh to operate a prek for three and four year olds now serving over a 100red three and four year olds in that rural community. And our final action is the campus reassign. So um this means that campuses will close and uh the campus will close and students will be reassigned to A and B rated campuses. Um if awarded continuation funding after the planning year the u uh continuation funding will follow where the plurality of students went as long as that campus is a title one campus. Um so that's the important thing to know about the school action fund supports title one campuses. As long as um students are reassigned to A and
030B rated Title One campuses then the continuation funding will will go to support that campus. Um two examples here. Komao Monasuri in Fort Worth ISD um was suffering from declining enrollment um and low performance and Fororth decided that um the best thing for students was to close that campus and uh reassign those students to higher performing schools in the area. So they did the tough work of holding back seats at these B-rated campuses so that students can could continue their um their education there. Ectctor County undertook a a pair of school actions. They actually um did a a school closure and then repurposed that facility for an early uh childhood education center. In both cases though, the main thing is that we're helping students train up in terms of school quality. Um so one uh
031final thing to keep in mind with the reassign action, there is a commissioner rule that dictates how and when a district may close a campus. Um Texas Administrative Code 971066 if you are interested. Um, districts may not close a campus that has already earned its fourth acceptable rating. So, if you could earn your fifth rating, so you're on UA4 and you could earn your fifth, you may not close that camp, the district may not close that campus. Um, some other considerations, the grant requires, as I mentioned, students to be reassigned to A and B rated campuses. And as long as that campus maintains an A, B, or C rating the following year, the campus, the reassigned campus may close. But per the rule, if the receiving campus earns a DRF rating, then the reassigned campus's
032rating will follow the plurality of students. Um, and because of this, the receiving campuses that are title one may receive continued support through the school action fund after the planning year to ensure that the receiving campuses maintain and exceed expectations. Um, so where can you get uh help with additional questions? So, um, the Center for School Actions is is a group that TEA supports to help districts navigate this complicated world of school actions. Um, there are office hours specific to each action that are linked here that you can uh go ahead and register for and have some thought partnership with the Center for School Actions. CSA staff will also be available for one-on-one meetings to answer school action fund questions. Um there also playbooks for ACE advanced STEM um and uh and other models on
033the Center for School Actions website. There also partnership resources that uh that Mary mentioned um that are linked there as well. I'll hand it over to Gabby who will uh talk through some highlights of the program asurances and requirements. Uh, but make sure to read those program guidelines thoroughly for anything that we're not covering here. Um, so here are some requirements for create new actions for district 1. Uh, a district run action must select a campus leader by June uh 5th, 2026. commit to the campus leaders full participation in the new school design fellowship program beginning summer of 2026. Uh new schools may also be created through the conversion from a district-run campus to an innovation partner managed school. Uh please note that campus phase out is not provided by the 2627 school action fund
034planning and implementation grant. Uh here we'll take a moment to read these assurance highlights most of which are familiar. New are the SAF FOI review and evaluations. SAF FOI reviews are really formative walkthroughs completed by SAFTAs. This will be the third year that SAFTAs will be doing these. What is different now is the tool. SAFTAs will be using the same tool that the independent third-party organization currently TTU, Texas Tech University will be using for the SAF FOI evaluations. TTU will complete SAF FOI evaluations during the fall semester of year 1 continuation and implementation grants. uh to support the coordination at the district level. Fiscal chiefs will attend at least two meetings per semester with the TEA staff team. Here are some additional requirements for all actions. Um pay close attention to the dates here. by
035May 31st, 2027. Uh so before everyone leaves for the summer, performance agreements or in the case of partnerships, contracts must be signed and uploaded to the appropriate share file staff folder for each grantee. Board of trustees must complete their training by gate three of the first year of the grant, whether it is a planning grant or an implementation grant. This training may be one of the three options. SAF board of trustees training, SGS board of trustees ongoing coaching or lonear governance. If you apply for an implementation grant, you must already have planned the action prior to an award in March 2026. If you reach the oral interview phase, we will ask about this process. And now I'll pass it over to Laura. >> Thank you, Gabby. So we know with 15 initiatives in the bundle
036of lasso 4, uh there's a lot to select from. So uh again, we want you to carefully think about what you are selecting um as you peruse the um options that you have. And so all of the initiatives have created something similar to what you're seeing here to give you an idea of what the time commitments uh would look like for different stakeholders uh within your school systems. So we really want you to not only take a look at what it would mean if you selected to apply for the school action fund grant but also any other um grants as well. So, just wanted to put this here for you to take a look at. And again, when the uh slides are um posted on the website, not just for staff, but for all of
037the initiatives, you can really take a big picture look at what this would mean for your school system. So, moving on, we're going to take a look at the grant scoring and methodology. Uh some of our priority points especially have changed. So want to take a look at those. Um I'm going to give you about 30 seconds to take a look at these and then I will talk through and highlight a few of them. So some of the priority points are similar to before. We have the low achieving campus. Uh the economically disadvantaged campus. Uh we are adding um points for campuses that have previously been awarded a strong foundation's implementation grant. So really doubling down on HQIM. Uh we are going to be focusing and awarding uh points for school systems that have either
038a stateapp appointed board of managers and or at least 5 years of unacceptable accountability ratings. Uh we're also going to be awarding uh priority points for school systems with a fully approved and implemented TIA system or ETIA system. the enhanced TIA system. Uh the next one uh is uh pretty uh familiar to everyone for school systems that have an office of innovation or transformation. And then we will also be um looking at school systems that have uh implemented ads calendars as well as those that have uh at least 165 school days. meaning that we're really uh taking a look at supporting school systems with those that have fiveday school weeks. So uh those are the priority points for staff cycle 10. Moving on uh the award methodology similar to what we have had for se
039several cycles uh for any campuses uh on behalf of which uh school systems apply. We will confirm that they are title one serving that they are comprehensive targeted or additional targeted and remember it's an and title one serving and the federal designation um and then based on priority points it'll be the top 50 that are invited to the interview. any ties throughout the um uh awarding methodology and scoring process will be based on the higher economically disadvantaged percentage. Um for new schools and campuses that have not yet been advi been identified, we will use the school systems average. Um and then to determine finalists, we want applicants to meet at least 80% of the overall points. Um and then when it comes to awards, we plan to award funding in the order of as we've
040said before the highest ROI actions and again that will be restart then create new then reassign. Um it's said throughout the program guidelines I think maybe two or three times and this has been at least for the last couple of cycles. So, this isn't new either, but uh across all actions, it's a maximum of six awards per school system and a maximum of four awards per action per school system. And just to let you know, the application when you're actually going through the application, the application is created in a way to actually not allow you to select more than. So, it will stop you from doing that. So that's kind of a fail safe for you. So just to give you two examples. So uh maximum of six awards across all actions. So let's say
041you apply for four uh restart actions and then you try to put in three create new actions. The application will not allow you to do that because then you're trying to apply for seven actions. And so you will get a warning that you're trying to go over the six awards. Uh and then for the second one, the maximum of four awards per action. If for example, you try to apply for five reassign actions, the application itself will not allow you to do that because you're trying to apply for five of an action, which is more than four of any one action. So again, the application itself is set up as a fail safe to not allow you to do that. So this is just a repeat of what's in the program guidelines. The only thing
042that I'd like to highlight here is just that if the campus leader has been identified and selected, it's really beneficial to have the campus leader included in the interview. Um we have found that the earlier the better the campus leader is involved in this process. Um so we really strongly encourage that they are included in the interview. Going on we are usually asked who are the anticipated uh approved staff TA providers. Um these are the ones that we anticipate based on the actions that actions and models that are available in staff cycle 10. These are the staff TA providers. we anticipate would be matched to any uh grantees. So uh again these are all uh long-term SAFTA TA providers. If we move on to the next slide, these are um again in accordance with recent
043executive orders. This language is included in all um program guidelines and so you will be able to spend some time reading this uh included for all initiatives. So closing and next steps. Um this is just the uh award timeline. Uh just to let you know, anyone invited to uh an interview, the uh the application window closes on December 3rd. We are expecting to hold interviews between December 8th and December 19th. We're hoping to actually end December 18th. So that will give you an idea as to the window of when we are planning to hold interviews. The ultimate goal is to award um to uh announce awards uh really early in February. You see here on February 2nd and then NOGA's hopefully to be sent out um in March through May. The earlier the better. So
044uh that is the game plan here on the part of the agency. Uh remember uh moving on to the next slide. Remember that again by 5:00 p.m. Central Standard Time. So, really want to say that again. 5:00 p.m. CST on December 3rd, your application must be submitted. Please don't wait until the last minute. Um, we have had applications come in late because of different time zones or because of technical issues. So really want to um stress that uh if you have an outage, if you're on a different time zone, that can impact when your application is submitted. So please don't wait until the last minute to do so. Um there will be office hours for staff specifically and so they are going to be um here listed here and there's another webinar tomorrow and Chris
045already mentioned that there will be specific CSA center for school action webinars as well. There's also an email address lasso tea.ex.gov gov as well as the school action fund email address. And so please uh send in any questions that you have. We will include them in the FAQs and the FAQs will be updated weekly um and then posted again on the lasso for website. So please make sure you check that regularly. Change requests again change declines and change requests are not advisable. uh because it's not a typical competitive process. So, if the clients are requested, they're going to be considered on a case-byase basis and this could also raise your federal grant risk level in the coming year. So again earlier when I said please be really careful when you're considering which of the 15
046initiatives that you are applying for. Think of the time commitment think of your uh school system needs and uh what you are really needing versus potentially wanting. The next slide really gives you an overview of um what's happening in the timeline. you see the program webinars and the link is there for tomorrow for registration. Um some suggestions on next steps as far as visiting the website and some additional resources that are available. Everything from a one-pager, a prioritization guidance document and a selection tool and some roles and responsibilities. And one more time, here is some more information for you regarding or a repeat information regarding some more uh sources for you um as far as some more uh office hours that will be available from the center for school actions. And uh I understand that
047Chris is responding to some of the questions in the chat. So let's see what he has already answered. Um >> great. I'll just um answer some of these live and thank you for all the uh questions that folks have put in the chat. We will also add these to the FAQ, but since we have time, we can uh talk through some of these that we have clear answers for. Um so the uh could a district apply for an implementation school action fund grant if we have already done internal planning for a restart? Yes. Um there is the ability to kind of go straight to implementation if the district has already planned with a technical assistance provider um and can demonstrate their readiness to fully implement the model on day one of school year 26. If
048that's not going to be the case, if they haven't worked with a technical assistance provider or if they are not going to be ready to fully implement in school year 26, we strongly suggest applying for a planning grant um to to get all of that um done and the campus would open in school year 27 in full full implementation. Um, if applying for a reassigned school action, what are the required grant activities and fund usage? Do the funds follow the majority of students merging into the uh receiving school community? So, I'll have to get back to you on the um the grant activities and fund usage if they're not in the program guidelines. Um but the funds um would follow the the majority or if there's no majority the plurality of students merging into the
049receiving campus as long as it is title one um and and would be able to receive these funds. U what is the required timeline for a restart? This information is on the program guidelines. Apologies for the lack of clarity there. Um, it might be worth uh joining one of these webinars and having some one-on-one uh time with a member of the Center for School Actions. Um, but basically we're talking about two timelines. A campus that is ready to go in school year 26 would could apply for an implementation grant. A campus that is not ready to go in school year 26 needs that planning year uh would apply for a planning grant. plan in school year 26 and implement in school year 27. And uh yes, the technical assistance providers for the school action fund,
050Laura mentioned, uh these are matched by TEA. They're not selected by the district and I believe they are all listed in the in the sample there. Laura, anything that you would add that I missed? >> Uh there's a couple other questions that I am seeing. So, one is if applying for an implementation grant for restart, can grant activities and funds begin use as soon as March 2026 or is it limited to the upcoming school year 2627? So, the grant would start March 2026. So, yes, uh activities and funds can start then. Um and again remember for implementation grant you must have already planned with a um an approved uh staff technical assistance provider and um be ready to actually implement. Uh another question if a campus is closed and students reassigned what is the length
051of time that the building needs to be vacant before we could create a new school within that building? Um that is generally uh one full school year but that is also something that we can uh clarify more uh in the FAQs and I would suggest the same thing that you attend one of those two create new webinars so that you can get further details uh specific to your question. Uh does the federal designation labels also include reidentified and progress categories within the federal labels? Yes. It just if it's comprehensive, it's comprehensive. If it's targeted, it's targeted. So yes, it doesn't matter what comes after that. All right, I think we have answered all the questions and we will include those questions in the FAQs anyway and add um any additional information uh that we have
052and any clarification uh as far as when you were asking about timelines. Uh remember it is to a certain extent on a case-bycase basis what the grant is about as far as the grant funds. The grant uh is a one-year grant. So that would be from well technically about a 15-month grant March 1st 2026 through June 30th 2027. So hopefully that clarifies a little bit on timeline as far as when you may actually use the grant funds as opposed to a specific timeline for um a school. So we will remain here uh at least a few minutes past 10:30 just in case there's any additional questions. But for right now, the uh we've been through all the information in the webinar. When the slides are posted, there's a few additional slides in the appendix just
053for some additional context. Thank you again for joining us. We will have our second webinar tomorrow afternoon. If you have any additional staff members in your organizations, your school systems, your ESC's, please ask them to join us tomorrow afternoon. And in the meantime, thank you for your interest in the school action fund and we will go ahead and end the recording for this morning. Thank you again.