001Well, good morning. Welcome. And uh I hope you're here today to learn about this great program that we have available to school districts uh to implement the AP computer science principles. The grant is available in the lasso 4 opportunities. My name is Kay Humes and I'm the statewide coordinator for advanced academics. I want you to know um that I'll manage the a the lasso4 grants if you decide to apply. I'll be a support for you as you implement this course uh with these grant funds and um I hope that you consider this as an opportunity to help your students excel. Let's look at our agenda today. We're going to get a look at an overview of the lasso 4 cycle, the application process and timeline. We'll do a deep dive into AP Computer Science Principles
002course and look at next steps. Please submit all your questions in the Q&A. We'll be collecting those for an FAQ document that will be published in a week or two after all of the webinars have been given. You can you will have access to these webinar slides at the link here for the lasso 4 cycle website. And if you have questions about the program, about the application process, uh anything about the lasso, this lasso grant, please email those to lasso at tea.t texas.gov. Let's jump right in with an overview of the lasso4 cycle. This learning acceleration support opportunity has one application and there are 15 different initiatives in this application for a total of $500 million given to our school districts to help them enrich the lives of our students. In LE lasso4, there are
003four initiatives. Curriculum instruction, education and training, more time, innovative school models. The AP computer science principles grant falls within the acceleration and rigor for curriculum and instruction. in the portfolio for lesson 4. You'll see in a highlighted uh red box here is the AP computer science principles grant and um its criteria. So let's get into the deep dive for what is this AP computer science principles grant. The first thing I wanted to share with you is the program authority for this grant. The state legislature has provided $1,292,550 for each of the fiscal years in the bienium. That's 2026 and 2027 to implement the advanced placement computer science principles course at your high school. If you notice with this, this is the direct language from the writer that appropriates the funds. It is the intent to
004assist school districts in the state in making an advanced placement computer science course available at each high school in the district. If you'll notice in the second paragraph, it does say that funds may be only used for technology, teacher training, and other expenses related to offering this AP computer science principles course. kind of a a graphic overview of what we in uh want for this grant. We have 1,292,550 to award. We can award up to $100,000 to a district depending on how you plan to use the funds and that will be entered in the application. We anticipate up to a 100 school systems could be awarded funds and these funds are intended for the implementation of an AP computer science principles course for the 2026 2027 school year. That's next year. We'll look at the
005purpose of this grant and it's to provide students experience in a computer science pathway. Computer science careers have really become in high demand with high wage opportunities and this opportunity will allow us to prepare our students to explore those career fields and uh prepare for perhaps a career in computer science. This slide shows where we have been uh since 2020, a three-year trend. Um actually there's four years here on how many students have taken the AP computer science principles exam and you can see there's been a steady growth as we've gone through these four years. the students who are eligible for free and reduced meals hit meals that percentage has remained pretty consistent with the growth of the exam and I think what's amazing is uh the number of threes and fives that have been
006earned on the exams that two continues to grow and here in the state of Texas if they had score a three on the exam that is an award of college credit at one of the state institutions I do want to share with you about um the eligibility for the criteria. Um every school district, every independent school district, every charter school is eligible to apply for this grant. If you've had a grant before, if you already have the AP computer science principles course in your district, if you're starting brand new, even if you don't have AP right now, you are eligible for this grant and the funds can be used to help produce this program. We do see here the number of districts and campuses that have been um have had AP grant participation. and we'd
007really uh like to see an increase in that number if it's possible. Just a general kind of overview. It's a rephrase per purpose, but the purpose is to spread the idea of computer science and offer more experiences in that computer science career field. We want to develop leaders by providing essential tools and multidisciplinary opportunities. Uh, this grant can provide funds to do whatever you'd like to help improve the success in an AP computer science principles course. And of course, this is for a course that will begin 2627. This is a really good fit for school districts who would like to implement the AP computer science principles course. for districts that do not currently have AP opportunities and want to, it gives uh an opportunity to build a CTE pathway in computer science principles. The money
008is here to purchase equipment, supplies, do teacher training, all of the things that you need to do uh to help you implement this course. The program guidelines list all of these um asurances and you must agree to all of them to be granted these funds. The first slide here shows many of the TEA expectations and this is not only for the school district, but it also applies for those who work with you, whether they are technical technical assistance providers or uh vendors that you might contract with uh for all the different areas that you might need them to ensure the success of the program that you wish to have. These asurances are are continued. These are more programmatic asurances. Uh and some of the things that we require here at TEA. We ask that you
009correct the information and ask PED about your district. Um that all of the contact information is there. We ask that you regularly submit your expenditure reports monthly. Monthly is preferred. Um, we ask that you contract with a provider. I'll share a slide that has a list of providers for the AP computer science principles course, but there is always um, and some of them charge for it, others do not, some require a contract, others do not. You'll be able to pick the one that best fits the needs of your district. We ask that you collect data and report on performance and evaluation measures periodically. We ask that you be very diligent in recognizing that these funds can only be spent on expense items for implementing the AP computer science principles course and we ask that you
010administer the exam to your students at no cost. All of these again are listed in the application that you can find online on the lasso4 website. In this slide, I wanted to share with you kind of what the time expectations are. Give you a little uh heads up in planning. If you're a district that does not currently have an advanced placement program, you might need to take it to the board to get approval. Um so I put the board members, superintendent, district leaders. Uh the superintendent must approve the grant, must sign it, and submit it. the um board members would have to consider whether they wanted an AP program in the district or they wanted AP computer science principles whatever um however the district plans that but it's wouldn't take a lot of time campus
011administrators certainly would uh be working more creating the master schedule putting out information to recruit teachers and students ordering your classroom equipment and supplies Then managing you'd have to submit classroom uh receipts to TEA for reimbursement. Um go through the classroom, see what's happening and uh report evaluation and performance data to TEA on a quarterly basis. teachers. I put 50 hours here because for the summer, a teacher does need to attend training. And I think 50 hours probably is a minimum of what they would spend during the summer in preparation to get ready for this course. Attending training and then doing a little pre planning. They do have to complete an AP audit with the College Board in order to get approval to teach an AP course. Um, and then I think probably about 12
012hours a week and preparing lessons and teaching those lessons, grading papers and keeping track of all the the grades and the things that they need to keep track of for data gathering and collection. I want to share with you how these applications will be right. There are questions within the application. There are five questions and each of those questions is provided 10 points. So if the school system does not currently offer AP courses, there would be a 10 point uh 10 points given to them. If you do not currently offer AP computer science principles as a course, you would get another 10 points and so forth. As we move down that list, it does ask you to uh how many classes or campuses and campuses are you going to implement the course? What is your
013plan? And it does ask you uh if you're going to increase the number of teachers that are going to be trained. This gives us some idea of the program that you're planning to have. There are priority points if we uh that we will give and those are for school systems in the top quartile of economically disadvantaged students. Um school systems that are classified as rural and school systems with a board of managers. In the event of a tie, the level of AP participation and the higher the level of economically disadvantaged uh will have some play will will decide the break in a tie. I will tell you though, we've not had a tie in the past two grants, so that's something to look forward to as well. um this slide and I want you to
014look at what's in the green uh bar there. In accordance with recent executive orders, if a grant requires districts to contract with a provider, then include this following language in the contract. So that responsibility would be with a district and the contracts that they decide to enter into. If you must contract with a vendor for the curriculum or the teacher training that you wish to um consider, this information needs to be shared with them and it needs to be part of that contract. So let's look at what we're expecting to gain from this opportunity. Um we're going to collect data and we're just going to see where we're at. Where do we have growth? what are we seeing happening? Uh we'll also look at the challenges and the successes that you have. These are the
015data points that we'll be collecting. Number one is um the number and percent of students that are enrolled and we want to look at the demographics of those students um the rate ethnicity, the the group, whether it's an English learner, economically disadvantaged student or students with disabilities. We also want to look at the impact on CTE, the number and percent of CTE completers. Um, and we want to look at the number and percent of students that are enrolled in the course that earn credit for the course and the number that are enrolled in the course and take the AP exam. We also want to look at the number and percent of those students who score a three or higher. We'll be asking for this information at the semester after the exam is given. Wow, it's
016a lot, right? But I want to share with you the support and services that we'll provide that with this grant and that is financial support. There's financial support for the full implementation, teacher professional development, classroom equipment and resources, supplies, travel if it's needed, and uh the cost of the exam because we want students to be a able to take this exam at no cost to the student or the family. You'll also have TEA staff assistance. We're always here, just a phone call or a an email away. We have online communications. Um, we have newsletters, office hours, all those different things that will be helpful and supportive as you implement this program. There are communication resources and that's kind of what I just alluded to is um our communication through the newsletter and the office hours.
017We'll also ask quarterly uh for budget information and at the end of each semester for enrollment information. Our providers also uh have uh supports and I've listed the supports here. The college board actually is the one who identified these endorsed providers. These providers had to um apply to the College Board to be a provider, an endorsed provider for the AP computer science principles course. And in order to do that, they had to have a complete curriculum, a pre-approved syllabus, lesson plans, instructional supports, um delivery options. All of these things have been reviewed by external consultants for the college board and have been approved to prepare students for the AP computer science principles exam. Here's a list. The current list of providers is here. Um, this deck is not hyperl, but if you look over on
018your resources with the links, there is an SAPL, state approved provider list web page that lists that has the links to each of these providers. You can go through and uh look at those. You can call them, you can contact them to identify which provider you'd like to use for your teacher. Or a really great idea is once you've identified your teacher, let them look through and see which one meets their teaching style, meets their current knowledge. Uh because some of them use different language in teaching um the computer science principles course. Let's look now at what comes next. This is a timeline overview of the Delaso 4 timeline. The most important thing here on this timeline at this moment is right there is the second star on the top row application window October 3rd
019to December 3rd. But this slide gives you the timeline for all of the other activities that will occur. We hope to have an announcement on fe February 2nd of award winners. December 3rd, 5:00 p.m. is the deadline for the application. If for any reason you don't have the application, you don't know where it is, it got lost in the superintendent's emails, you can request an application link by filling out this form on this slide, and the superintendent will be sent a new link, but it must it is a very specific link for your superintendent. a an application. This application, there is a PDF of this application that appears on the Lasso4 website. You don't have to go through the whole application first or try to print it out before you fill it out. You can
020go there and get an a full um PDF of the application. It is really important to understand that no application will be accepted if your superintendent does not sign it and submit it. when you have questions. Um, we have three office hours that are planned. October 29th, October 27th, and November 3rd. You can register for those. Write your questions down. Bring them to the meeting. If you're just not sure and you want to hear some of the questions others have, you can you can join the office hour. But we're here to answer your questions and to be here with you. The questions that you've put in Q&A will be answered and will be part of the FAQs that we'll be posting on November 3rd. That's after all the webinars have been given. It will include
021questions from all the webinars in that one FAQ document. If you have any questions, please remember this email lasso tea.ex.gov. send your questions there and they will be answered about any program in the lasso uh group as well as this AP computer science principles grant opportunity. Just wanted to take a second to mention change requests and declines in lasso. Um declines and change requests are not advisable. However, if one comes in, they'll be handled on a case-bycase basis. This is a very clear and very succinct slide. I love it because all of the information that you need here to move forward. Uh the application window is October 3rd to December 3rd. program webinars continue from uh until October 24th for the different programs that we have. We will repeat this webinar on October 15. It's
022one of those uh that'll be the second webinar that we give there. Next steps um go to the Elaso4 website, see what's on there. Uh you can open the application windows for any of the applications that you might be considering. Um share information within your district, consider your plan, and make a decision that's best for your district and for your students. You can register for upcoming webinars to get the latest on each one of them. You can attend uh both webinars that are going to be given. Every program will give two webinars resources that are available. These are linked. We have an initiative on one pager for each of the initiatives. The eligibility and prioritization guidance is there. Um the initiative selection tool is there. The roles and responsibilities that's where uh the insight is
023provided for. how much time it might take for each of the different roles within the district uh to implement the various grants. So I want to thank you for being here. This concludes this presentation.