2003-2004 LaSIP RFP QUESTIONS:

1. “How many staff members can a proposal support and do they have to all be from the university?”

Answer: An Option 1,2, or 4 project may support up to three teaching faculty, with one being the Project Director, to adequately pay them for their time and developing project content. This would not include the part-time Site Coordinator, who would be in addition to the teaching faculty. A project does not have to employ only university faculty but should consider employing a master teacher in the content and grade level of the project. This master teacher may be the Site Coordinator.

2. “We were interested in Option 3, Certification, and wondered if can it be written for more than one year of funding?”

Answer: Option 3 is designed to be written for up to three years of on-going funding, meeting all of the evaluative and financial requirements, of course. It would probably take three years to ensure all teachers in the project would have sufficient time and opportunity to take the courses required for certification in the 4-8 certification range, for example.

3. For Option 3, Certification, “why does it only offer a $50,000 financial package?”

Answer: Option 3 is designed to provide funds to pay university teaching staff (including fringe and indirect cost) and for travel expenses for the instructor(s) to travel to a convenient district site to teach the courses. It should also be enough to provide materials to run the project. The districts have Title 1 money from NCLB that is earmarked for certification needs in their districts. This proposal would incorporate a large buy-in from the districts being served to provide a site, materials, stipends and/or tuition, if possible.

4. “Is it possible to submit a proposal for funding for a project with a summer component that begins in June and will not be repeated during the same summer? We are thinking of a high school project for low performing high schools in June because fewer high school teachers are affected by summer school. We would have a second component planned for the next summer?”

Answer: It is possible to submit a proposal for a grant that will provide the summer component in June only and will then include the AY follow-up days between September and May of 2003-2004. You may conclude with a short workshop in June 2004, but the grant will end June 15th. We have found that by June, it's too late to effect changes in student achievement in the school year you are trying to affect. Please note also in the RFP that currently LaSIP funding is to support LINCS and LA GEAR UP schools in their efforts to improve teaching, learning, and student achievement. If there is a way the project that you are describing would fall into these categories, I think mathematics education would be well served by your group submitting a proposal for 2003-2004 LaSIP funding.

5. “Would it be possible for a University to submit a single proposal that would encompass one
Option 1 project and one Option 4 project? If this were allowed, could 1 person serve as a half
time site coordinator on each project and would the money ceiling for the grant be the
cumulative ceiling for option1 plus option 4?”

Answer: Thank you for your inquiry. It is a good question. The answer is no, a University may not submit a SINGLE proposal to encompass 2 different options and thereby buy out a fulltime site coordinator position. But, a university may submit two SEPERATE proposals with two different P.I.s and then share the same site coordinator, (if both proposals were funded), whose salary and fringe may not exceed $50,000, paid out of the two separate budgets. On page 3 of the RFP, you will note “this RFP offers the flexibility of choosing parts or all of the following options as a plan of execution for a project.” This is for one single project and allows for a part-time site coordinator. Remember, a project may serve six schools and two projects could serve 12 schools, which seems impossible to serve these teachers adequately.

6. We have been discussing whether or not we will submit a proposal. We have decided that it would be good to send a "letter of intent" even though we haven't completely thought through the project (we are thinking of expanding the project that we did earlier this year). Let me know if we need to send in a formal letter of intent.

Answer: We’re so glad you are thinking of writing a proposal. This letter of intent is not binding, but it does help us know where the interest is and what grade levels/content will be covered in the project. With 170 LINCS schools plus the 25 LA GEAR UP schools to serve, (see the list of schools at www.lasip.org ) we must be aware of professional development needs that may not be met. To submit a letter of intent you do need to complete Forms 2 and 4 with a brief letter stating your intent. You may still submit a proposal in February, even though you do not get in your letter of intent by Friday, December 20th.

6. Where can we find a list of LINCS and La GEAR UP schools?

Answer: Check the LaSIP website www.lasip.org and you will be able to find a list 2002-2003 LINCS and La GEAR UP schools under both the LINCS and Professional Development links.

7. Can projects accept private and/or parochial school participants for our projects?

Answer: LaSIP professional development projects are funded with funds from a number of different sources. Project Directors need to be aware of the following parameters when accepting participants and providing participants with stipends and teaching materials.

On the LaSIP website is a list containing the nonpublic schools eligible for
BESE 8(g) funds. The Catholic Schools are identified by the Diocese column.
If the Diocese column is empty, the school is an independent nonpublic. All
of these schools are state approved, Brumfield/Dodd approved and have a
Sectarian Status form on file with the BESE office (this is a requirement of
a Consent Judgment). There are other nonpublic schools that are state
approved and Brumfield/Dodd approved that can receive funding from other
sources but not from BESE until they have a Sectarian Status form on file
with the BESE office;
No Child Left Behind funds can be used to fund nonpublic schools; and
Board of Regents funds can only be used to fund university portions of the grants.

8. Our University would like to build on current and other partnerships from the past with certain schools and districts to assist their running a Project LIFE project again during the summer of 2003. But this partnership needs some funding from our university (we helped out with stipends last year) and another parish would like to work with us to run our middle grades physical science project. We also have some matching funds from CATALyST. Logistically my staff here cannot offer 10 days of summer professional development because we are already running two 2-week Chemistry projects, a 2-week Project LIFE program, and a 3-week Leadership Institute. However, if we could oversee some of our leadership teams on-site to run Project LIFE and or our physical science program we could do that. What do you think? Would we meet the guidelines for a LaSIP project? It would be one way to help us leverage our funds to help these two parishes do programs that we have developed and that they have told us they need based on their parish data?

Answer: Currently LaSIP funding is to support LINCS and LA GEAR UP schools in their efforts to improve teaching and learning to increase student achievement. Projects generally have about 30 participants who come from schools from many districts to build capacity throughout Louisiana. LaSIP cannot fund projects in individual districts. If there is a way a project can first meet the needs of LINCS, LA GEAR UP, and then other low performing schools then LaSIP could consider funding the project.