Advance Notification Letter

U NITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION SCIENCES

National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance

Month XX, 2013

Firstname Lastname

Title

Organization

Address Line 1

City, ST XXXXX

Dear Dr./Mr./Ms. Lastname:

Congratulations! We understand that your state received Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Flexibility approval including approval to use 21^st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) funds to support expanded learning time (ELT) programs. As you know, ELT is receiving considerable attention and support as a promising strategy for school reform. The U.S. Department of Education is sponsoring a study to learn about SEA 21^st CCLC competitions. The Department is particularly interested in the extent to which SEA’s are taking advantage of the ELT option and how they are constructing their competitions to incorporate ELT.

We have contracted with Mathematica Policy Research and partners (Abt Associates, Evidence-Based Education Research & Evaluation, Synergy Enterprises, and Public Consulting Group – Focus on Results) to learn about states’ plans to use 21^st CCLC funds to support ELT in states with ESEA Flexibility around the country. The study team will also examine the process states use to support the districts that will be implementing ELT. To this end, researchers from these organizations will be conducting an hour long interview with 21^st CCLC state coordinators from all states with this ESEA Flexibility in the coming weeks.

A member of the research team will be contacting you in the next few days to tell you more about the study and answer your questions. At that time, they will also be requesting some preliminary materials from you to help make the interview process as efficient as possible and work with you to schedule an interview time. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the study, please feel free to contact the project director, Phil Gleason at (315) 781-8495 or pgleason@mathematica-mpr.com or me at (202) 219-1373 or Erica.Johnson@ed.gov.

Sincerely,

Erica Johnson

Federal Project Officer

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