The April 26, 2010, Work Session will include a discussion of the following items:

• Update on Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) Grant Proposals
• Tentative Budget Overview for Fiscal Year 2010-11 

Please see individual items for additional information.

The Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) is a grant competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). 

There are three levels in the competition, Scale-up, Validation, and Development, with award limits of $50M, $30M, and $5 respectively. Each requires an exceptional research-based approach to addressing one of four Absolute Priorities, including:

1) Innovations that support effective teachers and principals;

2) Innovations that improve the use of data;

3) Innovations that complement the implementation of high standards and high quality; assessments; and,

4) Innovations that turn around persistently low-performing schools.

The Jefferson County Public School District is submitting two proposals for which we are the lead applicant.

With support from the Wallace Foundation, we will be sponsoring an i3 Validation grant proposal for the School Administrative Manager (SAM) project along with seven other states as partners. Those states are Kentucky, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Delaware, California, and Georgia. 

We are also submitting an i3 Development grant to support our comprehensive high school reform work. The project will be target toward the effective and creative use of time to accelerate learning, provide personalized support to students and increase teacher professional collaboration.

In addition, we expect to be a partner on several other i3 grants.

Cordelia Hardin, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, and John Collopy, Director of Financial Planning and Management, will present the Tentative Budget Overview for Fiscal Year 2010-11.