Dear County Superintendents:

Request for Applications: Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists Educator Training Grant

The California Department of Education (CDE) Educational Excellence and Equity Division (EEED) is pleased to announce that the Request for Applications (RFA) for the Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists Educator Training (LCRSET) grant is now available.

Assembly Bill 181, Section 137 (Chapter 52, Statutes of 2022) authorized the Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists (LCRS) program. The CDE, in consultation with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, and subject to the approval of the State Board of Education (SBE), will award $25 million to a county office of education (COE) or consortium of COEs with demonstrated success in improving literacy, especially among underperforming pupil subgroups. Additionally, priority will be given to those COEs that are partnering with institutions of higher education (IHEs) with demonstrated success in providing statewide professional development for expert literacy practice.

The goals of this grant will be to develop and provide training for educators to become literacy coaches and reading and literacy specialists, provide support for the local educational agencies (LEAs) that receive the allocation in Assembly Bill 181, Section 137 (Chapter 52, Statutes of 2022), and to provide support in meeting the State Superintendent of Public Instruction’s goal of all California students reading by third grade by 2026.

The CDE and SBE shall select the grantee during or before August 2023. The grant period ends March 31, 2027. The RFA is available on the CDE LCRSET RFA web page at https://cde.ca.gov/fg/fo/r12/lcrs23rfa.asp.

All applicants must submit a complete application, including all required components, to the CDE by 4 p.m. on May 26, 2023. Incomplete, late, or incorrectly formatted applications will not be scored or considered for approval. This timeline is subject to change. Refer to the CDE LCRS web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/pl/lcrsprogram.asp for the most up-to-date information.

A technical assistance webinar to review all parts of the RFA will take place on April 10, 2023, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. (webinar registration is now closed).

For additional information and a link to the application, please visit the CDE LCRS Grant Program web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/pl/lcrsprogram.asp.

If you have questions regarding this RFA, please contact the Professional Learning Innovations Office at PLIO@cde.ca.gov.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Cotton, Deputy Superintendent
Instruction, Measurement, and Administration Branch

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