Approve the Payment to the University of South Florida (USF) for Services Associated with Their Partnership in Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) Grant, Project #S215L070536-10 (Student Services and Federal Programs Division)

The U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) awarded $8,764,040 to HCPS for the district’s SLC grant project, entitled Tomorrow’s Leaders. The purpose of the program is to support activities to improve student academic achievement in large public high schools with enrollments of 1,000 or more students. The following high schools are included in the grant: Armwood, Brandon, Durant, Hillsborough, Jefferson, King, Riverview, and Robinson. The district’s Supervisor for Academic Programs serves as Project Director for this grant. The awarded amount for years four and five of the five year project is $3,090,560. Of this total amount, $123,428 is for project services rendered during year 4 by USF. Faculty and staff from USF College of Education’s Anchin Center, through the Tampa Bay Educational Partnership, a formal partnership between the district and the university, are providing a Documentation Analysis and Technical Assistance (DATA) team which will meet with both the project leadership and the individual schools on at least a quarterly basis to assist both groups in data analysis and interpretation. The DATA team will communicate regularly with the Internal and External Evaluator and will play a dynamic role in project decision making. Year four of the project began October 1, 2010, and ends September 30, 2012.

Funding for this project is provided by USDOE's Smaller Learning Communities grant, Project # S215L070536-10. HCPS is the grant’s fiscal agent and project funds reside with the district.

Under the terms of the grant, HCPS is responsible for project evaluation. A copy of the annual reports and final evaluation report will be provided to HCPS Office of Assessment and Accountability. The anticipated date for the year 4 report is December 30, 2011.