FY2025: Acceleration Academies Grant

Fund Code: 0322

Purpose:

The purpose of this federally funded targeted grant is to support district and school implementation of Acceleration Academies, an evidence-based academic intervention with a history of positive academic results for students, during the February and/or April school vacation week.

Priorities:

The overall priority for this grant is to support district implementation of the Acceleration Academy model. Key components of an Acceleration Academy program include:

• Academies take place during the February school vacation week, during the April school vacation week, or both
• Core content instruction is provided in-person by highly effective educators and students are taught by the same core content teacher for the duration of an Academy
• Students attend at least 1 specials class each day
• Students are only assigned to one content area during an Academy week and receive 20+ hours of instruction in that content area within a given Academy week
• Instruction during an Academy week builds upon/is an extension of standards-aligned lessons taught during the school year
• Class sizes are small (10–12 students/core content teacher)
• Academy site facilitators and/or academic coaches conduct classroom walk-throughs/observations throughout the Academy week to ensure instructional alignment with district expectations and provided feedback when necessary
• District provides each Acceleration Academy host site and/or sending school with resources to support student recruitment and enrollment management prior to an Academy week, as needed, to ensure high attendance rates

Priority will be given to districts and schools in chronically underperforming status.

Eligibility:

District-Level Eligibility: Districts with one or more eligible schools are eligible to apply. Eligible schools are those that have a federal designation* and are identified under the 2023 Massachusetts District and School Accountability System as in the bottom 10 percentiles. The FY25 Acceleration Academies Grant: District Amounts document includes the list of eligible districts, total district grant allotments, and eligible schools.

Districts can use Acceleration Academy Grant funds to support implementation of Acceleration Academies at all schools, however, as per federal funding requirements, schools that meet the criteria above should directly benefit from this funding. A list of these schools is provided for context in the FY25 Acceleration Academies Grant: District Amounts document.

*Federal Designations:

• Comprehensive support and improvement (CSI)
• Targeted support and improvement (TSI)
• Additional targeted support and improvement (ATSI)

Funding Type:

Federal (CFDA 84.010)

Federal grant funds must adhere to:

• UGG (2 CFR 200)
• EDGAR As Applicable
• EDGAR General Fiscal Administration 34 CFR Part 76

Funding:

Approximately $1,500,000 is available.

This RFP is the governing document for these grant funds.

Funding is contingent upon availability. All dollar amounts listed are estimated/approximate and are subject to change. If more funding becomes available it will be distributed under the same guidelines that appear in this RFP document.

Fund Use:

Allowable expenditures include:

• Teacher stipends for Acceleration Academies
• Administrative staff stipends for Acceleration Academies
• Student transportation services for Acceleration Academies
• Food services for Acceleration Academies
• Consumable program materials and supplies (paper, pencils, markers, etc.) for use during the Acceleration Academies
• Professional development and/or facilitated planning specific to the Acceleration Academies
• Family engagement activities related to Acceleration Academy student recruitment, enrollment, and attendance monitoring

Unallowable expenditures include, but are not limited to:

• Indirect costs
• Equipment (including technology)
• Licenses for software or online programs
• Student incentives

Fund use must be consistent with applicable federal requirements.

All expenditures will be closely reviewed as they relate to the planning and implementation of Acceleration Academies as outlined in the Priorities section of this RFP.

Project Duration:

Upon Approval – 6/30/2025

Program Unit:

Center for Strategic Initiatives

Contact:

Thomas Zorich

Phone Number:

(781) 338-3528

Date Due:

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Proposals must be received at the Department by 5:00 p.m. Eastern on the date due.

Additional Information:

Program Planning and Site Visits
Recipients of Acceleration Academies Grant funding should expect to engage in planning activities with Department staff from the Center for Strategic Initiatives and site visits during Acceleration Academy weeks.

Additionally, educators selected to teach during the Acceleration Academies must take part in training offered by DESE focused on instructional expectations for the Academies. Trainings will take place at least 2 weeks before the February Acceleration Academies for February Acceleration Academy teachers and at least 2 weeks before the April Acceleration Academies for April Acceleration Academy teachers.

Grant Reporting Requirements
Districts awarded grant funding must collect student attendance data during the Acceleration Academies, conduct classroom observations, and administer student surveys focused on student engagement during the Academies. Districts will be required to submit student attendance data and student survey results no later than 1 month after hosting an Acceleration Academy.

LEAs participating in this grant/program will be required to share with DESE their student-level assessment data from the approved early literacy screening assessment that is administered in all schools in grades K–3 during this program or grant award period. DESE will support LEAs to submit the required data by June 30 of each program year. DESE will analyze the statewide data collected for research purposes. All reporting will meet state and federal confidentiality laws. Identifying information of LEAs and schools will not be reported without express consent.

Questions and Answers
Applicants can find all the questions asked regarding this funding opportunity and DESE's responses in a Question and Answers document posted to the Acceleration Academies webpage.

GEM$ Submission Instructions:

The FY25 FC 0322 Acceleration Academies Grant application will be submitted in our new GEM$ system. GEM$ is a cloud-based fiscal and program management grant system that will eventually phase out the use of EdGrants.

Grants for Education Management System (GEM$)

Please Note: Grant Submission at the LEA level requires roles to be established for Grant writer for the specific fund code, LEA fiscal for financial review/approval, and Superintendent/Chief Executive sign off. All these roles should be established prior to the grant due date and all appropriate forms should be either uploaded to GEM$, maintained at the LEA level or sent in to the DESE RFP contact as described on the individual forms. The user guidance documents and forms are found on the GEM$ homepage under DESE Resources. These form can be accessed without logging in to the system.

Last Updated: September 20, 2024