Questions and Answers re Application Package

OMB Comments On

Native Hawaiian Career and Technical Education Grant Application (NHCTEP)

1. Would it be feasible for ED to wait the 15 days for the comment period to end?

The 30-day Federal Register comment period ended on June 18, as the 30-day FR Notice was published on May 18.

2. The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 was reauthorized on August 12, 2006. Why wasn’t the information collection published until May 18, 2007?

The discussion period to determine how to structure the new program was more lengthy than anticipated. While we were discussing and considering the new law and its effect on our program soon after the new law was signed, we started the actual internal planning process for the new competition in November, such as developing the Notice Inviting Applications (NIA). The process for developing the NIA and obtaining approval took considerable time. It was necessary to obtain an approved NIA before we could complete the application package. Nancy – the answer Nicole is looking for here is why it took OVAE so long to put the IC package into clearance after the Aug. 12 reauthorization date. For the most part she doesn’t seem to want to know a lot of internal specifics about each part of the IC package; rather she wants to know what took so long for u to begin the clearance process. Now it is ok to keep your sentence about ED’s internal process being lengthy to near the NIA, but I’d add that u received a lot of internal comments that u needed to incorporate. We planned to send the 83i form, supporting statement, and application package for approval all at the same time.

3. What are the steps that ED must take to grant awards by September 30, 2007 (along with the corresponding deadlines for each step)?

• 7/2/2007 Obtain application package approval.

• 7/6/2007 After the application package is approved, the Notice Inviting

Applications (NIA) must be published in the Federal Register and uploaded into GAPS for a 30-day period.

• 8/9/2007 Deadline for receiving applications

• 8/10-16/2007 Review and analyze grant applicants for eligibility.

• 8/20-24/2007 Convene panel reviewers to read and score applications.

• 8/27-29/2007 Conduct budget reviews of eligible grant applications.

• 8/30-9/3/2007 Generate a rank order list of applications based on the reviewers’

evaluations of their quality; seek approvals with OVAE.

• 9/4/2007 Enter the reviewers’ raw scores into GAPS.

• 9/4-5/2007 Develop slate memo and submit to Exec. Sec.; seek Assistant

Secretary’s approval.

• 9/6-20/2007 Submit slate to Exec Sec and obtain approval.

• 9/21/2007 Record commitments and obligations in GAPS and complete the legal

requirements for obligation.

4. (Part A, Question 2) The sentence “OVAI will conduct a new grant competition in the spring of 2007 for the NHCTEP” indicates that the grant competition has already happened. Please clarify.

I changed the time to August/September 2007 in the supporting statement.

4. Has the burden statement been included in this information collection?

I made a revision and have now included the burden statement on page 17 of the application package.

4. (p. 7, grant application) Is section a, subsection 6, of the selection criteria worth 5 points in total?

Yes. It should read:

(6) The extent to which the project will provide opportunities for high-quality training or

professional development services that— (5 points)

(i) Are of sufficient quality, intensity, and duration to lead to improvements in

practice among instructional personnel;

(ii) Will improve and increase instructional personnel's knowledge and skills to help

students meet challenging and rigorous academic and career and technical skill proficiencies;

(iii)Will advance instructional personnel's understanding of effective instructional

strategies that are supported by scientifically-based research; and

(iv) Include professional development plans that clearly address ways in which

learning gaps will be addressed and how continuous review of performance will be conducted to identify training needs.