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21. MARICOPA COUNTY EDUCATION SERVICE AGENCY GRANT APPLICATIONS Approve grant applications for funding for the following opportunities aligned to Maricopa County and the Maricopa County Education Service Agency (MCESA) Strategic Goals. These grants may or may not allow indirect cost recovery and may or may not have match requirements. Authorize the Chairman to sign all applications, resolutions, certifications, assurances, etc. that are included in the grant application process. These mutual goals are: County Strategic Goals 1. Ensure safe communities. Rate of recidivism will be at or less than 15%. 2. Promote opportunities for and educate residents so they can improve their own circumstances and quality of life. And, contribute to an effective regional economy. 3. Increase citizen Satisfaction and trust in County government with efficient effective and accountable public services. 4. Increase the current high school graduation rate from 67% to 90%. MCESA Support for County Strategic Goals 1. Provide safe communities through the reduction of juvenile recidivism from 65% to 15%. 2. Ensure that All Students Graduate Career and College Ready so all future residents can accomplish economic security and improve their quality of life; and contribute to an effective County economy as evidenced by a 97.5% or more of the per capita personal income for the United States as a whole. 3. Increase Citizen Satisfaction and Trust in County government and schools with effective and accountable MCESA services as evidenced by school district trust and satisfaction of 90%. 4. Implement Professional Development Programs that will ensure all schools have highly effective Principals and Teachers as evidenced by a 90% graduation rate. The following are non-local funding opportunities anticipated in the very near future: Investing in Innovation (I3) - US Department of Education Provides funding to support (1) local educational agencies (LEAs), and (2) nonprofit organizations in partnership with (a) one or more LEAs or (b) a consortium of schools. The purpose of this program is to provide competitive grants to applicants with a record of improving student achievement and attainment in order to expand the implementation of, and investment in, innovative practices that are demonstrated to have an impact on improving student achievement or student growth, closing achievement gaps, decreasing dropout rates, increasing high school graduation rates, or increasing college enrollment and completion rates. Encouraging Innovation - US Department of Justice Seeking proposals to develop and implement new and innovative strategies that better enable local criminal justice systems to prevent and respond to emerging and chronic crime problems that affect many communities in the US. Proposals must aim to address a gap in the current base of knowledge about responding to and preventing crime and be developed or implemented in a way that allows other communities or organizations to learn from and potentially replicate the approach. For a proposal to be considered "innovative" it must: 1) Propose a strategy that has not been implemented previously yet is supported by data. 2) Propose new modification to an existing strategy that has not been implemented previously yet is supported by research or data 3) Propose a new approach to delivering evidence-based strategies not previously implemented that has the potential to reduce costs and increase efficiencies within an agency or system. ITEST: Innov Tech Exp - Students and Teachers - National Science Foundation The ITEST program responds to current concerns and projections about the growing demand for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals in the U.S. and seeks solutions to help ensure the breadth and depth of the STEM workforce. ITEST supports the development, implementation, testing, and scale-up of implementation models. It also supports research studies to address questions that point to solutions for building a strong, competent STEM workforce. A variety of possible approaches to supporting the future STEM workforce and to building students' capacity to participate in that important workforce may be implemented and studied. ITEST projects must include students and may include teachers. The target audience is kindergarten through high school age, and projects may focus on any content area related to the STEM workforce. Transforming Stem Learning - National Science Foundation The Transforming STEM learning grant combines interests and resources of separate programs in the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) to explore the opportunities and challenges implied by innovative visions of the future for STEM learning. The TSL program invites interdisciplinary teams of STEM content specialists, experts in relevant technologies, STEM formal and informal education specialists, researchers with expertise in the learning sciences, and specialists in education research and evaluation methods to submit proposals for research projects that (1) Study efficacy of existing prototypes for innovations like virtual schools, special STEM schools, and educational programs that combine opportunities of formal and informal learning resources in their communities; or (2) Design and conduct exploratory development of new potentially transformative models for STEM learning environments. BTOP: Broadband Technology Opportunity Pgm - Dept of Agriculture/Dept of Commerce This grant opportunity is available to acquire equipment, instrumentation, networking capability, hardware and software, digital network technology, and infrastructure for broadband services; construct and deploy broadband service related infrastructure; ensure access to broadband service by community anchor institutions; facilitate access to broadband service by low-income, unemployed, aged, and otherwise vulnerable populations in order to provide educational and employment opportunities to members of such populations; and construct and deploy broadband facilities that improve public safety broadband communications services. (SACCNET) Teacher Incentive Fund – US Department of Education This funding program supports efforts to develop and implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-need schools. Focus is on improving student achievement by increasing teacher and principal effectiveness, reforming teacher and principal compensation systems so that teachers and principals are rewarded for increases in student achievement, increasing the number of effective teachers teaching poor, minority and disadvantaged students in hard-to-staff subjects and creating sustainable performance-based compensation systems. Race to the Top – US Department of Education Funding to support reform around four specific areas: Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy. Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction. Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most. A large focus will be to turn around our lowest-achieving schools. May only be available to State Education Agency’s School Leadership Program (SLP) - US Department of Education This funding program provides grants to support the development, enhancement, or expansion of innovative programs to recruit, train and mentor principals (including assistant principals) for high-need Local Education Agency’s. It is unclear if all of these grant opportunities will be funded at this time. However, Federal Grants, when released, may be required to be submitted via a small window of time and possibly prior to obtaining Board of Supervisors approval. This agenda provides MCESA with the opportunity to put a tactical plan in action to obtain non-local funding to support the County’s and MCESA’s strategic goals. Funding amounts are unknown at this time and will vary depending on the funds available. It is also unknown at this time if there is a general fund impact from an infrastructure standpoint. The MCESA indirect rate for FY 2012-13 is 13.8%. Upon notification of any of the awards through the opportunities above, MCESA will return to the Board of Supervisors for consideration of acceptance and provide all fiscal impacts. (C-37-13-005-G-00)