end · web viewtoday, we're referencing two important documents during this webinar. if you...

NTT DATA INC (US)Moderator: Robyn Wood

06-05-18/1:00 pm CTConfirmation # 7483169

NTT DATA INC (US)

Moderator: Robyn WoodJune 5, 20181:00 pm CT

Coordinator: Good afternoon and thank you all for holding. Your lines will remain on a

listen only mode for the duration of today's conference. You can type your

questions into the chat feature on the WebEx session at any time. I would like

to remind all parties the call is now being recorded. If you have any

objections, please disconnect at this time.

I would now like to turn the call over to Erin Berg. Thank you. You may

begin.

Erin Berg: Thank you very much. My name is Erin Berg. I'm a community college

program specialist here with the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult

Education and I'll be you're moderator for webinar on the Pathways to STEM

Apprenticeship for High School, Career, and Technical Education students.

Can I ask if you have a hard time hearing me if you could send right now

through the Q&A function on the WebEx. Please send a little bit of an SOS

on there and I'll try to move the microphone or do what I can.

Please use the Q&A function as well for any questions that you may have

about the grant program or any other questions for websites or anything that



we mention during the course of this webinar. But again, I'll go ahead and get

started. I do want to thank our team here at the Office of Career, Technical,

and Adult Education, which is shortened as to OCTAE. In the room with me

today, I have Corinne Sauri, who is with our policy group. I have Laura

Messenger, who is also with the division of academic and technical education,

which is the division of OCTAE that is supporting our project, and also our

branch chief, Robin Utz, who will be helping me answer your questions and

providing me with any information that I need today.

We'll go ahead and get started. It's 2:02. I've got some notes here that says

most people can hear me. Maybe a couple people are asking if they can't hear

but it's because they haven't dialed in. So we'll hopefully get them on the line

soon. I'm going to go ahead and get started.

So the purpose of today's webinar is to go over important information

regarding this new grant opportunity to help you determine if this program

aligns with your current programs or initiatives and to provide specific

information about the application process.

For your convenience and further review, these PowerPoint slides will be

posted and available at cte.gov probably by the end of the week or early next.

Just a disclaimer. This presentation is provided for informational purposes

only. The notice inviting applications published in the Federal Register

details all of the requirements for submitting an application, how applications

will be evaluated, and how grants will be awarded. The application package

on grants.gov provides very specific instructions for what to include in an

application.

Today, we're referencing two important documents during this webinar. If

you don't already have them, you'll want to download those two documents.



The first is the notice inviting applications for this program that was published

in the Federal Register on May 18, 2018. You'll want to read all of it

carefully. The second document is the Pathways to STEM Apprenticeship

Application package, which is available from grants.gov at

http://www.grants.gov. Please note that all pans must be submitted through

grants.gov.

The topics we'll cover today are the Federal Register notice, including the

program purpose, award information, eligibility, the absolute priority, the

invitational priority, the program requirements, the application requirements,

selection criteria, and performance measures. We'll also talk about the

submission deadlines, grants.gov, some tips of submission, and the

application.

So to begin, we want to know why are we funding this effort. Because the

Department views apprenticeship as an important and viable post-secondary

option. By combining paid on the job learning with related CT instruction in

the classroom and apprenticeship offers individuals that opportunity to earn

money as they learn and to prepare for jobs that paid wages that can support a

family.

Because employers are apprenticeship program sponsors often pay the cost of

the classroom instruction, as well as pay for dispensed wages, apprentices can

incur little to no debt, making an apprenticeship an attractive career

preparation alternative at a time when many college students are graduating

deeply in debt.

The average income for a worker who has created an apprenticeship program

is $68,000 a year according to December 2017 Labor Department Data.

While we have not been as successful in making apprenticeships accessible to



students during high school. Unlike in Europe, the apprenticeship system in

the United States does not have strong connections to high schools, including

high school CTE programs and serves very few individuals under the age of

25. Through the Pathways to STEM Apprenticeship Grants, we think the

change of pattern in participating states.

So why are you interested in learning more about this program? Hopefully,

it's because your state is interested in providing apprenticeship opportunities

for high school students, which is the purpose of this opportunity, to support

state efforts to expand and improve the transition of high school CTE students

to both secondary education and employment through apprenticeships in

STEM fields, including computer science, that begin during high school.

This slides provides basic but important information about this grant

competition. You can find this information on Page 23-267 of the Federal

Register notice. These are competitive grants. We anticipate that we will

award five grants based on our available funds, which are estimated to be

approximately $3 million. It's important to note that we'll be making awards

for one 36-month project period. The estimated average award size that you

see in the slide and in the Federal Register notice is for the full 36 month

project period. It is not for each year of the three year project period. And

because these are only estimates, the Department is not bound by any of these

estimates.

The application deadline is 4:30 pm Eastern Time on Tuesday, July 17, 2018.

If you intend to submit an application, it would be very helpful to us if you

could send us an email indicating your intent to apply. This is completely

optional but having some idea of the number of grant applications to expect

helps us prepare for the review of the grant application. Again, the deadline

for the intent to apply is June 18, 2018. This doesn't have to be a long email.



Just simply type intend to apply in the subject line and include the name of the

applicant.

So who are the eligible applicants? Eligible applicants are the sole state

agency responsible for administering career and technical education in the

state or for supervising the administration of current technical education in the

state. In most states, it's the state education agency but in others, it could be a

State Board of Regents or a state community college board. Or it could be a

consortium of such state agencies - entities as defined above.

If you decide to submit as a consortium, please note that eligible applicants

proposing to apply for funds as a consortium must comply with the

regulations in 34 CFR 75.127 through 75.129, which address group

applications. And again, that’s in the grants.gov application.

This program has one absolute priority. You'll find it on Page 23-265 of the

Federal Register Notice. This is very important. Your application must meet

this absolute priority in order to be considered for funding. Any application

that does not meet the priority will be declared ineligible and will not be sent

to a panel for a review.

This competition has its absolute priority, which is promoting STEM

education with a particular focus on computer science. To meet this priority,

and applicant must propose a project design to improve student achievement

or other educational outcomes in one or more of the following areas --

science, technology, engineering, math, or computer science. The project

must address the following priority -- creating or expanding partnerships

between schools, local educational agencies, state educational agencies,

businesses, not for profit organizations, or institutions of higher education to



give students access to internships, apprenticeships, and other work day

planning experience in STEM fields, including computer science.

This competition has one invitational priority, which can be found on Page

23-265 of the notice. There are no extra points given to applicants who

choose to respond to this priority and no special preference is given to

applicants who choose to respond to this priority. The invitational priority is

for applications that propose a statewide or regional approach to increasing

the number of high school CTE students who begin to participate in

apprenticeships in STEM fields, including computer science, during high

school and local educational agencies that are also eligible for assistance

under the Small Rural School Achievement Program, or the Rural and Low

Income School Program authorized under Title V, Part B of the elementary

and secondary education act of 1965 as amended by the Every Student

Succeeds Act.

Applicants can determine whether a particular local educational agency is

eligible for these programs by referring to the information in the department's

website at a URL that's provided on Page 23-265 of the notice inviting

application.

This Pathways to STEM Apprenticeship Initiative has two program

requirements and two application requirements. You'll find them on Pages

23-265 through 23-266 of the notice. The first program requirement calls for

a partnership. The grantee must carry out a Pathways to STEM

Apprenticeship Grant in collaboration with at least one employer in the state

that has committed to implementing apprenticeship and one or more post-

secondary partner, such as the stage agency for higher education or one or

more post-secondary educational institutions. The two application

requirements for this competition relate to the partnership requirements.



For application requirement one, you must name your post-secondary partner

or partners in your application and you must include a letter of commitment

from each of your post-secondary partners. Stage agency for higher education

in both secondary educational institution are defined terms. So you will want

to review these terms in the definition sections of the notice.

The second application requirement, you must include a letter of commitment

from each employer partner. At a minimum you need at least one post-

secondary partner and one employee partner. You need to name them in the

application and include a letter of commitment from each partner. The second

program requirement is a bit more detailed. The grantee must carry out a

comprehensive Pathways to STEM Apprenticeship grant strategy that seeks to

increase the number of CTE students who participate in competency based

apprenticeships while enrolled in high school.

You'll find the definition of a competency based apprenticeship on Page 23-

266 of the notice. Competency based apprenticeship means an apprenticeship

program that enables apprentices to progress through and complete the

program by demonstrating mastery of the knowledge and skills taught in the

program, rather than complete a minimum number of work or instructional

hours.

The comprehensive strategy must be designed to give employers a leadership

role in designing, expanding, and implementing the strategy and adjust

barriers to participation for special populations. Employers could be at the

state, regional, or local level. Special populations are taken from Section 3,

Part 29 of Perkins 4 with a bit more explanation. If you turn to Page 23-265

of the notice, you'll see that regarding individuals with disabilities, we include

students with disabilities receiving services under Section 504 of the



Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504, or commonly referred to as Section

504 only students, students with disabilities identified as a child with a

disability under Section 602, Part 3, of the Individuals with Disabilities

Education Act, individuals with any disability defined in Section 3 of the

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Here, see further explanation regarding individuals preparing for non-

traditional fields. For this competition, we mean individuals preparing for

occupations or fields of work including careers in computer science,

technology, and other current and emerging high skill occupations for which

individuals from one gender comprise less than 25% of the individuals

employed in such occupation or field of work.

Now, these are the strategies that are part of the comprehensive strategy and

these are the activities that you'll use project funds to support. Such strategies

may include providing technical assistance to entities such as local

educational agencies, post-secondary educational institutions, and employers.

According to state level, or multi-state level efforts to expand competency

based apprenticeship opportunities for high school CTE students, such as

through coordination with other entities, such as state apprenticeship agency

or with the industry and labor organizations and businesses to develop

competency based apprenticeship programming in new sectors or industries.

This also includes developing or supporting the development of curricula that

can be used for the related CTE instruction components of competency based

apprenticeship programs. It can also be used to support providing support for

professional development, for teachers, post-secondary instructors, employers,

training providers, and others to promote the development and implementation

of new competency based apprenticeship opportunities.



It can be used to support the development and implementation of articulation

agreements and other processes towards post-secondary credit for the

completion of CTE courses and competency based apprenticeship programs,

such as dual credit or transcripted credit. It can be used to provide

information about competency based apprenticeship opportunities to the

public, including to students and their families. It can be used to provide sub-

grants to local educational agencies and post-secondary educational

institutions, to assist in creating or expanding opportunities for CTE students

to participate in competency based apprenticeships beginning in high school.

It also can support other activities that are designed to increase opportunities

for high school CTE students to participate in competency based

apprenticeships beginning in high school.

After applications are submitted through grants.gov before the deadline, we

will review each application for eligibility to make sure that it was submitted

by an eligible applicant, to make sure that it meets the absolute priority. After

applications are deemed eligible they will be evaluated. All eligible

applications are sent to a review panel that will review and score your

application using the exact same three criteria that were published in the

Federal Register Notice on Page 23-268.

You will see that each of these criteria has an assigned point value. Each sub-

criterion also has an assigned point value. These add up to the main criteria.

You will want to pay attention to the point values because the reviewers will

use the point values when scoring the applications. Also in addressing these

criteria, you are encouraged to make explicit connections to the priorities and

the requirements that we just discussed.



The maximum score for the three criteria is 100 points. You'll note that there

is no criterion for the quality of key personnel. You should address your

proposed personnel for the project under the management plan and under

resources. Going through each of the selection criteria, this first criterion is

about the quality of your project design and it's worth 45 points. Note that

those three sub-criteria are each worth 15 points. This criteria includes the

quality of project design, such as the Secretary considers the quality of the

project design in determining the quality of the project design for the proposed

project the Secretary considers, one, the likelihood that the proposed project

will result in system change or improvement.

Two, the extent to which the proposed project will integrate with or build on

similar or related efforts to improve relevant outcomes as defined in the CFR

listed there. Using existing funding streams for other programs or policies

supported by community, state, and federal resources. And finally, the extent

to which the services to be provided by the proposed project involve the

collaboration of appropriate partners for maximizing the effectiveness of

project services.

The second criterion is about the quality of your management plan and it's

worth 25 points. There's only criterion here and that's the adequacy of the

management plan to achieve the objective of the proposed project on time and

within budget, including clearly defined responsibilities, timelines, and

milestones for accomplishing project tasks. This criterion means the

Secretary considers the quality of the management plan for the proposed

project. In determining the quality of the management plan for the proposed

project, the Secretary considers the adequacy of the management plan to

achieve the objective. Was the proposed project on time and within budget,

including clearly defined responsibilities, timelines, milestones, and

accomplishing project tasks.



Sorry for being repetitive there but just wanted to make a point that those last

two things are important. Finally, this last criterion, adequacy of resources, is

worth 30 points. It address the adequacy of the resources of proposed

projects, including the budget and commitment from each partner and the

potential for the continued support of the project after this grant ends.

Each of the three sub-criteria is worth ten points and they include the extent to

which the budget is adequate to support the proposed project, relevance, and

demonstrates commitment of each partner and a proposed project to the

implementation and success of the project and the potential for continued

support of the project after federal funding ends, including as appropriate, the

demonstrated commitment of appropriate entities to such support. Ten points

for each sub-criterion.

Now, within the performance measures, the pathways to STEM

apprenticeship have established performance measures for this program.

You'll find them on Page 23-269 of the notice. Grantees will be responsible

for collecting and reporting data annually on the required performance

measures. These include the total number and percentage of CTE students

enrolled in the project activities during the grant period, including CTE

students in apprenticeships funded under this project and other grant activities,

and the total number and percentage of CTE students enrolled in high school

and participating in apprenticeships funded under this project.

A third performance measure will be the total number and percentage of CTE

students enrolled in high school and participation in apprenticeships funded

under this project who are identified as members of a special population. C,

which is the total number and percentage of CTE students enrolled in high

school, and participating in apprenticeships funded under this project who



complete high school. And the total number and percentage of CTE students

enrolled in high school and participant in apprenticeships funded under this

project who own post-secondary credits during enrollment in the project.

Now, remember, applications must be submitted through grants.gov before the

deadline, which is 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on July 17, 2018. 4:30 p.m. and

one second Eastern Time is late. We cannot stress this enough. It doesn't

matter if you are in the system and in the process of uploading the documents

at 4:30 p.m. You must have submitted the application, the complete

application, before 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on the due date.

The Federal Register Notice is available. If you haven't downloaded it, you'll

want to do that today. And if you haven't already, go to grants.gov today and

download the application and instructions under CDFA 84.051 E. That's

84.051 E. This is your next very important step after downloading and

reading the Federal Register Notice and that is to read the grants.gov

submission procedures and tips for applicants.

If you have applied for other discretionary grants, you may already be familiar

with grants.gov. If you haven't submitted via grants.gov in a while, you'll

want to familiarize yourself with the changes, particularly the switch to

Workspace. If your agency has never submitted an application via grants.gov,

you need to get started now on that registration process.

If you're an eligible state agency, someone in your agency's grant office may

be able to submit the application on your behalf, but you should also have one

or two members of your own team registered and become familiar with the

grants.gov system. The point is you need to identify someone now who can

submit the application when the time comes, which according to the tip sheet

should be a day or two before the deadline. You may also want to identify a



knowledgeable backup person in case your primary person is unable or

unavailable.

Grants.gov encourages all applicants to register early, submit early, and verify

your submission. We have a grants.gov submission procedures and tips for

applicants that has information on registration, browser support, and

information about the type of PDF files that must be uploaded is important.

Again, the electronic application that you must submit has several

components. The application instructions that you will download from

grants.gov repeats a good deal of information from the Federal Register

Notice, but also includes important information and instructions about what

should be included in each part of the application.

Applications should be organized in the manner described in the economic

application submission checklist that you'll find in the application package.

Please note the suggested 35 page limit set forth in the Federal Register for the

project narrative. Also, the recommendation that you organize your project

narrative according to the selection criteria and make explicit connections to

the absolute priority and requirements.

It's important to provide enough information in your budget narrative to

justify your budget expenditures. Per reviewers will also consider the budget

information you provide. The application package instructions for the budget

narrative include several specific instructions that will assist you as you work

through your budget, including instructions for personnel costs.

These are the documents the applicants will need in order to submit an

application. We have talked at length today about the Federal Register notice

and went quickly through the application and instructions. Regarding



Department of Education forms and instructions, please go to our ed.gov

website to download the instructions for the required form. Grants.gov

includes the required forms and instructions for some forms but not others. So

it's important that you go to ed.gov for additional instructions. You will find

the instructions for all the forms in the links in this slide, which if they are not

clickable, this whole slide deck will go onto cte.ed.gov by the end of this

week. The application package does also include program specific

instructions for completing the form.

Regarding the budget, this program has a prohibition against supplanting,

which means applicants under the pathways to STEM apprenticeship program

are required to use a restricted indirect cost rate. For more information on

restricted rates, applicants should download the additional indirect cost

information in example for grants under restricted rate program, which is

available in the links in the slide deck.

Finally, here's contact information for the program. This is my contact

information. I'm the program manager for this opportunity. Happy to answer

any questions I can through email, but we'll actually take some questions now

if you could type it in the Q&A box. We will read them off. And if by

chance, we don't have the opportunity to answer all of the questions today,

please go ahead and just send it through the email and we'll get back to you as

soon as possible.

So go ahead and start with some of the questions that have come in already.

So the first one is can a consortium of rural schools apply? Must the Oregon

Department of Ed apply? So can a consortium of rural schools apply or must

the Oregon Department of Ed apply? Some folks in the room, do you have an

answer there? Cori?



Corinne Sauri: Sure. So for this one, the eligible entity in this case is (Perkins) State Eligible

agencies. So in this particular example, in Oregon, the Oregon Department of

Education, eligibility is in Section 111 of the Federal Register Notice. That's

Page 23-267.

Erin Berg: So the answer is no. So the next question is, Cori, is the expectation that

apprenticeships be designed so that high school students start and complete

the apprenticeship while still in high school?

Corinne Sauri: Okay. So this one, if you look at program requirement two, program

requirement two is where we lay out the requirements for the implementation

of the comprehensive STEM apprenticeship pathway strategy for this

program. It does not - what it says is a grantee must carry out a

comprehensive pathways to STEM apprenticeship plan strategy that seeks to

increase the number of CTE students how participate in a competency based

apprenticeship program.

The expectation is not that high school students be required to start and

complete apprenticeships while enrolled in high school. If you have a project

design that does do that, that's allowable, but the requirement is limited to

increase the number of CTE students who participate in competency based

apprenticeships while enrolled in high school.

Erin Berg: Okay. Do we have any other questions written down?

Corinne Sauri: There was one. Must the project be administered by a government agency or

can a 501(c)3 apply and the answer is no, a 501(c)3 cannot apply. The only

eligible applicants are the Perkins eligible state agency.

Erin Berg: Okay. There's a question of should sub-grants be competitive?



Corinne Sauri: Sub-grants are allowable under this competition but I don't believe we

specified that they had to be competitive.

Erin Berg: Can funds be used for salary and travel expenses for students?

Corinne Sauri: I think we would need to think about that. The Perkins Funds, Perkins does

have requirements about what Perkins Funds can be used for students who are

members of special populations and I think we would want to take a look at

that and see if those rules apply for this project. I believe funding for support

services are an appropriate and allowable expense under Perkins for students

who are members of special population.

Erin Berg: We've had a request to show the budget slide again, reference what is on the

notice.

Corinne Sauri: There is a question on the chat, can a college or university be considered an

employer partner. I guess the question would be is the - would a college or

university be an employer partner that is interested or able to offer a

competency based apprenticeship. I could see - I believe our thinking was

that a college or university would be a post-secondary partner. If an applicant

thinks that they would be an employer partner then the onus would be on the

applicant to explain what the role of that employer partner is in offering a

competency based apprenticeship.

Woman 1: Does apprenticeship mean specifically U.S. Department of Labor registered

apprenticeship? No, it does not mean that in this project. If you can see the

definition in the definition section, I think everyone should take a really close

look at the definition section that starts on Page 23-266. The apprenticeship

definition there means an arrangement that includes a paid work component



and an educational or instructional component wherein an individual obtains

workplace relevant knowledge and skills.

So that is our definition there and then I think further, it's important to look at

the definition for competency based apprenticeship, which means an

apprenticeship program that enables apprentices to progress through and

complete the program by demonstrating mastery of the knowledge and skills

taught in the program rather than complete a minimum number of work or

instructional hours. Those are the two definitions that are relevant. For this

definition, we do not use the registered apprenticeship definition.

Throughout the webinar, there have been references to various kinds of work

based learning, internships, apprenticeships, et cetera. Is the focus of this

grant on apprenticeships, earn and learn only, or do other work based learning

experiences count?

Woman 1: So again, I think an important thing to look at is the two definitions and then

again program requirement two. Those are going to be the two places where

you think about strategy and apprenticeship, and apprenticeship in terms of

competency based apprenticeship and the definition there on Page 23-266.

Erin Berg: Can funds from this grant be used to incentivize the development of the

intermediary? Can the business or intermediary be a partner in the

application?

Corinne Sauri: Can you reread the question again?

Erin Berg: Can funds from this grant be used to incentivize the development of an

intermediary? Can a business or intermediary be a partner in the application?



Corinne Sauri: It is up to the applicant to determine what partners they think are necessary for

implementation of their proposed project designs. The two required partners

have already been covered in the webinar and also included in the Federal

Register notice, that is the post-secondary and the employer. I believe the

onus - I don't think there's anything in the notice that would preclude or

prohibit using - proposing to use grant funds to incentivize an intermediary

but the onus would be on the applicants to explain why that is necessary and

why that would be beneficial to their proposed project design.

Erin Berg: Another one from the chat, which is for the spirit of this project, is a pre-

apprenticeship synonymous with apprenticeship?

Woman 1: So I would say, again, it's really important to look at the two definitions for

apprenticeship and competency based apprenticeship. We don't define pre-

apprenticeship but we - I don't know that those pre-apprenticeship would fit I

within those definitions.

Erin Berg: Question from the Q&A. For the post-secondary institution can it be an entire

system letter of support or would it be better to submit a letter from each of

the 13 colleges? If you had 13 colleges in your system.

Woman 1: I think that would be…

Erin Berg: (Unintelligible).

Woman 1: At your discretion. I think that we'll have reviewers who will be looking at

those letters of commitment as part of your project design. So that's an

applicant's discretion.



Erin Berg: Just to clarify on the pre-apprenticeship question, I think - I'm sorry, pre-

apprenticeship activities or pre-apprenticeship could be a part of your project

design. It just wouldn’t meet the - it would be unlikely to meet the

requirements and the definition of apprenticeship.

Is it expected that the program have an uncapped number of participant

students or is it okay for us to cap the number of students early on?

Woman 1: Again, I think this is a question about applicant discretion. I think you'll need

to make some decisions about what your project design is ultimately going to

be. You will be held to whatever you propose in your project, so please think

about the scope and the number of students you'd like to have participate in

the project.

Erin Berg: Do sub-grantees need to be named in the application?

Woman 1: I believe we have flexibility on that. I'm looking that up for you.

Erin Berg: Okay. Here's a quick question. There's a question asking if only grants will be

awarded? Can you confirm this? That's approximately five. It depends on

the funding slate and the available funding and what's requested. But we

expect around five.

Woman 1: So getting back to the sub-grantee question, a question of whether or not an

applicant would have to name its intended sub-grantees in the application.

You may name sub-grantees in the application. This is all on page 23-267

under eligibility information, which is Section 3. You can see that section

under sub-grantees.



Erin Berg: And would a post-secondary institution include regional occupational program

or center? It would depend on how it's defined in your state and there is a

definition of an institution of higher education.

Woman 1: Post-secondary education institution is a defined term. So in the definition

section, that's something that you'll want to take a look at and make a decision

about whether or not your proposed partner would meet that definition.

Erin Berg: From that chat, (Michelle Voll) with CVS Health asking about sponsored or

registered apprenticeship. Do pharmacy technician apprenticeships qualify

under STEM careers? We're also considering a new apprenticeship program

for IT roles.

Woman 1: So I think I've seen a few questions about STEM and computer science in the

questions. So while we don't have a definition in the definitions section about

STEM, you can look at the absolute priority and that's where we talk about

what STEM is. And we are looking at projects that are designed to improve

student achievement or other educational outcomes in one of the areas of

science, technology, engineering, math, or computer science. So the onus will

be on the applicant to show that their proposed project meets that requirement,

that absolute priority.

Erin Berg: And probably was just answered, but would the employee partner have to

currently offer apprenticeship in computer science or can the partner be an

employer that offers apprenticeships in other areas? I assume as long as

they're also STEM fields it doesn't have to be in computer science. It can be

any of the other STEM fields.



Under the Rural Local Educational Agency, can you explain more about the

invitational priority? I can go back to that slide. So this is the invitational

priority as written in the notice inviting application.

Woman 1: I'm not quite certain I understand what the question is but I think the question

might be asking what we're looking for about in an invitational priority. So an

invitational priority is something that we are looking - we are seeking projects

that meet the invitational priority. We don't give any extra points and we don't

give preference when we do receive applications that discuss the invitational

priority but we are interested in looking at applications that address the needs

of rural LEAs.

Erin Berg: So there's a question asking is it mainly for school system to apply at the high

school level or not a college sponsored? I mean it should be at the state level

to be the applicant, which is the only (unintelligible) state eligible agencies are

eligible to apply. So you should work with your state and high schools and

colleges can be partners. A college or another post-secondary institution must

be a partner.

Any other questions? Is the employer partner compensated for the apprentice

training?

Corinne Sauri: There is some guidance in the application package about proposed costs for

the project. I think that one thing that applicants have to think about is what

the purpose of this initiative is and over a three-year period if an employer is

compensated for offering an apprenticeship then what is the likelihood that

that would continue after federal funding ends.

I believe there - and if you look at the selection criteria under adequacy of

resources, one of the things that applications will be judged on is the level of



support and commitment from partners to the implementation of the project.

So I would think that applicants would want to look at that as well in terms of

the level of assistance that the employer partner and other partners would be

contributing to the success of this project.

Woman 1: And I think just to add on, program requirement two, I think it's a good place

to take a look. This implementation of a comprehensive STEM

apprenticeship pathway strategy. If you look at number three and four, it talks

about developing or supporting the development of curricula that can be used

for related CTE instructions as part of a competency based apprenticeship. It

also allows you to think about providing support for professional development

for teachers, post-secondary instructors, employers, training providers, and

others to promote development and implementation of new competency based

apprenticeship opportunities. I think both those places might be places you

could think about building out that strategy.

Erin Berg: There's a question for someone who arrived late. We did cover this already,

they are asking if there is a preference for non-rural. There is no preference

either way. It's an invitational priority. So we encourage projects to target

rural areas but there's no points or no set asides.

Along the same lines, there's a question in the chat asking will there be any

regional or geographic factors in determining who will be awarded a grant,

rural states set aside. So no. And also unrelated to rural, there's no set asides

or no guaranteed distribution.

Getting a few questions that we've already answered. Again, computer

science does not have to be part of the grant. It's okay to focus on other

STEM occupations and would applications with more employer partners,

would that lead to a higher application score? I think it would all be about



how you explained to the reviewers why that would make it a superior project.

There's only requirement for one employer partner with a letter of

commitment. If you choose to have many, it would be really more just judged

on how you show that that's a positive factor in your application.

To my colleagues here who are monitoring the chat versus the Q&A, anything

else? Okay. I think there maybe have - oh, there's more questions. Can

applicants see the rubric evaluators will be using? That's right in the notice

inviting applications. We're pulling the rubric from the selection criteria that I

just pulled a slide back up. So within those three categories and then the

points, if you go into the notice inviting applications or in this slide deck.

This is exactly what they're being asked to evaluate your application using.

But we'll go ahead and if we missed anything between the two different - in

the chat or the Q&A, please feel free to write me an email and we will get you

an answer back as soon as possible. The main mailbox that's monitored by the

group is [email protected]. You're welcome to email me

individually as well. My information is there and then my phone number is

there as well.

So with that, we'll go ahead and end this webinar. Again, the slides and the

transcript will be posted by the end of this week and looking forward to

working with you all. Thank you.

END

end · web viewtoday, we're referencing two important documents during this webinar. if you...

Documents