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**Event ID:** 962258\
**Event Started:** 4/10/2008 1:49:07 PM ET

Please stand by for realtime captioning. Please stand by for realtime
captioning.

Thank you, Mark. Good afternoon and welcome to the first federal student
aid teach processing webinar. I am Debbie Miller. I am requirement
manager for program operations here at Kansas federal Student Aid. I
will be co-presenting this afternoon with my colleague, Lisa diCarlo,
the direct loan and TEACH grant operations manager. We\'re really very
excited today that you could join us because we\'re really anxious to
share our processing requirements, and our updates to our systems that
we\'re going to be implementing over the next few months and as I say
into 2009, 2010, so that you can easily process TEACH grants awards for
students. Some of you that attended earlier in the week, our colleagues
had two webinars that had policy issues with the TEACH grant program. We
would like to turn our focus to the operations and processing of TEACH
grant awards. Looking at our agenda, you\'ll see we\'re going to first
touch on legislative and regulatory background. We\'re going to do a
brief overview because we want to hit the main topic which is teaching
TEACH grant processing overview. We will then move into release dates
resources, and then we will move into a question and answer period. I
advise everyone to participate in the question and answer period if as
we go through the presentation today you have questions or concerns.
Let\'s get started. Looking at the legislative and regulatory
background, can we please go to the next slide? The college cost
reduction and access act was enacted September 27, 2007. It establishes
the TEACH grant program is effective 2008/\'09. The TEACH grant program
will allow up to 4,000 a year in grant assistance to a student who
agrees to serve for the least four years as a full time teacher and
teacher and in a high need field in a public or private elementary or
secondary school that services students from low income families. A
recipient who does not complete the required teaching within a specified
time from him timeframe or fails to meet certain other requirements of
the TEACH grant program will be required to repay the TEACH grant as a
direct unsubsidized loan under the William D Ford federal direct loan
program. Next slide, please. The teaching service requirement is four
years within an eight-year timeframe for full time teaching. You need to
be teaching as a highly qualified teacher in a 5 to 1 low income
elementary or secondary school and teach in a designated teacher
shortage area. On your screen you will see the teacher shortage areas
that are contained within the TEACH grant legislation. Currently we are
in negotiated rule making process for the TEACH grant program. As we
move to the next slide, you will see that we have three public sessions
that were held during the months of January and February. If we can move
to the next slide slide.

It might take a second to updated on your screen. As soon as you say
next slide, I have done it. Go ahead and start.

I apologize.

Thank you. I apologize.

No worries.

On March 21, 2008, the notice of proposed rule making was publish and
had is posted on I-fact. Comments on this notice of proposed rule making
must be submitted to the department on or before April 21st, 2008, and
we encourage everyone to participate in this process. During our
question and answer period Kay will share additional information on this
process. Final regulations will be published mid to later June and will
be effective for the 2008/2009 year and will be made available on ASAP
now I would like to move to the main focus of today\'s discussion, TEACH
processing overview.

Before I start, I would like to share how federal student aid approached
our system implementation of the TEACH grant program. Since this was a
new program, we knew that we needed to determine the impact that this
program would have on all of our various systems and business functions
within the Department. As you can see, we identified eight business
functions that we knew we needed to address. School eligibility and
participation in oversight, student awareness, student application,
agreement to serve, award and disbursement processing, financial,
maintaining an award, and fulfillment of agreement. Today we\'re going
to be sharing our requirements for the business functions that we \--
that interface with your students and our system. Next slide, please. I
would like to reiterate that the MDRM includes institutional eligibility
requirements. Institution has the option to participate in the temp
grant program. \-- TEACH grant program. You will be choosing to
participate in the TEACH grant program, you will need to apply for
participation approval. We will have a forth coming colleague letter
that will explain how an institution adds the TEACH grant program to
institutional eligibility and what must be done to satisfy other
institutional requirements. Please go to the next slide.

Student awareness. In the area of student awareness, we have been in the
process of updating our student and school publications and as they\'re
updated, we are posting them to I-factor their appropriate sites.
Currently there is a TEACH grant program information on the student aid
on the web at the URL that you\'re seeing on your screen.
Www.TEACHgrant.Ed.gov. At this URL you will find information regarding
student eligibility and academic criteria. Next slide, please. January 1
2008 we did add a question to FASFA on the web to assist in identifying
potential eligible TEACH grant recipients. This question is displayed on
your slide and as you can see allows for a yes/no answer. For 2008/\'09
this question only appears on FAFSA on the web and is not on the paper
FASFA or not in an application generated by a school in NFA access to
CPS online or through EDE processing. However, please keep in mind that
the purpose of this question was to help schools or to have students
self identify themselves to assist you in identifying potentially
eligible students. This question is not a required question for a
student to receive a TEACH grant.

Starting February 11 of 2008 we added comment code 281 so that it would
appear on a student aid report or to an ISFER transaction that is
generated for students who submit a FAFSA on the web application and
answer yes to the TEACH grant question. Then on February 15th of this
year, we reprocessed so that any student who had answered yes to the
TEACH grant question prior to February 11th, we would pick up and then
send a \[ indiscernible \] or ISER to you with this comment code. Next
slide, please.

The new SAR comment code 281 and its text is listed for you here on the
slide. Next slide, please. Next month on May 5th, 2008, we will be
implementing a new SAR comment code 282. This code will be for
non-filers or non-FAFSA on the web filers. Excuse me. This new SAR
comment code 281 will be for a filers who have completed a paper FAFSA
or who has entered an application via F A access or whose application
has come to us through EDE. We want to present them with this comment
code since they have not been presented the TEACH grant question. We
will not be reprocessing for this new SAR comment code. We will simply
add this code to any new applicant starting May 5, 2008, 2008. Next
slide, please.

This slide shows you the text for the new comment code. You will see
that the code is going to be directing the applicant to the TEACH grant
website for information about student eligibility and academic
requirements for the TEACH grant program. We\'re very hopeful this code
will help to provide outreach for those students who have either not
seen the question and had the opportunity to answer yes or no. Next
slide, please.

I would now like to turn the presentation over to my colleague Lisa
DiCarlo so she can continue with our processing requirements for the
TEACH grant program.

Thank you, Debbie. Agreement to serve with the ac minimum ATS which you
will see throughout the rest of this presentation, this is the service
agreement as noted in the draft regulations. The student must complete
and sign agreement to serve in order to receive TEACH grant funds. The
student must complete an agreement to serve electronically via an ATS
website each year that he or she is scheduled to receive a TEACH grant
award. The ATS will explain the service obligations that must be
fulfilled, the circumstances that will result in the TEACH grant being
converted to a direct unsubsidized loan and if the TEACH grant is
converted to a direct unsubsidized loan, the terms and conditions
associated with repaying the loan and the school receives the response
regarding the student\'s agreement to serve completion. It is important
to note that the ATS will only be available in electronic format. Next
slide, please. The agreement to serve website will have its own URL. It
is www.TEACH-ATs.ED.gov. The new agreement to serve website will be
accessible using the federal student aid pin. Once logged on, student
users will use the agreement to serve website to submit their ATS notes
or view and print previously submitted ATS notes. The ATS website will
include a TEACH grant fact sheet as well as provide downloadable
information on initial and subsequent counseling.

Next slide, please.

Sorry about that, Mark, I got ahead of myself. Let me remind you that
schools have an initial or subsequent counseling requirement prior to
disbursing each grant. Next slide, please.

Schools will be able to search and view all agreement to serve
information via our common origination and disbursement website. A new
agreement to serve will be required each year a student is scheduled to
receive a new TEACH grant. We will not have a mast era green light to
serve \-- a master agreement to serve this year. The agreement to serve
will be link to do an award ID for TEACH grants which we will go over on
the next slide. \[ indiscernible \] will acknowledge completion of the
agreement to serve and notify the schools. Next slide, please.

Here we have the agreement to serve ID. The agreement to serve will be
identified with this ID which is a system generated 21 character ID
comprised of first nine characters being the Social Security number and
followed by the agreement to serve type which is C, followed by the
award year which is \'09, the first six characters of the OPE ID and
lastly with the last three sequence number being the last three
characters. Next slide.

Award and disbursement processing. A school provides origination and
disbursement information for TEACH grant award via submission of the XML
cod common record to the COD origination and disbursement system.

Next slide please.

Let me start with that. A school provides origination and disbursement
information for TEACH grant award via submission of the XML COD common
record, the common origination and disbursement system or via the COD
website. Upon processing an awards origination record and disbursement
record, the COD system returns the applicable response to the school.
Anticipated disbursements must be submitted with the origination record.
Upon acceptance of an origination record that includes anticipated
disbursement information at a minimum, the COD system generates a teach
grant disclosure statement for the student. The school also has the
option to require there be an accepted origination record in the common
origination in disbursement system before it will accept an ATS
submission. There is no potential over award process that will be
offered but we will have multiple reporting records for concurrent
enrollment available. In addition, there is no option for automatic
correction process. Next slide, please.

Common origination and disbursement system provides or add just the
current funding level for a school based upon acceptance of actual
disbursement records. Actual disbursement records will be accepted if
there is an agreement to serve accepted for the applicable year and the
disbursement is submitted no more than seven days before the
disbursement date. Funds will be available for drawdown in G-5 formerly
GAAP beginning July 1, 2008. There will be a G-5 award number that will
identify your TEACH drawdowns, and that number award number will be
identified with PE379T09 and then your school\'s identifier at the end.
You can view your funding data either on G-5 or using the common
origination and disbursement website. Next slide, please.

Awards will be edited against TEACH grant maximum limits across schools
within an award year. The next two bullets on the page refer to when a
grant converts to a loan. Awards that convert to direct unsubsidized
loans will not apply to a student\'s direct loan annual or aggregate
loan limits. In addition, any default on a converted loan will not count
in the institution\'s cohort default rate. Next slide, please.

Teach grant will be a unique program type. Because it is a unique
program type, we needed to make schema changes to accommodate the new
award block for TEACH. We posted an IFAP electronic announcement on
March 11 teat, communicating the new schema and can be downloaded and
viewed on that URL on your screen. Next page.

The TEACH granted award ID is a 21 character award ID, very similar to
the ATS award ID that we looked at. The first nine characters being the
Social Security number, the next character being the award type, which
is H for the award, \'09 being the award year, first six characters of
the OPE ID, and the last three being the sequence number. Next slide,
please.

Maintaining the award. TEACH grants will be uniquely identified and
tracked within federal student aid systems. Once the common origination
and disbursement system has an accepted agreement to serve, accepted
origination record, and accepted actual disbursement record for the
initial disbursement, the TEACH grant award is sent to direct loan
servicing. After direct loan servicing receives TEACH grant from the
common origination and disbursement system, the student will receive
their welcome letter. Direct loan servicing will pass TEACH grant data
to the national student loan data system. Beginning in fall of 2008 on a
quarterly basis direct loan servicing will be generating a statement
about the TEACH grant for the student. The student\'s completion of the
required teaching or conversion of the TEACH grant to a direct
unsubsidized loan if necessary is recorded and monitored via the direct
loan servicing system. Next slide.

NSLDS will maintain many different things for us, firstly maintaining
the history and reporting on TEACH grants. They will display TEACH
grants versus TEACH grants converted to direct unsubsidized loans, and
the distinction for the unsubsidized loan that was once a TEACH grant is
a ) that call TEACH as part of the label. NSLDS will also add TEACH
grant to enrollment recording rosters, and they will pass information to
CPS for ISAR. In addition, they will support TEACH grant program with
transfer students monitoring functionality. With that you are our next
part of the agenda is release dates, and Debbie will be going over our
release dates.

Next slide, please.

Thank you, Lisa. I would like to start by saying that yesterday I we
posted the TEACH granted operational implementation overview on IFAS, so
again I want to mention the implementation overview has been posted on
IFAS as of 4-09-2008. If we can move to the next slide.

I would like now to take a few moments to go through the release dates
that are actually outlined for you in the ISAP notice that was posted
yesterday. If we move to the next slide, you will see that on June 27
through the 28th of 2008 we will have a COD release, a common
origination and disbursement release 7.1. We will be bringing in TEACH
grant functionality for school setup, batch and web processing, our
agreement to serve websites that Lisa spoke of a few moments ago will be
available. We will be able to link awards to agreement to serve
documents that have been completed by the student. We will be
implementing funding level changes. School funding will display on the
COD website as well as school and student data in regards to the TEACH
grant program will also display on the COD website. We will be putting
edits in place including edits around concurrent enrollment. Next slide,
please.

For E D express users that may be listening, we want to let you know
that shortly after June 28 of 2008, shortly after the COD system
implementation we will have an updated version of the ED express box
wear that will be posted. This version of the EDExpress software will
support TEACH grant origination and disbursement processing. It will
allow you to enter store export and import TEACH grant origination and
disbursement records. Next slide, please. June 1, 2008, we have
additional TEACH grant functionality that will be put into place. Now if
we remember the TEACH grant program is effective July 1, 2008. As of
that date you will be able to see any TEACH grant awards that have been
processed through COD in an SLDS. Not only will schools be able to view
that data, but so will students, and you will be able to see individual
award information as well as aggregate award information. Schools will
be able to enter over payment information for TEACH grant, and you will
start to see students who have received TEACH grants post odd your
enrollment recording rosters. You\'ll also note that our borrowed
services collection system will be able to accept any referrals you may
have in regards to an over payment for a TEACH grant. Next slide,
please. September 26 through 27th will be another busy time for us as
we\'ll be implementing further TEACH implementation or further TEACH
functionality, excuse me, in the COD system, release 7.2. This release
is going to bring school reports to you. The reports that will be
available starting in September will be multiple reporting records, MRR,
which will be generated for concurrent enrollment. You\'ll be able to
get pending disbursement lists, inactive grant reports, and SSN name,
date of birth, change report will also now include TEACH grant
recipients, and we will have a student account statement, a SAS report
for TEACH grants. For those of you who will be using a SAS report,
possibly for the first time, I want to share that is very similar to
checking account statement that you might receive, and we hope it will
help you to reconcile your TEACH records as Lisa mentioned earlier in
the presentation. Next slide, please. Following that September release,
we will have another version of the E D express software that will be
posted. This version of ED express will allow users of that software to
import the reports that we just spoke of and make the \-- and the data
available on the reports viewable by the schools. Next slide, please.

As you can see, we have additional TEACH grant functionality that will
be coming up by January 1st of 2009. All applicants will be presented
with TEACH grant questions. As we mentioned earlier this year, for 2008,
2009, we were able to add the TEACH grant question to FAFSA on the web
for all students who were filing electronically. Next year we\'ll be
presenting that TEACH grant question on all applications including the
paper FAFSA. Schools will see TEACH grant data on the SAR and ISER in
regards to the history transactions that you\'ll be receiving, and
we\'ll have more information on that in forth coming presentations.
Schools will be able to request and receive transfer monitoring, and
you\'ll though that transfer monitoring records layouts will be
available to schools and vendors in October of 2008. Post screening will
be triggered when a TEACH grant is converted to a direct unsubsidized
loan. You will be able to see if a TEACH grant has converted to a loan
on the NSL CS system. Next slide, please.

March 2009 we\'ll be adding additional TEACH grant functionality to the
COD system in our annual 8.0 release. TEACH grant will of course be
included in our new award year setup but will be adding some additional
TEACH grant reports at this time. We\'ll be adding the year-to-date
report which will be used to rebuild a record. We will be adding the ATS
discharge report so that you will be aware of any discharges that have
occurred for students that are on the \-- who have received a TEACH
grant, and we will also add data request functionality via the COD
website for these two reports. We will also be doing TEACH granted
closeout processing. As you can see, we have a series of implementations
that we hope will bring ease and friendliness to the processing of the
TEACH grant program. With that, I would like to move to resources which
is our next slide.

You will see that we have many series, many training sessions and
workshops that we\'re going to be conducting starting spring of 2008
with the regulatory and legislative update. I also would like to point
out that we really see this webinar today as the first in a possible
series of webinars that we will continue to bring information to you as
best we can as quickly as we can as we continue to implement this
program. Training announcements will be posted on IFAS. I want to make
sure everyone is aware that we do have the COD technical reference that
has been updated, particularly in regards to the schema changes that
Lisa spoke about earlier, and this is of course available on ASAP and
SSA download as it always is. We do expect to do an additional update
this month, and we will have a subsequent update available July of 2008.
Next slide, please. This slide lists for you the various electronic
announcements that we have posted to date for the TEACH grant program.
We hope that you can use this as a reference tool for your offices as
you look into this program. I would now like to move into our question
and answer period. Before we move to our first question, Mark, I would
like to ask Kay gel cheer our colleague from the office of post
secondary education to update us a bit on the process for responding to
the notice for proposed rule making for the TEACH grant program.

Thank you, Debbie. Thank you, Lisa, both of you did a wonderful job. I
am amazed by how much you are accomplishing in such a short time. We did
post the NPRM, publish touchdown on March 21st with a short comment
period. We only have 30 days for comments. You can understand why that
is since this program has to be up on July 1st, and we have to get those
comments in and review them and publish the final rules. We hope to
publish those as was mentioned mid-June, certainly would have it
published at a time so that it would be timely for your July
implementation. Comments which we would really welcome, particularly on
many of the issues that are policy related, institutional and student
eligibility issues, and also the kinds of things that would raise
questions for you, we cannot know everything about how every institution
structures its academic programs, and that is relevant to the policy
side of things. You can submit those comments by a method that is
specified in the notice of proposed rule making, and also they would be
submitted most often electronically if you\'re able to via the federal
he-rule making portal which is at www.regulations.gov. They can also
come in by mail or commercial delivery or hand delivery. There is a
docket ID number associated with this NPRM which you have to reference
in your comments. I urge you to look at the MPRN itself and get all of
the information at the point where you\'re ready to submit comments.
Thank you.

Thank you very much, Kay. I would also like to mention that a few
moments ago when I spoke of the COD technical reference I would like to
clarify that our next set of updates for the technical reference will be
May of 2008. I got ahead of myself and spoke that it was this month, and
I do want to clarify that it will be May 2008.

Mark, do we have questions?

Oh, do we have questions. You have no idea how many questions. Actually
for right now there is a deluge. If you want to ask more than one
question, it will take me a little to clear out the queue. What I will
do first is ask you guys to restate the ATS website address and if you
do it really slow, I might even be able to put it up on the board so
that everyone can see it again.

This is Lisa. Let me reiterate, though, and maybe I didn\'t make it
clear. It is not upright now \-- up right now. I was giving it for
informational purposes. That\'s why it is not printed on the slide
itself. It is www.TEACH-EDS.E D.gov. When it goes live, that\'s what the
URL would be.

Did I write it down correctly? Albeit somewhat small?

Yes, that\'s correct.

Okay. That was the number one question. Let me get into the Q&A, and
we\'ll start with the beginning. Okay. Do we need to add \-- the first
question, do we need to add the TEACH grant to our PPA?

We are currently in the process of pulling together how it is that you
will be letting us know you would like to participate in the TEACH grant
question, so I actually can\'t give a detailed answer on that, but I
really do want to direct you to the dear colleague letter forth coming,
and in that Dear Colleague letter, we will outline specifically what it
is that you need to do as a school to let us know you would like to
participate. I apologize. I need to be vague on that answer today.

Okay. Second question, do we have to verify that a student is in a
qualified teacher education program? I think some of these are going to
be processed. Some of them are policy. If you want to say that\'s a
policy question and you can just say we\'re not going to answer it, I am
sure they\'ll understand because this is a processing workshop.

It is, but we do have policy people here anticipating that indeed those
are not easily separatable. The student will have to been be en rolled
in a TEACH grant eligible program at a TEACH grant eligible institution.
The Dear Colleague letter referenced will make it clear the various ways
in which in an institution could be TEACH grant eligible. We are leaving
it up to the schools to designate which are their TEACH eligible
programs in accordance with the regulations that will be printed by July
1st.

Okay. Is the TEACH grant need-based?

This is Lisa. No. The TEACH grant is not need-based. It cannot go over
your cost of attendance.

Okay. The next question will you please comment on how we can go about
finding the 75th percentile for the various tests? For example, how do
we find the 75th percentile for the ACT given in October of 2007?

When students get their report of their test from the various testing
entities, it will give them the information about where they fall in
terms of the norms for the test date on which they took the test.

I am reading to a variety of questions, and there is one that I think
crosses several boundaries, so it basically comes up to how are schools
expected to differentiate between students interested in particularly
teaching areas? Which would be about the best paraphrase I can do for
about six or eight questions.

I am not exactly certain what the question means. It is designated in
the legislation. There are certain areas that are high need areas that
are specified in the legislation which was in one of the slides that was
presented earlier. There is also another category that is more general,
an area designated as high need by a state or an LEA, and a pluffed by
the secretary. There is a publication that is available online which
lists those high need areas by state. That is a reference that will be
available in verifying that the students are in a high-need area. Let me
clarify, though, that in a student could be in a high need area
preparing to teach for one of those state or local designated high-need
areas, and it still needs to be designated as high-need at the time that
that graduate at this point begins teaching. That is a little bit
riskier path than if they were to go in one of those that is listed in
the statute.

There are several questions related to promotional efforts for
prospective TEACH grant applicant. Are there any web pages, brochures or
so on in the work to say promote this for the applicant?

We have a couple of things in the works. Die want to mention again and
reference we do have some information out on student eligibility and
academic criteria for the TEACH grant on student aid on the web, and
that URL is provided in the slides that you receive today. We also will
be providing a TEACH fact sheet on the ATS website that we\'ve also
spoken of today. In regards to further publicly indications, I believe
we\'re currently in the process of determining those and as we know more
about how we might be publicizing the program we\'ll certainly be
getting that out to the community.

In a recent conference, a department of education representative stated
that once a TEACH grant award has been submitted by policy a school
could not take it back or reduce it to zero. Is this true?

We can see if awe send in a TEACH grant award to the system it is going
to be possible to make a downward adjustment on that award as it would
be for any of our programs that you send to the COD system. You of
course will also be able to make a downward adjustment as well as an
upward adjustment to a disbursement when appropriate in our system. Our
system will allow you to adjust an award to zero.

Is the teach grant a voluntary program?

Yes, indeed, it is.

Okay.

Do we need to verify the students GPA each semester or once a year?

If the student is qualifying on the basis of the GPA, that has to be
verified prior to each disbursement, so that would be each \-- well,
prior to each disbursement if you\'re a semester based school, that
would be each semester.

Do we have to have origination sent before a student can sign an
agreement to serve?

That\'s an option. It is a school option that the school has that they
can make.

Is it true institutions are responsible at least initially for entrance
and exit counseling creation and implementation with the follow-on when
if ever will Ed development \[ indiscernible \] and for TEACH grant.

This is Kay. I will answer the first part of the question. Yes indeed
the school is responsible for doing entrance counseling, initial
counseling, subsequent counseling, and exit counseling. A lot of the
exit counseling is modeled already on the counseling you would be doing
related to loans, so there are some new things that are specific to
TEACH grant, but a lot of that is duplicate, and the initial and the
subsequent counseling also have a lot of duplicate elements in them
because of the need to emphasize to students we think repeatedly the
kind of responsibility that they have in accepting this grant and their
responsibility for serving in the teaching as we had described.
Something we will have interactive exit and entrance counseling for the
\'09/tennessee year.

Carol asked Lonnie to refinish your question. I wasn\'t finished with a
half a question, but I don\'t have the first half. If you could write
all of the question and resubmit, that would be awesome.

Next year, two year public college may be years away from obligation.
How will that affect transition to the indirect loan.

The eight-year clock does not start ticking until such time as the
student has either completed the program for which they have received
the TEACH grant or they have discontinued their enrollment in the
program. It can take them a long time to complete the program as long as
they are continuously enrolled.

When a student is packaged in ED express, will that calculate the TEACH
eligibility based on enrollment status?

For the eight-nine year, year, express will be updated so that a school
can go in and you can award a TEACH grant and there will be an award \--
excuse me, a program type for TEACH grant in ED express. However, no ED
suppress will not be going in and automatically packaging TEACH grant
awards at this time.

I understand schools may choose whether or not to participate in the
program. May a school opt to participate \-- I am sorry, let me restart.
May a school opt to only allow if the student is an education major?

The school has latitude in indicating which of their programs they would
designate as TEACH granted eligible. It would be possible for you to
designate only a single program, teacher Ed program. It is also possible
that you could begin with certain programs designated and then add
programs as you continue your participation in TEACH.

I will say it appears due to a technical problem with our Q&A queue
which is a lot of queue to say try to spit out, I lost about the first
15 minutes worth of questions. If you have submitted a question in the
first 15 minutes, please feel free to submit it, and my apologies. I can
only say I probably did something very wrong for which I will be
appropriately published at a later time \-- punished at a later time.
The 2008 training in Chicago has been full for quite some time, and I
have been trying to get in daily. Okay. Basically they\'re saying it is
sad they can\'t attend. What do you advise?

Mark, can we take that question in regards to training, can we take that
off line and make sure we get back with the school after the webinar?

Okay. We can certainly do that. Let me move to the next question. If the
ATS can only be obtained online and for the first year, and for the
first year there will be no ATS, how do we hold students accountable.

There will definitely be an ATS for the first year. The ATS, the
agreement to serve website will be active and available starting June
28th. You will need a student or re sip end of the TEACH grant will need
to complete an agreement to serve in order to receive that award and to
be disbursed.

The next question without actually referring to the specific slide, so I
hope you remember which slide it is, the slide stated that schools will
be able to search all ATS via the TEACH grant website. Will that be
limited to only ATS with their school code and there is a follow-up. Go
ahead and answer the first one.

The schools can search the ATS information have I at COD website. I am
not certain. I have to go back and look at the slide to make sure it is
correctly stated that way.

Second part of the question is will the search function be limed to only
agreement served with their school code. Seem the more important part.
Can they search for other schools?

They\'re only allowed to.

Will the FAFSA answer the TEACH question 2009 or later?

It will be a requirement. If I can make sure that I define that phrase
as I answered the question. No. The TEACH grant question doesn\'t have
to be answered yet in order for a school to determine a student is
eligible an award that student and disburse them a TEACH grant. That
will not change from \'08/\'09 to \'09/10. That will continue to be the
process. What will change in \'09/10 is that the question will be
available to help schools identify potential eligible recipients. It
will be available on the paper FAFSA as well as on FAA access and in
application process occurring through EDE.

Okay.

Answering the question is not required.

Okay. I do have a \--

Excuse me, Mark, as I am thinking on this question, I want to make sure
that I clarify that the FAFSA is required and is the application for a
TEACH grant.

Okay. I have 134 questions in the queue right now, so I would say right
now resist holding off adding a new question because we may not get it,
but somebody else may have already asked your question as we get down
through it we\'ll do our best to get those and we are capturing all the
questions, and I promise not to lose them this time around. Let\'s go to
the next question. Has the table that outlines XML structure and tag
requirements been released?

Yes, that\'s in our \-- you can find that in our electronic announcement
that we sent out on the schema. That is referred to in the it is
referred to in the slide.

The next question, I am still confused about the status of alternative
certification programs as eligible programs. My school has continuing
education programs with less than 600 contact hours that have not met
the traditional definition of a Title IV eligible program. Am I to
understand these could possibly qualify as a TEACH eligible post
baccalaureate program? If so, is the school required only to accept post
back lawyer at students in the program or only available eligible for
TEACH in those programs?

This is Kay. That\'s a very complex question to hear just once through,
but one thing I did note is that there is a mixing of various terms in
that question which are actually not necessarily related one to another.
One is that there is a definition in the proposed regulations which I
have been remind to do remind you are only proposed, and so any
responses are based on the proposed regulations which could change.
There is a definition of post baccalaureate in the regulations. It is a
program that does not lead to a masters degree but has all of the
courses required for a student to get certified in a particular state.
The second question or the second term you used was alternative
certification program. There is in the legislation reference to programs
that lead to alternative certification. There is also within the
legislation requirements that the program at the graduate level lead to
a masters degree or at the under grad watt level lead to a baccalaureate
degree, therefore any alternative certification program if he graduate
level have to be embedded in a masters degree program. I think the
answer to your question is the program you describe as I understood it
would not be eligible. However, I urge you to look closely at the
proposed rules and make that determination.

Excellent. A much shorter question, how quickly will changes be
reflected in NSLDS?

We\'re expecting it to be probably a weekly update you will be seeing
from the schools perspective.

When a student signs the ATL, will the years of service be measured by a
calendar or academic year?

The years of service would be determined in terms of each calendar year,
so you could achieve one year of service in a single calendar year as a
full time teacher within an elementary or secondary school, so
obviously, a full time teacher in elementary or secondary school would
not be teaching twelve months in that year, but we would count calendar
year to calendar year.

Next question. Are students eligible while doing student teaching which
is a post grad nondegree program in the state of California?

I guess the question is whether they would be eligible for a TEACH grant
while doing student teaching. If they are not in a degree program, they
would not be eligible for a TEACH grant.

Now, being a resident of the state of California and somewhat familiar
with this, the \--

Excuse me, except if they are in a post back program, having completed
the under graduate degree and they\'re in a post back program which is
very clearly a California kind of thing, where they\'re completing all
of the requirements necessary to begin teaching.

Mark? Before you move onto the next question, Mark, I have a
clarification. I think Debbie has a clarification to a prior question.

Sure.

I misstated earlier when I spoke about when a school is researching ATS
service agreements on the COD website what their access would be like.
If a school with COD access searches on the web for an ATS, they can
view all students that have an ATS on file. It is not limited to only
that school\'s students. I apologize for that mistake and thank my
colleagues here who corrected me.

Okay. Next question.

Is there an enrollment requirement before the disbursement?

Is this \-- well, you wouldn\'t know. Wonder if it is a minimum
enrollment requirement they\'re talking about. The student would have to
be en rolled and attending every semester. They don\'t have to be en
rolled and attending full time. There is an option for a pro rated
award.

Can I also mention that as we\'ve talked about the question that is
available for the student to answer as to whether they have the
intention of possibly teaching and the yes/no answer that we have added
that electronically to the SOTW to the FAFSA on the web application for
\'09/\'10, and I would like to go back and clarify my words in stating
that we are definitely going to have that question on the paper FAFSA.
My colleagues have brought to my attention that we are trying our best
to add that question to the paper FAFSA, but we have not yet been able
to state that as a definite yes and a definite requirement that we will
have it nor \'09/\'10, so I want everyone to know we are trying our best
to add it to the paper FAFSA for \'09 thrash \'10 and please stay tuned
and we will continue to get that information to you, but it is not a
definite yes at this time.

Okay. This is a long question. The first one we\'ve answered in terms of
applying to participate in the TEACH grant program, so the second one is
if a student comes into the FA office while still enrolled and changed
their mind and no longer wants to be a teacher or to have the grant,
will we have to send a loan origination to COD right away or do you have
to wait for the student to discontinue that semester \-- that
enrollment? I could read that over again in case you got confused
because I know I did?

Could you do that, Mark.

I will do that. If a student comes into the financial aid office while
still en rolled and has changed their mind and no longer wanted to be a
teacher or wants the grant, will we have to send a loan origination to
COD right away or do you have to wait for the student to discontinue
that enrollment?

I will answer a little bit of that question. A student can determine or
that they would like to have their TEACH grant convert to an
unsubsidized loan, and they would not need to time that for the end of
an academic year or anything like that. They can do that at any time.

They do not have to send a loan origination record to the common
origination and disbursement system. They need to do is contact direct
loan servicing and inform servicing that they are \-- would like to
convert their grant into an unsubsidized loan.

Okay. This is a related question. It seems significantly different
enough to be worth asking. Can a student cancel a TEACH grant at any
time during their enrollment in a TEACH grant eligible program or is
there a deadline or is this a deadline to have the opportunity to cancel
the TEACH grant?

They can cancel it at any time they want to. I just would like to
clarify, though, once the student has gotten the TEACH grant, they are
in it for the service requirement, so even if they got one term\'s worth
of TEACH grant they have the four-year service obligation within eight
years. Now, obviously there may be good reasons for them if they\'re
clear they\'re not going to teach to convert that right away because the
grant will \-- once it converts \-- well, it will immediately begin \--
let me go back. There is interest involved in this, and the interest
would be calculated based on the date of disbursement.

Once it becomes a loan, it does not go back to a grant status.

Okay. Next question. What does other high need field mean? What are the
other high need fields and is there a website where the list can be
found?

As I mentioned earlier, other high need fields are those that are
designated by states or LEAs and approved by the department of
education, and there is an annual publication that the Department puts
out that come piles all the information that\'s been sent by the states
that is available on the website, and I don\'t have that website with me
right now, but it is called a teacher shortage area, and it is published
\-- I think the website is published in the regulations, is it not? It
is in the fact sheet that you will find up on the web. Okay. Here we
are. Www.TCLI.E D.gov. That\'s low income schools. Okay. There is
another resource for you. That\'s the low income schools directory.
Okay. The annual teachers shortage area nationwide listing can be found
at www.E www.ED.gov/about/offices/list/OP
www.ED.gov/about/offices/list/OP E/POL/TSAA.doc. You see the difference
between FSA and OPE, the difference between operations and policy. If
there are more letters you can use, it is policy.

\[ Laughter \]

I think so we should work oncoming up with longer web addresses.

I am sorry, it is TOL, not.

P as in Paul?

P as in policy, yeah.

Okay. I don\'t think I can type that all out again. Folks, it is POL,
not TOL. Sorry. Next question. Do I understand correctly that \-- is
there a standard format for entrance counseling?

Not for \'09/10, there is not a standard format. I am sorry, not for
\'08/\'09.

That being said, the proposed regulations do identify in detail the
content of the counseling at the various levels.

Okay. Is this program available to FFELP institutions or do you have to
participate in the direct lending program?

It is available to all institutions.

Okay. The student transfer to say another school mid-year. Do they need
to complete a new ATS or will the ATS cover all schools for that
particular year?

The ATS, the agreement to serve, is an annual document that a student
would complete, and it can be used by multiple schools within that award
year. Please note that the document is not a master ATS in that the
student does need to complete an ATS each year, but once it is completed
for the year, it can be used at multiple schools for awards for that
year.

Could you guys look and see if that second web address I just put up is
the correct one?

You\'re missing OPE between list and POL.

I will get it right. Next question. Will TEACH disbursements need to be
in accordance with their major meaning will they need to be taking a
class for the specified degree or does it count for general education as
well? This is just like the Smart issue.

They have to be following the trajectory of the program in which they
are enrolled. There has not been any determination at this point in
terms of the requirement that they be taking specific courses in every
term. If there is some comment anyone would want to make on that, please
submit that by the April 21st date.

Did I understand correctly that COD will block TEACH disbursements until
a student has completed ATS?

That is true. You have to have an accepted agreement to serve on the
common origination system before we will accept \[ indiscernible \]
disbursement.

Okay. Next question. I am going to defer. It is about where can we go
for training or will someone come out to train them. Look on IFAP for
training announcements. I can answer that one. If the amount is awarded
\$4,000 or nothing, is the amount awarded \$4,000 or nothing, or can
they be eligible for a lesser amount so they don\'t go over cost of
attendance?

They may not go over cost of attendance. Also, the amount of the award
has to be pro rated based upon the student\'s enrollment. It can be
certainly less than \$4,000.

Okay. Can you guys look at the highlighted version of the web address?
Tell me if it is right. I really hope I got it.

You got it.

Oh, thank goodness.

I also have been reminded that this is in information that was sent out
to all schools from the office of federal student aid, the TEACH fact
sheet, and it is also posted.

Okay. What is the GPA requirement for incoming freshmen?

The requirement is a 3.25 GPA, and that applies to students at both the
under graduate and the masters level unless they qualify under other
provisions. One is the scoring above the 75th percentile on any of
national admissions tests, and the others apply to current and former
teachers and retirees who under certain circumstances would not have to
meet the GPA requirement.

If our school has no education major or minor and students cannot become
certified to teach under our curriculum, doesn\'t that disqualify or
participation in TEACH?

No. There are several pathways by which \-- several kinds of
arrangements that institutions such as you describe could become TEACH
grant eligible institutions. That\'s through having agreements with
institutions that have the kinds of courses that would be required for a
student to complete in order to prepare to teach. I urge to you read
this information carefully in the MPR and then post any comments or
questions to the \-- through the site that I noted to you, and I just
had a note passed to me which was a good suggestion here that I tell you
that the 3.25 GPA is on a 4.0 scale.

The next question. Are there community college that is are electing not
to participate in the program?

We have no idea. Nobody has elected to participate in the program at
this point. One would assume that indeed there would be community
colleges that would elect not to as there would be a whole range of
other kinds of institutions.

Can a student decide to return the grant funds within the aid year?

The answer is no. If the question is referring to the fact that the
school has disbursed the TEACH grant in the fall semester, for example,
and the student in the spring decides they aren\'t going to TEACH and
they would like to cancel the disbursement that was made in the fall,
and the answer to that is no. What the student can do is go to contact
the direct loan servicing center, let them know they would like to
convert that award to a loan, and it can then be set up to be fulfilled
as a direct unsub loan, and they would no longer then have to fulfill
the teaching service. I mean, no \-- once it is converted to a loan,
they need to continue to repay it as a loan.

Okay. Pop back up. Once a student enters a Title I school under the
TEACH grant and the school title changes, does the student have to
change schools? Or if a high-need subject changes to a non-high-need,
basically I think the question is if a student in good faith enters a
school that met all of our requirements and then it stops, do they have
to change jobs?

In the proposed regulations we have said that if a student begins
service in a school that is a low income school, and that falls off the
list in subsequent years, they can continue to be meeting the
requirements of teaching in a low-income school as long as they remain
in that school. The same is true for teaching in a high-need field. It
is important, though, that you understand in counseling students that if
they\'re teaching \-- preparing to teach in a high-need field that is
state or LEA designated, that that high-need field has to be so
designated at the time that they begin service. If in the first year
they are teaching in that high-need field it was designated in that
year, and they remain in that high-need field and it calls off the list
in subsequent years, they could still count that as creditable teaching
service.

Will the TEACH grant be included in return to Title IV funds
calculation?

Yes, they will.

And for TEACH grants when you do a return to Title IV it is treated as a
grant.

I am assuming that\'s the end of that question.

Yep.

I hear whispered discussion.

We\'re fine.

Okay. What message does the student receive if they try to complete an
ATS and the school hasn\'t originated or made origination a requirement?

Can you repeat the question, Mark?

What message would a student receive if they try to complete the ATS but
the school hasn\'t origination \-- hasn\'t originated the grant? Or has
made originating the grant a requirement? I am not sure I understand it,
but that\'s the question.

When the student is online and is completing the ATS, if they indicate a
school, we are going to ask for a school to be entered by a student. If
they enter a school that requires origination be on file for a student,
and that origination is not yet on file, the student will receive an
error message. That error message would allow him to indicate another
school if that was the student\'s choice, but then we would want be
sending an unsolicited ATS response to the school that originally
required the origination to be on file.

Are we planning to have a more technical webinar for software
developers, and if not, will you consider it?

Yes, we will. I just don\'t know \-- just keep posted to our IFAP when
we will come out with that, but we do plan on having one.

It is a question probably easier to read than it is to hear. I will read
it really slowly. Does the four years of service required for each year
of grants, therefore one year equals four years of service, two years of
grants equals eight years of service?

No, it is not that bad.

\[ Laughter \]

That\'s good.

The service is tied to the particular degree program that you\'re in or
the particular TEACH grant he will \-- TEACH grant eligible program
you\'re in, so if you get a single TEACH grant award or multiple TEACH
grant awards in that particular program, have you only the single
service obligation of four years within eight years after completion. It
is possible, however, for students to incur more than one service
obligation if, for instance, they got the under graduate degree in a
TEACH grant eligible program and then had a graduate degree in TEACH
grant eligible program. They would then have two service obligations to
complete. It is possible those service obligations could be met by the
same service, so that if a student went through with no break from the
under grad, graduate to graduate, each year of service they did
thereafter could apply to both of the service obligations.

Okay.

And there are other scenarios of that sort that are dealt with in the
pre-AMBLE to the NPRM.

We have two more questions. Is there an administrative allowance paid to
the college for participating in the TEACH grant program?

No.

I knew that answer was simple. Everybody likes to ask it. Can an
institution wait until the department of education entrance/exit
interview has been established before participating in the granted
program?

An institution can choose to participate beyond this first year. You
don\'t have to say this first year and is this is the only opportunity.
Yes, indeed you could.

There is two follow-ups. There an option to have a copy of the ATS sent
to the school when the student completes it? Which is similar to what
happens with entrance and exit counseling done online with mapping your
future.

We will not be \-- the student will be able to print the ATS. We will
not be electronically \--

Hold on one second.

This may be a question that we may need to come back with you. Give us
just a moment. Mark, is there another one? Wee researching a definite
answer.

This is a good question. Will institutions be required to track the
placement of teacher credential graduates who receive a federal TEACH
grant in a title 1 school or will the student interface directly with
the department of education for eligible placement?

The student will interface directly with the Department of Education on
that so the school doesn\'t have to worry about tracking that.

I believe I have a good answer to share in regards to the agreement to
serve. If a school goes on the COD witness, we will \-- website, we will
have the functionality for a student to view a school\'s ATS and print
the ATS. Yes, a school could receive the printed copy.

Okay. We are right at 12:30, and we can end now or we can answer another
136 questions that have come in, or we can just keep the list and you
guys will get back to the folks who participated in this session.

Yes, Mark, we want to very much thank you for your assistance with the
question and answer period today. We would like to conclude the webinar
at this time. We would like to see the listing of the questions that we
were not able to get to today, so that we can get responses prepared and
posted.

Okay. I have put the question slide up just because we already did that,
and your contact information, is up on the slide \-- which is up on the
slide now. For those people who asked about printing out a copy of this,
if you look to the upper right-hand corner of your screen and moving
left from the blue circle with the question mark in it, you can find the
download handouts option right next to the yellow legal pad. With that,
I will say thank you very much for participating. I appreciate your
time. We look forward to seeing you again online, and that concludes
today\'s training session. \[ APPLAUSE \]

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