SIG Note of Non-Substanative change

United States Department of Education

office of elementary and secondary education

NOTE

TO: Sharon Mar

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

Office of Management and Budget

SUBJECT: Addition of Fiscal Year 2011 Application to Package for School Improvement Grants (#1810-0682)

As you know, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has approved the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) request for regular approval of the School Improvement Grants (SIG) collection (OMB #1810-0682). Part of the package included the State educational agency (SEA) applications used for fiscal year (FY) 2009 and FY 2010 SIG funding which also contained the LEA application template SEAs would use to run their SIG competitions. ED has now developed an amended application for SEAs to use to apply for FY 2011 SIG funds which contains technical changes from the application used for FY 2010 funds. The LEA application template is unchanged. We are requesting to add the amended SIG application to the package through an OMB 83-C request.

Although the structure of the amended SIG application is different from the FY 2010 application, the content is almost identical. ED has made three minor modifications to the SIG application to make it easier for SEAs to comply with the final requirements for the SIG program that govern FY 2011 funds. These changes are consistent with the SIG final requirements that were part of the package OMB approved.

The first modification expands Section A of the application to request information on the schools that have had their SIG grants terminated. This modification is necessary because schools that received FY 2009 SIG funds have now completed their first full year of implementation. Under SIG requirements, SEAs must review an LEA’s annual goals for student achievement for its SIG schools to determine whether to renew an LEA’s SIG award with respect to schools in the LEA that are not meeting those goals and making progress on the leading indicators in section III of the final requirements. The additional information is necessary because ED expects that a number of SEAs have terminated some of their SIG grants based on the review of annual goals. Although the same final requirements govern FY 2009, FY 2010, and FY 2011 SIG funds, ED did not ask for this information in the FY 2010 application because SEAs had not yet made renewal decisions.

The second modification in the application for FY 2010 funding removes one of the six waivers that an SEA was able to request as part of submitting its application for FY 2010 funding. An SEA is not obligated to request any of the waivers, and an SEA can comply with the final requirements for the SIG program without receiving any of the waivers. (For those SEAs that do want to take advantage of the flexibility offered by the waivers, we are helping them make their requests in an efficient manner by including a specific section in the application for these waiver requests.) The waiver that was removed relates to an SEA’s ability to extend the period of availability to use FY 2009 carryover SIG funds until September 30, 2014. Since SEAs applying for FY 2011 will not be using FY 2009 carryover SIG funds to make new awards, this waiver is no longer necessary in the amended application.

The third modification adds an attachment titled, “School Improvement Grants – Funds for Continuation,” to the amended SIG application. The attachment was added to reduce the burden on SEAs that will use FY 2011 funds solely for continuation awards. The majority of SEAs will use the FY 2011 SIG allocation to make second-year continuation grants for LEAs that received only first-year awards with FY 2010 SIG funds instead of making new awards to schools that have not previously received SIG funds. In recognition of this fact, the Department is allowing an SEA that will use FY 2011 funds solely for continuation awards to submit the “School Improvement Grants – Funds for Continuation” attachment in lieu of a new SIG application. The attachment requires SEAs to submit an assurance that it is not making new awards with FY 2011 SIG funds and asks the SEA to list the schools that have had their SIG grants terminated. All other requirements of the FY 2011 SIG funds will be governed by the information outlined in the SEA’s approved FY 2010 SIG application.

The three modifications listed above do not change the burden hours associated with this collection.

Thank you for your consideration of our request to change collection 1810-0682 to include the amended SIG application for FY 2011 funds. If there are questions, please contact Carlas McCauley of OESE’s Office of School Turnaround at 202-260-0824 or Carlas.McCauley@ed.gov.

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