Dear County and District Superintendents, Charter School Administrators, and Interested Parties:

Call for Peer Reviewers Educator Workforce Investment Grant Program: Special Education-Related Professional Development

The California Department of Education (CDE) Special Education Division (SED) and the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) invite you to participate in the upcoming round of grant application reviews for the Educator Workforce Investment Grant Program: Special Education-Related Professional Development.

An amount of $5 million dollars is allocated to coordinate and support this professional development for teachers and paraprofessionals across the state. One grantee will be selected to work collaboratively with the Statewide System of Support to build the capacity of local educational agencies to create, design, and deliver professional learning opportunities for teachers and paraprofessionals in the area of literacy development with the ultimate goal of providing access for students with disabilities to their grade-level content standards within the general education environment.

The SED and CCEE are seeking to recruit peer reviewers to independently read and score the grant applications received. Each application will be read by two readers. Peer reviewers who have a conflict of interest for a particular applicant must recuse themselves from the evaluation of the application.

Peer reviewers are required to commit to independently read and rank the applications Thursday–Sunday, February 20–23, 2020. Peer reviewers will participate during the application process in a Readers’ Conference to score the applications at the CDE from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, February 24 and 25, 2020.

A peer review training is scheduled for Tuesday, January 28, 2020. The training will address the following topics: (1) an overview of the peer review process; (2) the scoring criteria; (3) the scoring process; and (4) the scoring documentation.

If you are interested in participating as a peer reviewer, please complete a Peer Review Application (PDF) and a Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Agreement (PDF) and return both documents, as attachments, by emailing them to SEEWIG@cde.ca.gov by Monday, January 6, 2020, at 5 p.m.

If you have any questions regarding this Request for Application, please contact the Special Education Division by email at SEEWIG@cde.ca.gov.

Sincerely,

The signed copy of this correspondence is on file at the California Department of Education To request a signed copy, please contact the Special Education Division.

Sarah Neville-Morgan, Deputy Superintendent
Opportunities for All Branch

SNM:as