No Child Left Behind - Title IIB Mathematics and Science Partnerships Grant FAQ’s

Q: Is there a limit on the monetary size of the grant?

There is no specific limit, but the Department intends to fund four or five grants of about $100,000 each.

Q: The Grant Application for Mathematics and Science Partnerships states in its description that it is focusing on grades 6-12, but the objectives state that they are for high school students and teachers. The Gulf of Maine Research Institute focuses their two educational science programs on grades 5-8 students and teachers. Does this grant apply to grade levels 6 through 8?

Yes, The grant applies to any combination of grades between six and twelve. As long as the proposal meets all of the grant requirements, it can serve grade levels 6 through 8.

Q: Are these three year grants?

No. The grants are one year in duration but a partnership can apply in subsequent years as long as it is going to serve an unserved Career and Technical Education Center or region.

Q: Will these grants be offered for five years?

At this time the Department plans to offer the grants for four or five years so that all Career and Technical Education Centers or Regions can be covered. These grants are always dependent upon continued Federal funding for the Title IIB program.

Q: Does funding have to be divided evenly among principal partners?

The budget narrative should provide a reasonable explanation for the division of funds. There is no requirement that funds be evenly distributed.

Q: Are school on the High need list the only ones that can be primary partners?

Yes.

Q: Why are Career and Technical Centers and Regions included in this RFP?

The Department believes that all students are capable of meeting Maine’s Learning Result sand including the Career and Technical Centers and Regions promotes this goal for those students. The allowable activities also encourage some innovative proposals that will offer hands on learning and assessment alternatives to broaden the range of learning activities and assessments available to our students.

Q: Does the Institute for Higher Education have to be a teacher preparation program?

The primary partner must be a teacher preparation program but the Department encourages the involvement of faculty from IHE’s mathematics, sciences and engineering divisions are encouraged to be involved. The objective is to combine expertise in content, and expertise in pedagogy to promote high quality instruction.

Q: Are students expected to demonstrate an increase in scores on the MEAs and SATs?

Proposals are required to provide some measure of student achievement but there are no specific requirements about the tool or instruments used to measure this achievement. It could be a standardized test, a local assessment, or a performance assessment built into the project.

Q: Is this program focused on local effect or replication?

Proposals should provide evidence that they will meet local needs but with designs can be modified to be used in other locales.

Q: Does this RFP require matching grants?

No matching grants are required but partnerships are expected to attempt to coordinate with existing sources of Federal or State funding.

Q: Does the IHE have to provide both teacher prep and principal prep?

The IHE that is a primary partner can have teacher prep and/or a principal prep program.

Q: What are the qualifications of a LEA?

An LEA is a school or group of schools under one governing and fiscal authority. To qualify as a primary partner, the particular school participating would have to be identified as "high need" by our definition in the RFP. If you do not qualify as "high need" you could be a partner as long as you go in with another high need school. It need not be in your district.

Q: Can the CTE qualify as the LEA?

No. Both the CTE and a high need LEA must participate.

Q: Can the CTE be SMTC (a college) instead of a high school?

No, the CTE primary partner must be a high school. However, SMCT could participate as a non-primary partner.

Q: Are there any restrictions on what the money can be used for?

The RFP outlines all specifics.

Q: In the RFP the role of the CTE seems ambiguous, perhaps intentionally so, but how do you see the role of the CTE in worthwhile proposals?

CTE teachers should participate in professional development that will benefit their students. CTE teachers could also provide professional development to high school teachers around experiential or project based learning.

Q: Under the eligibility guideline it states Partnership Grant must include, at a minimum: One engineering, science, or mathematics department of an institution of higher education (IHE) that prepares teachers and principals. Would this preclude the professional development and agreements being sought from community colleges? The definition under the grant Program Guidelines III Definitions Section D Institutions of Higher Education seems to identify the ability to partner with community colleges except for the additional requirement of prepares teachers and principals.

The partners listed as minimum partners are the primary partners but a community College could also be a partner. As you saw from the definition, a community college that has a two year program that would be acceptable for full credit toward a four year degree would qualify as an IHE. If this two year program would be acceptable toward a degree in education, then I would consider the community college an IHE that prepares teachers. In this case the community college could be a primary partner.

Q: The turn around time for this grant is fairly short. How specific do partner activities need to be articulated? Would letters of intent to work as partners under the submitted grant application be enough and would all partners have to be identified in the grant application?

All partners would have to be identified in the grant application and there would have to be evidence that all partners worked on the grant proposal together. Such evidence could include attendance lists or minutes from meetings or letters stating their participation in the planning as well as their intent to continue to work as partners.

Q: On page 15 the RFP references a "formal agreement" between the principal partners. Does a letter of commitment from each principal partner constitute a "formal agreement" for purposes of this project?

Yes, a letter of agreement would satisfy this criterion.

Q: Will we be a viable grant with only one, or just a few, teacher(s) from the high need LEA? Our Non-High Need School will have a lot of students impacted by the project but the high need LEA will have significantly fewer. Will we be viable with this standard?

The purpose of the grant is to increase the content knowledge of teachers and to improve the achievement of students in the High Need LEA. Although there is no specific number of teachers or students that have to be involved in the project, if it looks as if a main beneficiary is not the High Need LEA, this would probably not meet the standard of the RFP. I would suggest thinking about how to expand the project to include more teachers and students at the High Need LEA.

Q: Will we be viable with only a small number of teachers who are not highly qualified?

Although a purpose of the grant is to increase the % of highly qualified teachers, those percentages vary considerably from school to school and from year to year. Certainly, keeping HQT statistics in mind and tracking their improvement is important, but the increase in content knowledge for teachers who are already highly qualified is equally as important. I would say that a project that does not target any teachers who have not met HQT standards would not be viewed favorably, but a great number of teachers who are not HQT is not required.

Q: We are concerned that most teachers have their plans lined up for this summer. Must the summer institute be in the summer of 2007? Or, may we conduct professional development training using on-line formats, weekend trainings on campus and in school district buildings, and a summer institute in June 2008?

A summer institute in June 2008 would work well. The intended contracts will extend from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008. Your other professional development delivery formats would also be encouraged.

5/2/07
Q: The grant RFP mentions twice that these grants are "renewable for up to two years," based upon "the Provider's ability to serve an unserved CTE Region or Center." If a group receives a grant in Region A this year and its project qualifies for renewal, who will be served the following year? Will the group continue to serve Region A and take on Region B as an additional participant in its program? If so, will the project funds increase commensurately, and will Region B be eligible for two additional years of program renewal?

If an applicant serves Region A in year one they could get grant money to serve Region B only in year 2. If they applied again, they would receive money to serve Region C in year 3.

Q: Does this imply that Region A will be dropped after year 1?

Yes, Region A will be expected to be self-sustaining after year 1.

Q: Will funding available next year be principally rolled into renewals for these projects in additional CTE regions? Will applying agencies not receiving funding this year have an available funding stream to which they can submit new applications next year?

The funding for year two will be open to all applicants whether they have received funding in year one or not.

Q: The grant RFP budget guidelines on page 9 state that teacher stipends will be limited to $150 per week. This seems closer to the daily rate used by most MSP's across the country. Is this the correct weekly stipend amount?

Since this is a professional development grant, this limit is meant to be an average for the duration of the grant.

Q: Does this indicate that a teacher participating in a 40-hour summer workshop should receive a stipend of approximately $150 for the week?

If you look at a grant that is one year in duration, any particular teacher could not get a total of more than $150 per week. That means that no teacher could be paid more than $7,800.

Q: The grant RFP indicates on pages 5 and 8 that the IHE partner should be an "engineering, science or mathematics department." Your answer to one submitted question seemed to indicate that the IHE partner needed to be a teacher preparation department. Are grants that include only an engineering, science or mathematics department from an IHE acceptable?

No, a teacher prep program must be included, also.

Q: I have been kicking around a $100,000 grant total, but I can't find that reference in the documentation. I am sure I am missing it, but what is the dollar limits of the grant?

$100,000 is correct.

Q: We are proposing to fund a grant manager ( a 0.2 teacher from a partner school). This person would be responsible for all grant obligations and the coordination of the partnership. Is this an allowable expense?

Yes.

Q: What are indirect costs?

Indirect costs are the costs an organization incurs for common or joint objectives that cannot be readily and specifically identified with a particular grant project or other institutional activity. An example of this would be overhead costs.

Q: The grant limits capital equipment to 15%. Where do consumables come under the budget? We want to count these as supplies and materials. Consumables might be wood, metal, chemicals and reagents.

Consumables would be listed under "Supplies and Materials"

Q: Science equipment is generally expensive and the $500 limit for capital expenses is a challenge. Some packages are best purchased in bundles that exceed this limit. Can expenses of a bundle be broken up into partnerships pieces and/or per item estimates?

The capital equipment limit applies to individual items.

Q: Is the budget flexible? Can we budget for say $1,000 in say guest speakers costs, and change our priorities and later shift those dollars to spend on say stipends for graduate assistants?

The budget is your estimate of your expenses. If you wanted to make a substantive change, you would contact me to make sure it was acceptable. Substantive is based on judgment , I realize, but the point is that changes are not prohibited.

Q: Can part of the allowable expenses be for planning and implementing the goals of the grant?

Yes.

Q: What is the maximum grant amount?

$100,000.

Q: What information do you want under follow-up activities?

This should be activities you will do after the grant runs out.

Q: Does the Regional Technical Center need to "... identify and prioritize baseline professional development needs of teachers in partner school districts and include the number of teachers in these LEAs who do not meet the State's definition of a highly-qualified teacher, disaggregated by grade level or subject area taught. " Is this just needed for the high schools?

This would include all schools participating in the project so the answer is yes.

NCLB Information

No Child Left Behind - Title IIB Mathematics and Science Partnerships Grant FAQ’s