The FY19 submission deadline is September 17, 2019 at 11:59:59 p.m., EDT. We strongly suggest State education agencies submit their applications at least 2 days prior to the September 17, 2019 deadline to address any needed issues. Late submissions will NOT be accepted. Technical issues experienced on the applicant's side are not an acceptable reason for submitting a late application.
State education agencies of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands are eligible to apply.
States have been engaged in the process of developing longitudinal data systems for several years. Similar to the FY15 grant round, this competition focuses on using data that have already been linked or managed in State data systems to improve education in critical areas. While States may propose use cases that require some data linkages and/or infrastructure work, the use case must be the primary outcome of the SLDS FY19-funded work, or must describe how funds would be used to develop or improve existing SLDS infrastructure to improve the linking and use of education data within the State. Grants are not available to support ongoing maintenance of data systems.
There are three priority areas that applicants seeking funding can choose from:
No. However, if a State is awarded a grant in one of the three priority areas, then a state may apply for the optional School-Level Poverty Measure funding. States should express their interest in participating in the School-Level Poverty work in the application.
Applicants may request a maximum of $3,250,000 for ONE priority area (infrastructure, school choice, equity). States that agree to participate in the school-level poverty project may request no more than $3.5 million, which includes up to $3.25 million for the priority area, and up to $250,000 for costs associated with the school-level poverty measure development and test work. States are not required to apply for the maximum award amount of $3,250,000, or the optional School-Level Poverty Measure award (optional $250,000).
FY19 grants will be awarded for a period of 4 years.
Individual grants are estimated to range from $1 million to $3.25 million for the base four-year grant period. IES will award grants of no more than $3.25 million per priority, or a total of $3.5 million (inclusive of the additional $250,000) if applicant applies and is successfully awarded the optional school-level poverty measure funding.
The number of grants awarded in FY19 will depend on the quality and scope of work proposed by applicants.
No; while collaboration with other State agencies is encouraged due to the nature of the SLDS initiative, the extent to which collaboration is necessary depends on the data use you propose to support and where these data are housed in your State.
No. While State education agencies are the fiscal agents for SLDS funds, State education agencies may share grant funds with partner agencies (e.g. early childhood, postsecondary, workforce, etc.) to support partner agencies' work contributing to the SLDS.
Application forms and instructions for the electronic submission of applications are available now, at the Grants.gov Apply site (https://www.grants.gov). Applicants should refer to Grants.gov for information about the electronic submission procedures to be followed and the required software.
The Department has determined that the use of individual level data within an SLDS requires ongoing monitoring. For this reason, SLDS grants are not considered exempt from regulations governing the protection of human subjects in research (34 C.F.R. Part 97). On page 5 of the application package, in the U.S. Department of Education Supplemental Information for the SF-424, you will be asked under question 3.b. whether or not all of the research activities proposed in your application are designated to be exempt from the regulations. Please mark this item as "no" and provide the assurance number, if your institution already has an Assurance of Compliance on file. If your Institutional Review Board already has reviewed and approved your application, you should provide Certification of this approval and a copy of the Non-exempt Research on Human Subjects Narrative with your application, specifically the Supplemental Information form (SF-424). If approval by an Institutional Review Board is pending, please indicate provide an estimate of when the Approval will be completed within the narrative. If the project has not yet been submitted to an Institutional Review Board for approval, please indicate this. The U.S. Department of Education does not require that applicants have an Assurance of Compliance or certification of Institutional Review Board approval at the time you submit your application. However, if your application is recommended/selected for funding, the designated U.S. Department of Education official will request that your institution apply for an Assurance of Compliance and obtain and send the certification of the Institutional Review Board approval to the Department within 30 days after the formal request. If awarded funding, it is mandatory that the Institutional Review Board approval covers the new project; an existing approval non-inclusive of the newly awarded grant funds is not acceptable. New projects require a new application or an amendment to an existing Institutional Review Board approval. Please see RFA for more information.
States must provide an itemized budget breakdown by deliverable, year, and budget category that will allow reviewers to judge if reasonable costs have been attributed to the project. The total for each deliverable must match the total that States are requesting. Please refer to the templates on the SLDS webpage for a sample of this section.
Costs, such as staffing or equipment, that will be utilized to support multiple project deliverables can be treated in one of two ways in the budget: 1) it can be divided among the relevant deliverables; or 2) it can be assigned entirely to one deliverable with an explanation of how that resource will also be utilized to support other deliverables in the Budget Narrative.
The SLDS team will host two webinars on the FY19 SLDS RFA and continue to provide technical assistance resources on topics like project management and governance that are necessary to a strong SLDS application. The SLDS team held a geocoding webinar on April 16, 2019, and this webinar is now available on the SLDS website (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/webinars.asp).
We strongly encourage potential applicants to submit a letter of intent, indicating the Priority or Priorities under which the State education agency intends to apply for funding. Letters of Intent are optional, non-binding, and not used in the peer review of a subsequent application. We use the Letter of Intent to identify the expertise needed for the scientific peer-review panels, and to secure a sufficient number of reviewers to handle the anticipated number of applications. We also use the letter of intent to help Program Officers contact and provide technical assistance to applicants. Eligible entities that do not provide this notification may still apply for funding. Letters of Intent must be included with the grant application, and can be addressed to Mark Schneider or Nancy Sharkey:
Mark Schneider
Director
Institute of Educational Sciences
U.S. Department of Education
Room 4109
550 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20024
Nancy S. Sharkey
SLDS Program Officer
Institute of Education Sciences
U.S. Department of Education
550 12th Street, SW
Room 4162
Washington, DC 20024
We would like applicants to submit the letter of intent on or before Friday, July 19, 2019 at 11:59:59 p.m. Letters of intent should be submitted using the following link: https://iesreview.ed.gov/. Select the Letter of Intent form for the program under which you plan to submit your application; applicants do not have to log in or register an account to complete this process. The online submission form contains fields for each of the content areas listed below. Use these fields to provide the requested information. The project description should be single-spaced and should not exceed one page (about 3,500 characters).
All letters of support should be sent to the SEA, and then submitted with the application package. Electronic signatures are acceptable for letters of support. The signature of the Governor or a letter of support from the Governor are not required. Letters of support that are sent directly to the Department will not be considered as part of the application package.
Yes. States' performance and use of funds under previous Federal awards, including SLDS grants, may be considered in making award decisions.
A Peer Review Panel will review SLDS applications. This panel is comprised of technical experts who have substantive and methodological expertise appropriate to the design, development, implementation, and utilization of statewide longitudinal data systems.
Multiple States may collaborate on a single grant project with one State serving as the fiscal agent; however, the funding cap does not increase for multi-State collaborations. Each grant application is evaluated individually on its own merits, based on the reviewer scoring rubric. There is no scoring advantage for multiple applicants to request funds to develop separate parts of a larger project, nor a guarantee that all or any applicants will be funded. Requesting funding for a project that relies upon another applicant’s project being funded runs the risk that one or more States may not be funded. If only one State receives funding for specific deliverable that includes multi-State collaboration, we will work with the grantee to ensure the original intention of the grant is fulfilled regarding those deliverables. This is done on a case-by-case basis.
SLDS grants are cooperative agreements, which are a special type of grant. Cooperative agreements allow us to have ongoing relationships with grantees that encourage knowledge sharing and convening among grantees, as well as allow for easier distribution of technical assistance and other resources and services to grantees. Grantees must fulfill certain duties as part of cooperative agreements, such as participation in technical assistance webinars and site visits, and travel to national SLDS programs and conferences, for instance. All such requirements are outlined in the Cooperative Agreement sent to awardees.
The Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002 requires that funds made available under the SLDS grant program be used to supplement, and not supplant, other State or local funds used for developing or using State data systems. The cost rate that States should use for indirect costs for SLDS funding is the restricted cost rate, as opposed to the unrestricted cost rate. See EDGAR section 76.563 on Restricted Indirect Cost Rate for more information on this.
Because this funding was appropriated by Congress within the 2019 fiscal budget year, it will be considered a FY19 grant round. Applications will be due near the close of FY19, while awards and funds will be dispersed in FY20.
The intention of this is award is to support, not supplant current and new SEA initiatives.
No. Applying for the School-Level Poverty Measure funds is optional, and States are eligible for this supplemental award only if an applicant is awarded funding under any of the three priorities. States that elect to participate in this project would need to create a geocoded student address directory, and join student geocodes to other geographic information provided by NCES. States would use their newly combined information to summarize existing and proposed poverty measures and share these summaries with the Department. States do not have to apply for this work, but they are expected to indicate an interest in participating. States do not need to submit project plans or budgets for this work as part of their FY19 grant applications, but States should express their interest in participating in the School-Level Poverty work in the application.. States that are awarded grants and elect to participate in this project will receive $250,000 to complete this work in addition to their priority area award. Because the US Census Bureau does not conduct the American Community Survey (ACS) in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands, these territories do not have standard ACS data available to create annual poverty estimates. As a result, these territories cannot participate in the School-Level Poverty Measure work. Because the ACS is conducted in Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico will be eligible to participate in the project if Puerto Rico is awarded an FY19 grant and chooses to participate in the School-Level Poverty Measure work.
The project budget can include up to $3,250,000 for one grant priority area (Infrastructure, Education Choice, or Equity). It is not necessary to include the school poverty level metric funds in the proposed budget, even if the additional funds are included in the request. If a State’s application is funded and the State has indicated participation in the optional work, the additional $250,000 will be added to the project budget.
It is possible that a State may have a compelling reason to defer the award of a new grant. If a State has such a compelling reason, the Project Director should contact IES after a grant award is made.
In Appendix C of the proposal, applicants should include copies of sections of State laws and regulations concerning the confidentiality of individual records. It should also include any currently existing policies related to data security and privacy. These may include but are not limited to:
In Section 8, applicants should explain how the SLDS system will ensure the confidentiality of student data, consistent with the requirements of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), as well as any other applicable Federal and State laws or regulations concerning the confidentiality of individual records, and how the system will include public documentation that clearly articulates what data will be accessible, to which users, and for what purposes.
The language in the RFA was amended after the initial posting; please ensure that you are accessing the most current version of the RFA: https://ies.ed.gov/funding/19rfas.asp
Please assign the Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) role appropriately in your Grants.gov profile. Each organization has one electronic-Business Point of Contact (eBIZ POC) that is assigned in the SAM. The eBIZ POC authorizes the appropriate roles in the Grants.gov Workspace Profile, including that of the Authorized Organization Representative (AOR). Only users assigned the AOR role can submit grant applications on behalf of their organization. When applications are submitted through Grants.gov, the name of the person assigned the AOR role is inserted into the signature line of the application automatically, serving as the electronic signature. The eBIZ POC must authorize people who are able to make legally binding commitments on behalf of the organization as a user with the AOR role; this step is often missed, and it is crucial for valid and timely submissions.
Please see https://sam.gov/SAM/pages/public/index.jsf for information about how to create a SAM user account.
| Section | Recommended Page Length |
|---|---|
| 1. Application for Federal Education Assistance (SF 424) | NA |
| 2. Department of Education Supplemental Information for SF 424 | NA |
| 3. Budget Information Non-Construction Programs (ED 524) — Sections A and B | NA |
| 4. Budget Information Non-Construction Programs (ED 524) — Section C | No page limit |
| 5. Project Abstract | 1 page |
| 6. Project Narrative | 40 pages |
| 7. Budget Narrative | No page limit |
| 8. Data Security and Privacy | No page limit |
| 9. Appendix A — Optional Attachments | No page limit |
| 10. Appendix B — Current Status of State’s Longitudinal Data System | 6 pages |
| 11. Appendix C — Documentation Pertaining to Data Security and Privacy | No page limit |
| 12. Appendix C — Letters of Support, MOUs, and Relevant State Legislation or Executive Orders | No page limit |
| 13. Appendix D — Résumés of Key Personnel | No page limit |
| 14. Appendix E — Acronym List | No page limit |