**SAFE SCHOOLS/HEALTHY STUDENTS**

**Moderator: Karen Dorsey**

**February 07, 2008**

**12:30 pm CT**

Operator: Good afternoon and welcome to the Technical Assistance Call
for the FY 2008 Safe School/Healthy Students Initiative.

Karen Dorsey from the U.S. Department of Education will provide opening
remarks before we begin the question and answer portion of the call.

During the Q&A session, you may press star then the number 1 to ask a
question. To withdraw your question press the pound key.

I will now turn the call over to Miss Karen Dorsey.

Karen Dorsey: Thank you very much. Good afternoon and again welcome to
the Safe School/Healthy Students Technical Assistance Call for fiscal
year 2008. My name's Karen Dorsey. I'm with the Office of Safe and Drug
Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education and I will serve as a
moderator for this afternoon's call.

Also participating in the call are members from the federal Safe
School/Healthy Students team and they will introduce themselves.

Michelle Bechard: Michelle Bechard with Department of Health and Human
Services.

(Kristen Kelly): (Kristen Kelly) with the Department of Health and Human
Services.

(Patrick Well): (Patrick Well), DHHS.

Jane Hodgdon-Young: Jane Hodgdon-Young, U.S. Department of Education.

(Eve Munston): (Eve Munston), U.S. Department of Education.

Karen Dorsey: Thank you. Each year we work hard to produce an
application that is thorough and complete but it is impossible to
anticipate every question that an applicant may have. The purpose of
this call is to provide technical assistance by responding to applicant
questions relating to eligibility requirements, the absolute priority,
grant application submission process, selection criteria, and the
application review process. Technical assistance does not include
providing recommendations or feedback on your approach or your proposed
project design.

I recommend that you have your fiscal year 2008 application available
for making notes as we will frequently reference page numbers in the
application when we respond to your question.

Before we open the line for questions I want to review some logistics
for the call and highlight minor changes made to this year's
application.

About the call. We have scheduled weekly calls every Thursday at 1:30 pm
Eastern Time until the week before the competition closes. The last call
will be Thursday, March 6.

A written transcript from the call will be posted on the Safe
School/Healthy Students Web site the Monday following the call.
Additionally, audio transcripts will be posted on the Web site as soon
as they are available and they will remain there until the competition
closes. Audio replay will be available two hours after each call ends
and available until March 14. To access a particular call you will need
that conference call's ID number.

We ask that before you ask your question that you give us your name,
city, and state. Also there may be questions that require our discussion
before we can provide a response. In these cases we will place the call
on mute. There may be some questions that we are unable to answer during
this call. In such cases we will consult with necessary federal staff
and post the responses on the Safe School/Healthy Students Web site on
the FAQ Page.

Now I'm going to talk a little bit about Safe School/Healthy Students
and the revisions that were made in 2008. As many of you know the Safe
School/Healthy Students Initiative has been in existence since fiscal
year 1999 providing funding and technical assistance from three federal
departments, U.S. Department of Education, Justice, and Health and Human
Services to 267 communities across the nation. If you are not familiar
with Safe School/Healthy Students I recommend that you read the
application thoroughly as well as visit the Safe School/Healthy Students
Web site for additional information on the Initiative.

Safe School/Healthy Students is a discretionary grant program that
provides communities with federal funding and support, primarily
technical assistance to implement a coordinating comprehensive plan of
activities, curricula, programs, and services that focus on creating
safe school environments, promoting healthy childhood development, and
preventing youth violence and alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use.

The absolute priority, requirements, selection criteria, and definitions
have not been changed. These are the same for fiscal year 2008 as they
were in fiscal year 2007. If you are not familiar with the changes to
Safe School/Healthy Students that were implement in fiscal year 2007 I
strongly recommend that you review the May 10, 2007 Federal Register
Notice of Final Priorities, Requirements, Selection Criteria, and
Definitions. This notice is posted on the Safe School/Healthy Students
Web site.

Changes made to the 2008 application are in response to questions
received during the fiscal year 2007 competition and the need to clarify
some instruction.

The requirements for the grants are explained on Page 6 and 7 of the
application.

The following are revisions that are included in the 2008 application.

Budget. Applicants need only to submit a single ED 524 budget form. In
addition to the ED 524 budget form, applicants must include a detailed
budget for each of the four 12-month budget periods. Applicants must
still include two separate detailed budgets as required last year.

The first detailed budget should represent the funds needed to support
program elements One, Two, and Three.

The second detailed should represent the funds needed to support program
elements Four and Five.

Each detailed budget should contain the same budget categories as the ED
standard form 524 and provide sufficient itemization, for example the
cost per unit, per month, or per person, to demonstrate how costs were
determined. The sum of the total amounts requested for each budget
category, for example personnel, fringe, or travel, of the first and
second detailed budgets should be entered on the ED standard form 524.
Failure to submit an ED 524 and detailed budgets for each of the four
12-month budget periods will result in no funding for those years for
which documents were not submitted. These instructions are also included
on Page 9 and 86 of the application. We have also posted a sample of a
detailed budget on the Safe School/Healthy Students Web site.

GPRA. There are six GPRA performance measures for the Safe
School/Healthy Students program. These measures are listed on Page 11.
If an award is made, grantees are expected to provide baseline data for
each of the six measures before implementing the project. If baseline
data is not available then a grantee must collect baseline data on each
of the six measures before implementing the project.

In addition to providing baseline data in year one, grantees are
expected to collect actual performance data for the year one annual
performance report. Consequently, applicants should give careful
consideration to the GPRA measures in conceptualizing the approach and
evaluation of their proposed project.

Selection criteria. Several of the several criterion require that
information should be in more than one place in the application, in the
project narrative and in the logic model or in the project narrative and
in the preliminary MOA, in order to be fully responsive. For those
selection criterion we have included a note to remind applicants of this
requirement and we have also included check boxes throughout the
application reminding applicants to maintain consistency between
information presented in the narrative, the preliminary MOA, and the
logic model.

FAQs. In addition to FAQs that are included in the application on Pages
31 through 47, we will be adding FAQs to the Safe School/Healthy
Students Web page. You should check this Web page frequently. At this
time, we have not posted any additional questions on that page but we
will be posting some on Monday.

Attachments. Page 87 contains a list of attachments for your Safe
School/Healthy Students application. Peer reviewers will only review and
consider attachments A, D, and E. Peer reviewers will not review other
documents submitted as an attachment nor will they review additional
items other than those listed for Attachment E. These items are job
descriptions, resume, and a timeline.

If you choose to include additional attachment and an award is made
these items will be considered part of your project and included in the
management and monitoring of your project.

Electronic submission. Applicants may choose to submit applications
electronically. Electronic submissions must be received before 4:30. We
strongly recommend that you do not wait until the last day to submit
your application. Grants.gov will put a date and timestamp on your
application and then process it after it is fully uploaded. The time it
takes to upload an application will vary depending on a number of
factors including the size of the application and the speed of your
internet connection. The time it takes grants.gov to process the
application will vary as well.

If grants.gov rejects your application you will need to resubmit
successfully before 4:30 on the deadline date. Electronic applications
received after 4:30 even by a few seconds are late and will be deemed
ineligible for funding and will not be forwarded to peer review. If you
choose to submit electronically please review carefully the instructions
related on Pages 3 through 5.

Finally, since last week's Safe School/Healthy Students Technical
Assistance Call we have received several questions about naming the
local evaluator in the 2008 Safe School/Healthy Students application.
The selection criteria related to evaluation are included on Page 27 and
they are: the extent to which the applicant's project narrative
describes a plan for regularly monitoring program implementation and
identifies process measures that the applicant will use to assess the
quality and completeness of the activities under the grant and the
extent to which applicant's project narrative and logic model identify
outcomes that are clearly linked to identified objectives and activities
for the project and specify how outcomes will be measured. To fully
respond to these selection criteria it is not necessary to name a local
evaluator in the application.

Furthermore, the Department of Education's general administrative
regulations require that all procurement transactions must be conducted
in a manner that provides for full and open competition consistent with
standards in EDGAR Section 80.36. Thus, it should not be presumed that
an individual or an organization's assistance with the development of an
application will result in the receipt of a contract for the work under
the project if the grant is awarded. Please carefully review the FAQ on
this topic on Page 46.

And finally before I close out, something else has come to our attention
and Jane Hodgdon will discuss that.

Jane Hodgdon-Young: Thank you. This is Jane. As you work on developing
your Safe School/Healthy Students application you may be contacted by
organizations and vendors that offer to assist you in the development of
your comprehensive plan and the selection of activities and programs to
be included in the comprehensive plan. I'm aware of at least one
organization that has developed samples for applications to consider
using if they would like to include their program as part of the
comprehensive plan. This is not the first year that applicants have been
approached by organizations that are selling their services and
programs.

As in previous years, Safe School/Healthy Students staff would like to
take this opportunity to remind applicants that the purpose of this
initiative is for schools and communities to develop, enhance, and
hopefully sustain a community-focused collaborative approach to
resolving community problems. Pages 28 through 30 of the fiscal year
2008 Safe School/Healthy Students program announcement discuss how to
get started in the development of your Safe School/Healthy Students
comprehensive plan.

Two important steps included in the process are assessing your community
and selecting activities, curricula, programs and services. It is our
experience that the most successful and meaningful projects begin with a
thorough needs assessment that is specific to the schools and community
to be served. The needs, gaps, and resources identified in the
community-specific assessment should then drive the development of
goals, objectives, and activities and the selection of evidence based
programs that are needed to fully respond to the selection criteria and
that are likely to have a meaningful impact on the students, schools,
families, and community. Thanks.

Karen Dorsey: At this time we will open the line for questions.

Operator: Okay, at this time I would like to remind everyone in order to
ask a question please press star then the number 1 on your telephone
keypad.

We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster.

Your first question comes from the line of (Lily Zan).

(Lily Zan): My question is, we're a non-profit and we're going to be
partnering with an LEA school district, and possibly two, and I'm
wondering if the criteria for eligibility - if we as a non-profit not as
an LEA - are we considered part of the consortium? Are we allowed to be
only in one contract and not two if two were approved?

Karen Dorsey: To be a member of the consortia each member has to be an
eligible entity on its own. So since you are a non-profit you are not an
eligible entity so you would not be a member of the consortia. If you
are providing services through a contract you could provide those
services to a number of different grantees. But again, back to my
opening response about that any award that is made that LEA must follow
the procurement process, they must meet the standards in EDGAR.

(Lily Zan): Okay, thank you.

Operator: And your next question comes from the line of (Doug Little).

(Doug Little): Hi, yes ,thank you. I have four questions and all four of
them are very procedural in nature.

The first one, in fact the first three, deal with Form SF-424, Question
Four, "Application Identifier." (sic)

Karen Dorsey: You can leave question four blank.

(Doug Little): Okay. Question 12, "Funding Opportunity Number" and - or
slash, "Title." On the front of the application there are several
numbers and I wanted to make sure I ...

Karen Dorsey: Are you submitting electronically?

(Doug Little): No.

Karen Dorsey: Then you do not need to complete Item Number 12. It's only
for those folks that are submitting electronically.

(Doug Little): All right. Thirteen would be the same?

Karen Dorsey: Correct.

(Doug Little): Okay, well then those were easy. The last question deals
with the disclosure for lobbying. Our district has not engaged in
lobbying at all so do we just leave most of the information blank,
identify who we are, and have the authorizing person sign the document?

Karen Dorsey: Correct. Yeah I would write somewhere on the form - strike
a line through it and write "not applicable" so that we know that you've
read the form and you're saying that you're not applicable not that you
forgot to complete the form.

(Doug Little): Does the authorizing individual need to even sign it
then?

Karen Dorsey: Yes.

(Doug Little): Okay. Thank you very much. That's all for me.

Karen Dorsey: Okay.

Operator: Once again to ask a question please press star 1.

Your next question comes from the line of (Betsy McDougal).

(Betsy McDougal): Hi, this is (Betsy McDougal) from White Earth and I
have a couple questions.

Your page limit is 80, is that correct?

Karen Dorsey: No. The page limit ...

((Crosstalk))

(Betsy McDougal): Say it again.

Karen Dorsey: Hold on one second we are ... Page 85 \-- the page limit
is 40 and they must be double-sided. The formatting guidelines are on
Page 85.

***Post call clarification: Text must be double-spaced.***

(Betsy McDougal): Okay, Page 85. Okay, second thing is ... Now, we
have - the example that's on your site for the budget that's for budget
year one. You want one of those for each year?

Karen Dorsey: Correct.

(Betsy McDougal): Okay. Number two goes to the Number 12 on the 424
form. If we are submitting electronically what is the funding
opportunity number for that?

Karen Dorsey: 012408001.

(Betsy McDougal): You want to repeat that?

Karen Dorsey: 012 ...

(Betsy McDougal): Okay.

Karen Dorsey: 408001. And what we will do by Monday is post on that FAQ
page information about how to complete the 424 form.

(Betsy McDougal): Okay. We are a tribal entity and the lobbying form
that was previously discussed \-- we had a question about that. If the
government itself participates in lobbying but the education division
does not how does that work out?

Karen Dorsey: When you say, "The government" ...

(Betsy McDougal): Like the White Earth Reservation Tribal Council, if
they employ lobbying or do lobbying for the tribe is that the same as -
the Department of Education that is within the tribe, is that part of
the lobbying? Do we have to get all that information from them?

We are under the tribe.

Karen Dorsey: Okay. Hold on one moment.

Okay, thank you for holding. We've had lots of discussion here and we
understand that there are some unique challenges to the governing of
tribal entities. I would recommend that the same person that signs the
cover sheet for the 424 also sign the forms in the application. If an
award is made and we have determined that we need other signatures or
information we will get that at that time. But for now go ahead and have
the same person sign the entire application.

(Betsy McDougal): Yeah, okay. And I think that's about it. Thank you.

How do I sign off now?

Operator: Okay, your next question comes from the line of (Carolyn
Hunt).

(Carolyn Hunt): Hello, this is (Carolyn Hunt) with the Rochester City
School District. I have a couple of technical questions and then a
project-based question.

The first couple of technical questions are in last years application we
had to provide a statement regarding promoting non-use of tobacco and a
statement regarding civil rights and inclusion of adequate
representation of girls, women, and racial minority populations. We did
not see that in this year's application.

***Post call clarification: These assurances are provided by the LEA to
the State in response to other Federal spending and are no longer
required for discretionary grant applications.***

Karen Dorsey: Okay. And I'm not sure if that was an oversight on our
part but if it's not in the application don't worry about submitting it.
If we need it we'll get it post-award.

(Carolyn Hunt): Okay. And then, addressing the absolute and competitive
priorities, those count as part of the 40-page narrative, correct?

Michelle Bechard : Can you say that again?

(Carolyn Hunt): The absolute and competitive priorities - well, not the
absolute so much, the competitive priority \-- that should count as - I
usually write those up separately so that should count as part of the 40
pages of the narrative?

Karen Dorsey: No. If you look at where we tell you about the attachments
to the application, the assurance, that's the competitive one, is one of
the attachments that you would put ...

Michelle Bechard: Is that what you're referring to is the assurance that
you have not received funding or if you have you're serving a different
...

(Carolyn Hunt): Yes.

Michelle Bechard: ... population?

(Carolyn Hunt): Yes.

Karen Dorsey: That's Attachment A.

***Post call correction: Program --Specific Assurance for Competitive
Preference or Program-Specific Assurance for Eligibility for Former
SS/HS Grant Recipients are to be placed in Attachment B.***

(Carolyn Hunt): Okay. My next question is about the review process, if
you can share - actually the award process, if you can share that at
all. Is the award this year geographic distribution and if so what does
that mean? Does that generally mean West, Midwest, and Northeast?

Jane Hodgdon-Young: As in - this is Jane, as in previous years all
grants that respond to - that are eligible will go to peer review. Each
application is reviewed and scored on its own merit \--not against any
other application\--by three peer reviewers. And based on the scores
that are submitted by those three peer reviewers we get an average score
for each application and then we make a rank-ordered list of the high
scoring applications from high to lowest. And it is that ranking that we
use to develop the slate for funding Safe School/Healthy Students grant
applications.

(Carolyn Hunt): Oh, okay. Okay, that's helpful. I think it must have
been in the earlier paperwork I had seen something about geographic
distribution awards.

Karen Dorsey: Yes, we do want to make sure that when we make awards that
there is a diversity. So if the - if we're only awarding, let's say, 20
applications - I'm sorry, this is Karen Dorsey, if we're only making 20
awards and the top 15 all score in California we wouldn't fund all 15
that scored high in California because we would want to have diversity
in geographic distribution of the grant.

(Carolyn Hunt): Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And my last question is
again regarding the project director position. Actually we've discussed
a number of models with, you know, project director being hired by the
district and another option of the project director who would actually
be hired by one of the required partners and the district would contract
that position from the required partners. Is that type of model
acceptable?

Karen Dorsey: This is Karen. We only require that there be a full-time
project director. You can decide how you want to fulfill that
requirement.

(Carolyn Hunt): Okay. Wonderful. Thank you, that's all.

Operator: Once again to ask a question please press star 1.

Your next question comes from the line of (Cindy Dickinson).

(Cindy Dickinson): Hi. We're actually in Southern California and this is
a time of an unprecedented fiscal crisis in our state. Would there be
any unforeseen fiscal implications either now or down the road because
we will need to provide assurances to our superintendent and cabinet in
order to move forward?

Karen Dorsey: I'm not sure I understand - I'm sorry, this is Karen
Dorsey. I'm not sure I understand your question.

(Cindy Dickinson): Well, sometimes with grants we realize that we need
to set aside a reserve because of matching funds. Now I realize that
doesn't apply to this but I'm just wondering if there's any negative
fiscal impact to our district as we move forward with the application.

Michelle Bechard: This is Michelle. I'm still - can you give - we're
still not sure what you're asking.

(Cindy Dickinson): Okay. Is there any negative fiscal impact that this
grant would necessitate?

Michelle Bechard: And what do you mean by - I guess where we're losing
you is what you mean by "negative fiscal impact."

(Cindy Dickinson): Will it cost our district any additional funding to
support this?

Michelle Bechard: Not while you receive - not while the grant is going
on.

Karen Dorsey: This is Karen. It is a discretionary grant so every year
we have to make sure - we wait until funds are appropriated by Congress
and the bill is signed by the President before we make continuation
awards but the amount of money that is available under this grant pretty
much everything that you need to do you should be able to support it in
your budget.

(Cindy Dickinson): Okay.

Michelle Bechard: But there are two issues. One is, again there is no
in-kind matching or matching requirement ...

(Cindy Dickinson): Right.

Michelle Bechard: ... however, we will be working with all of our sites
from the beginning on looking for sustainability. So, if you're looking
at a negative fiscal impact in the sense of sustaining programs once the
grant ends then yes it could have an impact. If that's how you're
looking at it it could have an impact.

(Cindy Dickinson): Right, and - yeah, and our Superintendent isn't
wanting us to take on anything new at this time because, again - you
know, this is unique to California.

Michelle Bechard: Well, that's the decision that your school district's
going to have to make.

Karen Dorsey: The grant is a four-year grant so at the end of four years
there will be no additional funds awarded. And, as Michelle said, we do
work with grants and LEAs in hopes that they can continue and sustain
those activities and programs and curricula that demonstrate success.

(Cindy Dickinson): Right, well thank you very much. You've answered our
question. Thank you.

Operator: At this time there are no questions.

Karen Dorsey: Okay, we'll hold for a minute.

Operator: Excuse me, Miss Dorsey?

Woman: Hello?

Karen Dorsey: Yes, we're still here. We're waiting to see if there are
any other questions.

Operator: Okay, you do have a question from the line of (Sarah Pepper).

(Sarah Pepper): Yes, hi. I'm (Sara Pepper) in (Moscow), Idaho. And I
want to go back to the project director position question. You indicated
that a full-time project director is required, of course, and could that
be two part-time individuals, say one working with school-based programs
and one working in community-based programs?

Karen Dorsey: This is Karen Dorsey. It is not our intent that that
position would be split between two individuals.

Michelle Bechard: I think the language in the application says, "One
full-time (FTE)" which would imply that it's one person.

Does that help?

(Sarah Pepper): (Unintelligible). Thank you.

Michelle Bechard: Okay.

Operator: Okay your next question comes from the line of (Karen
Burgess).

(Karen Burgess): (I'm) from Charleston, West Virginia and I have a
question regarding the 10% limit on security equipment and personnel. Is
that 10% of our maximum allotment of \$1.5 million for our district size
or is that 10% of the final budget total that we come up with?

Michelle Bechard: It is 10% of the final budget that you come up with.

(Karen Burgess): Okay.

Michelle Bechard: Annually.

(Karen Burgess): Yes. Okay, I heard you say earlier something about
double-sided in presenting the 40 pages.

Karen Dorsey: This is Karen. I'm sorry, I should have said
double-spaced.

(Karen Burgess): Oh, okay okay okay. All right, thank you.

Operator: Okay your next question is a follow-up from (Betsy McDougal).

(Betsy McDougal): Hi, yes, this is (Betsy McDougal) again. I had a
question about the GEPA - is that how you say it, GEPA 427 form?

Woman: Okay.

(Betsy McDougal): Is that just a statement in a letter kind of a form?

Woman: Yes it is.

(Betsy McDougal): Okay. Is that the same as the Equitable Participation
of Private Schools Statement?

Karen Dorsey: This is Karen. Yes, in the same format but it responds to,
clearly, the participation of private schools.

(Betsy McDougal): Okay so those are two different documents then?

Karen Dorsey: Correct.

(Betsy McDougal): Okay, good to know. I was just thinking this looks
like it's the same thing but it is similar to the other one. Okay. And
usually we can find an example if we call our Title 1 program, is that
what that is?

Karen Dorsey: An example for?

(Betsy McDougal): To write up the statement.

Karen Dorsey: Which statement are you talking about?

(Betsy McDougal): Okay. It said - somewhere I read - okay it said, "Find
your Title I statement to use as an example."

Karen Dorsey: That is to demonstrate maintenance of effort which is
different from GEPA which is different from Equitable Participation of
Private School children (sic).

(Betsy McDougal): Okay, hold on a minute. So the - what actually - is
there an actual form then for this GEPA 427 and for the Equitable
Participation of Private Schools?

Karen Dorsey: No, there's no form it's just a simple statement
responding to what is being asked.

(Betsy McDougal): Okay. And where does that go then, into an attachment?

Karen Dorsey: On Page 87 we talk about a complete application and
Attachment F is Department of Education and other federal administrative
requirements and you would put your GEPA statement as well as Equitable
Participation of Private Schools as well as Maintenance of Effort
Statement in Attachment F.

Michelle Bechard: As well as your lobbying statement. Go to Page 87 and
(unintelligible) on Page 88. It lists all the documents that need to go
into Attachment F.

(Betsy McDougal): Yeah. Yeah, I'm just looking for examples. That's what
I'm looking for. Okay. You don't have examples like that that you could
put up?

Karen Dorsey: Your Maintenance of Effort Statement varies from school
district to school district. I would suggest that you talk with your
Title I person. Your equitable participation is specific to what it is
that you as the applicant has done to engage in meaningful consultation
with the private, elementary, and secondary school district area.

(Betsy McDougal): Okay. Okay. And the GEPA? Same thing?

Karen Dorsey: Correct.

(Betsy McDougal): All right. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Karen Dorsey: You're welcome.

Operator: Your next question is a follow-up from (Cindy Dickinson).

(Cindy Dickinson): We had a question related to use of funds and
appropriate use and we're wondering should our committee determine that
there was a need related to school resource officers is that an
appropriate expenditure?

Woman: Yes.

(Cindy Dickinson): Okay thank you.

Operator: Okay. Again if you would like to ask a question please press
star 1.

At this time there are no questions.

Karen Dorsey: Okay, we'll hold for a couple more minutes.

This is Karen Dorsey. I'm guessing if we don't have any more questions
we can end the call.

Operator: At this time there are no questions.

Karen Dorsey: Okay. Well then thank you everyone for participating. The
next call will be next Thursday. Have a good evening.

Operator: This concludes today's conference call. You may now
disconnect.

END