001Welcome to the Texas Lift state approved provider list for Lasso 4. This is an overview webinar. I am Pearl Kowski, regional support and implementation coaching lead. Here with me is Zach Justa. He is the regional support implementation coach lead as well and together we will be sharing Lasso of four Texas Lift state approved provider list um information. We will review the application process and timeline to be an approved vendor as well as the scoring and evidence review process and next steps as an applicant. We're working in partnership with Rivet Education on this project given their expertise in reviewing professional learn providers and their deep knowledge of the Texas context. Our agenda for today is that project overview and timeline, an application overview with evidence review process and submission, an application timeline, and an opportunity for
002questions. All right, let's kick things off with an overview of the project and the upcoming timeline. We want to make sure that districts have the opportunity to partner with high-quality vendors who can support all lift activities through their lasso 4 grant. These activities were formerly part of Strong Foundation's planning, Strong Foundation's implementation, Texas lesson study, and the Texas Instructional Leadership Initiatives. When vendors gain approval status through the application process, they'll experience these benefits. They'll receive wraparound training for approved vendor personnel. They'll be able to build expertise in state board approved HQIM. They'll receive ongoing coaching and support from TEA. They'll be able to leverage researchbacked instructional practices to support participating districts. And finally, they'll have the opportunity to contract with school systems who are awarded LASO4 grant funds. This is a timeline for the application
003and review process. The application will open in early June. We'll post the information about it on tea's lasso4/sapple or state approved provider list website as soon as it becomes available. Additionally, we'll notify via email all attendees of this webinar and current till and strong foundation approved providers that the application link is live. Let's talk about the application process overview. The application has three components. the eligibility screener, the application, and the public profile information. The eligibility screener is designed to make the application more efficient by eliminating applicants who do not meet the basic requirements. The application is designed to assess applicants ability to provide all lift services at a high level of quality. Each provider that gains approval through the application process will be featured on a website that Texas districts can use to select vendors
004who are the best fit for their local context. The public profile information is used to populate each approved provider's page on this website. This information is not scored by the reviewers. However, due to the short timeline that we have to conduct reviews, applicants will be required to submit all three of these components by the hard July 14th deadline. We anticipate the time to require the the required time to complete this application will vary for different organizations. So, we encourage you not to wait to start reviewing and compiling your application once it goes live. However, as we'll discuss in greater detail in a few minutes, applications will be scored in a sequential manner where vendors will have to pass from one portion before reviewers move on to the next. The application review process are guided by
005a detailed scoring and evidence guide that's based on decades of research on the characteristics of professional learning and capacity building that are most likely to result in improved outcomes for students and teachers. I'll spend some of the time today on this webinar giving you an overview of these indicators. However, we won't have time to go through the entire scoring evidence guide. If you're interested in applying to become an approved vendor, we strongly recommend that you spend time looking through the scoring and evidence guide before and as you compile your application. Let's take a minute to think and look at the eligibility screener. The eligibility screener will let you know if you are eligible to become an approved provider. Vendors must meet these requirements and or agree to the following terms in order to become an
006approved provider. Vendors who do not will be exited from the application process. The first requirement is experience doing work similar in size and scope with at least five eleas or 20 campuses within the last five years preferably in Texas. You also agree to read and comply with Texas NTA policies, guidelines in Texas executive orders. You understand as a NIT approved provider, it will be required to support Texas ELEAs to adopt and implement at least one math and at least one reading language arts HPIN that has been approved by the Texas State Board of Education through the instructional materials review and approval or EMRA process. Lastly, you agree to offer clients multiple cycles of face-to-face training, coaching, and HQIM integrate implementation support in math and reading language arts as part of this comprehensive support. If you
007uh meet all these requirements, you can advance through the application process. All right, let's go through a little bit more detail what the application process entails. I'm going to provide a brief overview of each of the indicators in the section of the application, but please note that the scoring and evidence guide will go into a lot more detail. The application is designed to assess vendors ability to provide comprehensive cohesive and highquality set of services to Texas educators. The application has five sections. HQIM expertise in RLA and math. Overarching approach to professional learning and capacity building. Approach to ongoing cycles of professional learning and capacity building for leaders. Approach to ongoing cycles of professional learning for teachers. Use of data to measure impact. plan and improve. Applicants must pass each section of the application to become
008a Lyft approved fender. The first thing applicants need to do is prove their expertise in at least one SBOE approved HQIM for RLA and at least one SBOE approved HQIM for math. Applicants must pass both indicators in this section. H1 for RLA, H2 for math with full points to become a Lyft approved vendor. If applicants would like to prove more expertise in more than one RLA HQIM and or more than one math HQIM, they'll have the opportunity to submit additional HQIM expertise templates. Take just a moment to review these two indicators. Moving on, the next set of indicators are designed to evaluate the quality of applicants overarching approach to professional learning and capacity building. There are four indicators for overarching approach and applicants must score six out of a possible eight points to pass this
009section. Take a moment to review this section's indicators. Moving on, the next set of indicators are designed to evaluate the quality of applicants professional learning and capacity building services for district and campus level leaders including principal supervisors. There are seven indicators for this section, and applicants must score a 10 out of a possible 14 points to pass this section. Take a moment to review this section's indicators. All right, let's move on. The next set of indicators are designed to evaluate the quality of applicants professional learning and capacity building services for teachers. There are five indicators in this section and applicants must score eight out of the possible 10 points to pass this section. Take a moment to review this section's indicators. The last set of indicators in the application are designed to evaluate the extent
010to which the applicant collects and uses data to measure their impact as well as to plan and improve their services. There are six indicators for this section and applicants must score seven out of a possible 10 points to pass this section. Again, take a moment to review this section's indicators. Let's talk through the main application submission requirements. I just provided a brief overview of what applicants need to prove they can do. This slide provides an overview of how applicants will prove it via the application submission requirements. As I previously mentioned, applicants will need to submit two HQIM expertise templates to prove they have expertise in at least one HQIM for RLA and at least one HQIM for math. Again, HQIM are defined as those materials that the Texas State Board of Education has approved through
011its instructional materials review and approval or EMRA process. To provide expertise in the overarching leadership, teacher, and data indicators, applicants must submit two things. First, a set of artifacts that demonstrates their ability to meet these indicators with a maximum of up to pages. We give applicants a large degree of freedom to choose the artifacts they think best demonstrate their ability to meet these indicators, which is why it's important that the applicants read the scoring and evidence guide closely. Consider submitting sample presentations with facilitator guide notes, handouts, guide books, course syllabi, client work plans, client reflection questions, coaching notes, etc. as these artifacts. Although it's not required, we recommend sticking to one HQIM when submitting your artifacts. Doing so makes it easier for our reviewers to follow the arc of your support. The second thing you'll
012need to submit is an executive summary that provides an overview of your evidence within your artifacts and describes how your organization's professional learning services meet specific indicators. Our goal is to ensure accurate reviews and do what we can to help vendors put their best foot forward. Therefore, TEA may ask for additional information from the vendors during the review window if necessary. If this does happen, applicants will have 24 hours to submit the requested information. Let's move on to a couple tips to help you submit your application. If possible, like I mentioned, submit artifacts ideally focused on the services you provide for one HQIM. Prioritize artifacts that you have direct connection to the HQIM. Use the executive summary to provide context for the artifacts and how they connect to the indicators in the rubric and scoring
013guide. There's no quote unquote right set of artifacts. However, do not include external links in the artifacts or the executive summary. Reviewers will not open external links. TEA may ask for additional information during the review window like I mentioned and vendors will have 24 hours to submit that requested material if it's necessary. Let's move on to the last component of your application process and that is the public profile template. This is information that will be collected from you to create a public profile that will be shared with those seeking support through Lasso 4. Um each approved applicant will have this profile page that will be public facing once approved. Applicants must submit their information for the public profile as part of the application. Um, in order to have these profiles go live as soon as
014um possible in anticipation of NASA for grant funding, you will be asked to provide a headline, a description, uh, website URL, a sales phone number, a sales email address, your team size, and the types of eleas you currently support, as well as the service areas in which you have a presence. Five client examples of this work will also be prov um asked for. Um, and last you will be asked to provide information for TA planning purposes. This is the current team size that you have as well as your contracted workload and the ability to increase your team size um, if needed. This is for our planning purposes and will not be posted on your public profile information. So, take a minute to look at the list of information that will be asked um, as part
015of your public profile. All right. So in summary, you will have your eligibility screener. Um that will be your first step that is part of this application process. If determined that you are eligible, you will complete that one application with all the details that um staff provided. Um and you can see more of these details as part of those application guidelines. um and rubric. Last but not least, you'll have that one public profile information submission. Um and the window for all this information to be submitted is early June through July 14th. We realize that this is a quick process, but the goal of this is um having approved providers ready for a loss of grant funding distribution this fall. So far, we've talked through the indicators for the application process. I'm now going to share
016a bit more about the review process. Again, the goal of this initiative is to ensure that Texas LEAs have a handful of qualified vendors with whom they can partner with the financial support they receive from the lasso grant to be able to tackle all Lyft activities. Therefore, each applicant underos a thorough review process by trained team of professionals from Texas and across the country. Reviewers assess whether professional learning partners provide significant evidence of robust HQI HQIM aligned services. Each reviewer selected for their expertise in HQIM professional learning and capacity building. Rivet Education provides reviewers with additional training on the evaluation process for the Texas Lift approved vendor list prior to reviewing the applications. Each application is assigned a team of two reviewers who use scoring and evidence guides and submitted documents to look for evidence
017of robust HQIM aligned services. If there is a conflict in scores, that is to say one passes and one score is failed, the application is flagged to be reviewed by an administrator. Although vendors are required to submit all application materials by July 14th, they'll be reviewed in a gateway fashion. First, as we shared earlier in this presentation, applicants must pass the eligibility screener by responding yes to each question. Applicants who answer no to one or more of the eligibility questions will be automatically exited from the application process. Applicants who answer yes to all the eligibility questions will automatically pass to the next stage of the review. In the second stage, reviewers will evaluate applicants HQIM expertise template for the extent to which the vendor can support at least one SPOE approved HQIM for ROA and
018at least one SBOE approved HQIM for math. Applicants who fail to pro prove expertise in at least one SBO SBOE approved HQIM for RLA and at least one SBOE approved HQIM for math will be exited from the application process. Applicants who prove they have the necessary HQIM expertise will move on to the third and final stage of the review. In the third stage, reviewers will evaluate applicant set of artifacts and the executive summary to determine the extent to which the provider passes each section of the indicators. Applicants who fail this final section will not be approved. Applicants who pass this final section will be approved and their information will be shared on their public profile page on the lift approved provider website. Again, please know that TEA may ask for additional information from vendors during
019this review window. And if they do request that, vendors will have 24 hours to submit the information. Let's look at our next steps. The first step to be part of this process is to submit a letter of intent to apply. That is a non-binding um commitment form just letting us know that you intend to apply to be a lasso for um Lyft approved provider. We encourage you to submit this um although it's not mandatory as soon as possible. We also encourage you to review the scoring and evidence guide um between now um and when you submit that application that will provide you detailed information on each um component of the application and the scoring. The application portal will be live in early June um and again the deadline will be July 14th. TA will notify
020applicants of their approval status um in late September and we will launch your lift approved vendor list on October six prior to last grant funding um window being open. Some additional resources that you will have access to once that application portal is open as an FAQ document, a scoring and evidence guide and the webinar recording um of today's session at with site. Please join our webinar if possible on June 13th at 11:30 for a brief overview again of this process as well as office hours and a chance to ask questions after the portal has opened. This concludes this webinar, but if you do have questions, please feel free to contact us at sapplea.t texas.gov. We'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have.