INSERT DISTRICT NAME
Race to the Top – District CFDA # 84.416
RTT-D Optional Budget Supplement Narrative
Rationale for the specific population and/or area to be addressed: Enhancing the human and organizational capacity of schools to best meet the needs of students and prepare them for success in college and career requires that INSERT DISTRICT NAME make smart and highly strategic investments in innovative approaches that will transform the process of learning.
Insert a brief description of the strategic priorities and/or specific student needs here, such as Delivering on the promise of readiness by exit remains unfulfilled in OUR DISTRICT. Large gaps in achievement persist, and too few students graduate from high school. A strategic priority of our district is to reduce student drop out, the risk of which is especially high among students whose struggles with attendance, behavior or academic performance have led to them failing to complete the required number or balance of academic courses required to graduate.
While our goal is to improve the delivery of personalized learning experiences to all of students, we plan to focus in this initial period on our highest need population. Insert information on TARGET POPULATION. [The selection of the target population is up to your district and dependent on your needs and priorities. We are working with districts who are focused on middle school math instruction, children of military families, over-age students, etc. You must provide a rationale and explanation for your target population. Usually this is most effectively framed in terms of the percentage of your students this population represents and their historic level of achievement, or a description of a particular systemic challenges such as changing graduation requirements that could hinder students who transfer into your district from graduating on time, or lack of access to challenging advanced placement courses across all schools.]
Current Status and Proposed Approach: Our commitment to addressing the above needs and to differentiating instruction and building personalized learning environments for each student is unwavering, but we know that in order to do that effectively we must also position our district leadership and administrative structure to support teachers in the classroom in the delivery of personalized learning.
Our vision for the future is one where our administrators have insight into how curricular materials are used in the classroom – which content is actually delivered to which students, whether they engage with it, and what the result is. This is only possible using a single one-stop-shop platform. INSERT DISTRICT NAME has spent $X on textbooks over the last year, but our ability to link that investment to efficacy is limited. Additionally, we have spent $X on professional development but have been challenged to link that spending to improved practice or efficacy.
Over the last X years, our teachers have increasingly and independently started using a leading social learning platform for K-12. Today, more than X TEACHERS and Y STUDENTS are using this platform (Edmodo will provide this data for you). Teachers are connecting with one another to share pedagogical best practices and setting up closed private groups for their students to join as a complement to in-person classroom activity and engagement. In these groups, students are working on collaborative projects; engaging threaded classroom discussions and debates; receiving, completing, and turning in their homework; viewing rich media; playing learning games; and earning grades, badges, and feedback from their teacher.
INSERT DISTRICT NAME will use procurement policies, consistent with 34 CFR procurement procedures (Parts 74.40 – 74.48 and Part 80.36) which include sole source contracting, to select a technology partner with capacity to provide the following services and goods either through grant funds or at no-cost:
Services
The contracted vendor must be able to deliver the following services at no cost so as to support scalability and sustainability efforts:
1. Deliver an online social learning platform that has demonstrated appeal and usability as indicated by current levels of usage by district teachers which can support a breadth of activities including at a minimum:
o Communication between teachers-teachers, teacher-students, teachers-parents;
o Teacher professional development through private closed online groups that offer easy mechanisms for replication and learning across geographies;
o Collection of data about hard to measure skills and traits such as teamwork and communication and map the full 360-degree range of inputs, influences, and milestones of a student’s learning pathway to that student’s learning outcomes.
2. Provide algorithmic content suggestions that take into consideration the standards-aligned learning objective, the learning style of the student, the topic being taught, and other data inputs.
3. Provide scalable technical assistance and trainings on use of the platform via webinars.
4. Liaison with third party publishers and developers of online content, including those publishers with whom our district currently has relationships, to coordinate the technical integration of their content into the platform.
5. Provide implementation data to INSERT DISTRICT NAME, the Department of Education, the national evaluator, or other appropriate entities in ways consistent with all privacy laws and regulations.
6. Provide a “Train the Trainer” model of professional development either on site or through webinars and/or job embedded coaching on effective use of social learning platforms and digital content.
Goods
The following goods will be purchased through an online curriculum “apps” store using grant and district funds and sustainable through progressive reallocation of district funds currently used to purchase existing third party content or non-digital content such as text books. The contracted vendor must be able to:
7. Provide access to premium third-party digital content (“Apps”) that meets the following minimum criteria:
o aligned with state and national standards
o integrated into the core features and functionality of the platform so that teachers can track students’ progress against standards, upload grades into their online gradebook, award students badges earned for completing activities, or show whether and for how long a student engaged in a homework activity.
It is fully anticipated that this online platform and purchase of digital content will complement and augment face-to-face activities. It will extend learning experiences beyond the four walls of the classroom and the hours in the school day and position our teachers to curate differentiated learning experiences for our students. We believe that having access to a full spectrum of data will enable leadership and administration within INSERT DISTRICT NAME to continue to improve in supporting our teachers to deliver personalized learning experiences to all of our students. We believe that the services and good described above adds value to the teacher, making his or her activities more efficient. But it also adds value to our central office, as we will be able to track content usage and ultimately tie it to efficacy.
The closed private group structure we currently use for professional development (PD) will be used to manage teachers participating in the implementation of this program. We plan to work with INSERT ANOTHER LEA to develop the PD sessions and will include some of their teachers in our PD groups so that they can benefit from our implementation experience.
Plan:
Goals / Activities / Timeline / DeliverableBuild the capacity of teachers to provide effective standards-based, data-driven instruction
and
Provide high quality standards-aligned content to students / · Establish teacher groups (LEAs, districts, schools) for PLCs and begin overseeing scale up
· Establish protocol for use of “Apps” Store Credit
· Purchase and begin to incorporate use of new digital content
· Coordinate “Train the Trainer” program (optional) / Month 1
Month 2
Month 3
Month 6 / Number of students with access to content via the online platform
Year 1 = x
Year 2 = x
Year 3 = x
Year 4 = x
(average 30 per group)
Number of teachers who complete “Train the Trainer” program by the end of year 4 = x
Budget Justification: Grant funds will be used to build individual teacher and district capacity in the use of online content. Starting with X TEACHERS and reaching Y TEACHERS by Year 4, we plan to roll out usage of online “Apps”. Apps are priced on a group basis, defined as a teacher and a group (or class) of up to 30 students. Therefore our budget structure is organized around the number of “groups” that each teacher is responsible for. We recognize that the depth of Apps usage will increase with time. As a result, we plan to allocate each teacher $DOLLARS in Year 1, $DOLLARS in Year 2, $DOLLARS in Year 3, and $DOLLARS in Year 4.
Grant funds will also be used to support a “Train the Trainer” professional development program that will further enhance INSERT DISTRICT NAME ability to optimize use of online content as a strategy to improve outcomes for students. (only include this statement if you need to cover cost of teachers taking part in any Edmodo supported PD, i.e. overtime pay or substitute teacher pay).
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INSERT DISTRICT NAME
Race to the Top – District CFDA # 84.416
Sample RTT-D Supplemental Budget Information
Cost Category / Cost and Computation (with example costs over the 4 year grant period) / Example Request / Sample Justification LanguagePersonnel and Fringe Benefits / To be determined by District if needed.
Example Computation would be: Number of teachers trained x hourly salary and fringe rate x 8 hours = Personnel and Fringe
Yr 1 - 100 teachers x $50 x 8 hours = $40,000
Yr 2 - 100 teachers x $50 x 8 hours = $40,000
Yr 3 - 100 teachers x $50 x 8 hours = $40,000
Yr 4 - 20 teachers x $50 x 8 hours = $8,000 / $128,000 / Insert cost and justification for any personnel needs which are not covered in your main narrative and which clearly support this strategy. These costs may include teacher time to take part in the Train the Trainer professional development opportunities offered by Edmodo. Participation in a Train the Trainer Program is entirely optional.
Supplies / Exact amount to be determined by the District.
Computation would be: Number of groups (classes) x number of apps x $35 = supplies line item
Yr 1 = $140,000
1,000 groups x 4 apps x $35 = $140,000
Yr 2 = $350,000
1,000 groups x 6 apps x $35 = $210,000 plus
1,000 groups x 4 apps x $35 = $140,000
Yr 3 = $560,000
2,000 groups x 6 apps x $35 =$420,000
1,000 groups x 4 apps x $35 = $140,000
Yr 4 = $630,000
3,000 groups x 6 apps x $35 =$630,000 / $1,680,000 / An average cost per app/per group of $35 is assumed to purchase online content to support personalized learning as well as teacher professional development. In year 1 an average of (insert apps) will be purchased by (insert number) of groups. As this strategy is progressively scaled up in years 2 through 4 the amount expended on online content will increase. Based upon a group (class) size of 30 students the per-student cost per app is $1.16. A reasonable number of “Apps” per group to start would be 3-4, building up to 5 or more.
Please see note below regarding scalability and sustainability.
Subtotal Direct Costs / $1,808,000
Indirect / Use your federally approved indirect cost agreement rate / $90,400 / Assuming an indirect rate of 5%
Total Request / $1,898,400
Note to districts – you may want to consider a budget in which you gradually begin to assume the cost of online content. These do not need to be new resources – funds that are currently used to purchase non-digital content (i.e. text books) or for digital resources not currently integrated with Edmodo (but which could be) can be redirected towards online content. The four year grant period would give your district time to scale up and build capacity to support this shift towards greater use of online technology and digital learning content. See spreadsheet below for an example of how this could look. This approach addresses both scalability and sustainability.
Year 1 2 3 4 Total
Amount spent on online content $140k $385k $640k $770k $1,935,000
Source of funds:
Federal RTT-D Supplemental budget $140k $350k $560k $630k $1,680,000
District resources $0k $35k $70k $140k $245,000
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