32908 Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 118 / Wednesday, June 23, 2021 / Notices 

1Please note that the Institute of Education 

Sciences (IES) uses different peer review processes 

and procedures than those described in this notice. 

More information on the IES peer review process 

can be found at: https://ies.ed.gov/director/sro/ 

application_review.asp. IES also administers its 

research grant competitions on a different timeline 

from other offices in the Department. 

this document and a copy of the 

application package in an accessible 

format. The Department will provide the 

requestor with an accessible format that 

may include Rich Text Format (RTF) or 

text format (txt), a thumb drive, an MP3 

file, braille, large print, audiotape, or 

compact disc, or other accessible format. 

Electronic Access to This Document: 

The official version of this document is 

the document published in the Federal 

Register. You may access the official 

edition of the Federal Register and the 

Code of Federal Regulations at 

www.govinfo.gov. At this site you can 

view this document, as well as all other 

documents of this Department 

published in the Federal Register, in 

text or Portable Document Format 

(PDF). To use PDF, you must have 

Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is 

available free at the site. 

You may also access documents of the 

Department published in the Federal 

Register by using the article search 

feature at www.federalregister.gov. 

Specifically, through the advanced 

search feature at this site, you can limit 

your search to documents published by 

the Department. 

Ruth Ryder, 

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and 

Programs, Office of Elementary and 

Secondary Education. 

[FR Doc. 2021–13322 Filed 6–22–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4000–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Peer Review Opportunities With the 

U.S. Department of Education’s Office 

of Elementary and Secondary 

Education (OESE), Office of 

Postsecondary Education (OPE), and 

Office of Special Education and 

Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) 

AGENCY: Office of Elementary and 

Secondary Education, Office of 

Postsecondary Education, and Office of 

Special Education and Rehabilitative 

Services, U.S. Department of Education. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of 

Education (Department) announces 

opportunities for individuals to 

participate in its peer review process by 

reviewing applications for competitive 

grant funding under the programs 

administered by OESE, OPE, and 

OSERS. 

DATES: Requests to serve as a peer 

reviewer for fiscal year 2021 will be 

accepted on an ongoing basis, aligned 

with this year’s grant competition 

schedule. Requests to serve as a peer 

reviewer should be submitted at least 

four weeks prior to the program’s 

application deadline noted on the 

Department’s website under ‘‘Forecast 

of Funding Opportunities’’ at 

www2.ed.gov/fund/grant/find/edliteforecast.html. This notice highlights the 

specific needs of OESE, OPE, and 

OSERS. 

ADDRESSES: An individual interested in 

serving as a peer reviewer must register 

and upload his or her resume in the 

Department’s grants management 

system known as ‘‘G5’’ at www.g5.gov. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

OESE: Richard Wilson, U.S. 

Department of Education, 400 Maryland 

Avenue SW, Room 3W101, Washington, 

DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 453–6709. 

Email: richard.wilson@ed.gov. 

OPE: Tonya Hardin, U.S. Department 

of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue 

SW, Room 2C205, Washington, DC 

20202. Telephone: (202) 453–7694. 

Email: tonya.hardin@ed.gov. 

OSERS: Kate Friday, U.S. Department 

of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue 

SW, Room 5081B, Potomac Center 

Plaza, Washington, DC 20202–5076. 

Telephone: (202) 245–7605. Email: 

kate.friday@ed.gov. 

If you use a telecommunications 

device for the deaf (TDD) or a text 

telephone (TTY), call the Federal Relay 

Service (FRS), toll free, at 1–800–877– 

8339. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The 

mission of the Department is to promote 

student achievement and preparation 

for global competitiveness by fostering 

educational excellence and ensuring 

equal access. The Department pursues 

its mission by funding programs that 

will improve access to high-quality 

educational opportunities and programs 

that pursue innovations in teaching and 

learning with a focus on underserved 

students. The Department also funds 

programs in other areas as authorized by 

statute. Grant funds are awarded to State 

educational agencies; local educational 

agencies (i.e., school districts); State, 

local, or Tribal governments; nonprofit 

organizations; institutions of higher 

education (IHEs), including IHEs that 

have experience in the operation of 

American Indian Vocational 

Rehabilitation Service programs; and 

other entities through a competitive 

process referred to as a grant 

competition. 

Each year the Department convenes 

panels of external education 

professionals and practitioners to serve 

as peer reviewers.1 Peer reviewers 

evaluate and score submitted 

applications against program-specific 

criteria and announced priorities. 

Application scores are then used to 

inform the Secretary’s funding 

decisions. 

Executive Order 13985, Advancing 

Racial Equity and Support for 

Underserved Communities Through the 

Federal Government, directs Federal 

agencies to ‘‘assess whether 

underserved communities and their 

members face systemic barriers in 

accessing benefits and opportunities 

available pursuant to those policies and 

programs.’’ We believe that increasing 

the diversity of peer reviewers is an 

important element of the Department’s 

efforts to implement this Executive 

order. As a result, the Department is 

particularly interested in peer reviewers 

who represent diverse experiences and 

perspectives and whose expertise 

pertains to OESE, OPE, and OSERS 

grant competitions. 

This year, OESE is managing nearly 

15 grant competitions to fund a range of 

projects that support education 

innovation and research; educator 

growth and diversity; magnet, 

community, and charter schools; 

literacy; arts education; history and 

civics education; and American Indian/ 

Alaska Native education. 

Similarly, OPE is conducting over 20 

grant competitions to fund a wide range 

of projects, including projects to support 

improvements in educational quality, 

management, and financial stability at 

colleges and universities that enroll 

high numbers of underserved students; 

projects to provide high-quality support 

services to improve retention and 

graduation rates of students who are low 

income or first-generation college 

students or individuals with disabilities; 

projects designed to strengthen foreign 

language instruction, area and 

international studies teaching and 

research, professional preparation and 

development for educators, and 

curriculum development at the K–12, 

graduate, and postsecondary levels; and 

other innovative projects designed to 

improve postsecondary education. OPE 

grant competitions will take place 

between now and the end of the 

calendar year. 

OSERS is managing nearly 20 grant 

competitions that will take place 

between now and September 2021. The 

competitions in OSERS’ Office of 

Special Education Programs (OSEP) 

include those under the following 


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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 118 / Wednesday, June 23, 2021 / Notices 32909 

programs: State Personnel Development 

Grants; Personnel Development; 

Technical Assistance and 

Dissemination; Educational Technology, 

Media, and Materials; and Parent 

Training and Information. The 

remaining competitions in OSERS’ 

Rehabilitation Services Administration 

(RSA) include those under the following 

programs: Training of Interpreters for 

Individuals Who Are Deaf or Hard of 

Hearing and Individuals Who Are DeafBlind, Training in Specialized Training; 

Rehabilitation Short-Term Training, 

Client Assistance Program; American 

Indian Vocational Rehabilitation 

Training and Technical Assistance 

Center; and Section 21, Traditionally 

Underserved Populations. 

The Department seeks to expand its 

pool of peer reviewers to ensure that 

applications are evaluated by 

individuals with up-to-date and relevant 

knowledge of educational interventions 

and practices across the learning 

continuum, from early education to 

college and career, and in a variety of 

learning settings. Department peer 

reviewers are education and vocational 

rehabilitation professionals who have 

gained subject matter expertise through 

their education and work as teachers, 

professors, principals, administrators, 

school counselors, researchers, 

evaluators, content developers, or 

vocational rehabilitation professionals 

or interpreters. Peer reviewers can be 

active education professionals, in any 

educational level or sector, or those who 

are retired but stay informed of current 

educational content and issues. No prior 

experience as a peer reviewer is 

required. 

Peer reviewers for each competition 

will be selected based on several factors, 

including each reviewer’s programspecific expertise, the number of 

applications to be reviewed, how peer 

reviewers can support the Department’s 

implementation of Executive Order 

13985, and the availability of 

prospective reviewers. Individuals 

selected to serve as peer reviewers are 

expected to participate in training; 

independently read, score, and provide 

written evaluative comments on 

assigned applications; and participate in 

facilitated panel discussions. Panel 

discussions are held via conference 

calls. The time commitment for peer 

reviewers is usually several hours a day 

over a period of one to four weeks. Peer 

reviewers receive an honorarium 

payment as monetary compensation for 

successfully reviewing applications. 

If you are interested in serving as a 

peer reviewer for the Department, you 

should first review the program web 

pages of the grant programs that match 

your area of expertise. You can access 

information on each grant program from 

the link provided on the Department’s 

grants forecast page at www2.ed.gov/ 

fund/grant/find/edlite-forecast.html. If 

you have documented experience that 

you believe qualifies you to serve as a 

peer reviewer for one or more specific 

grant programs, please register in G5, at 

www.g5.gov, which allows the 

Department to manage and assign 

potential peer reviewers to competitions 

that may draw upon their professional 

backgrounds and expertise. A toolkit 

that includes helpful information on 

how to be considered as a peer reviewer 

for programs administered by the 

Department can be found at 

www2.ed.gov/documents/peer-review/ 

peer-reviewer-toolkit.pptx. Neither the 

submission of a resume nor registration 

in G5 guarantees you will be selected to 

be a peer reviewer. 

In addition to registering in G5, some 

OPE and OSERS/RSA peer reviews may 

require being registered in the System 

for Award Management (SAM). Note 

that registration in SAM.gov requires an 

active Data Universal Numbering 

System Number (DUNS). Since 

registration for some of these processes 

can take longer than a week, interested 

individuals are encouraged to register in 

advance of being contacted by the 

Department. In addition to registering in 

G5, some OSERS/OSEP peer reviews 

require being approved to serve on the 

Office of Special Education’s Standing 

Panel. Individuals should express their 

interest to serve as a peer reviewer for 

OSEP competitions directly to the 

competition manager listed in the 

Notice Inviting Applications at least two 

weeks prior to the application closing 

date. 

If you have interest in serving as a 

reviewer specifically for OESE 

competitions (Chart 2 of the Forecast of 

Funding Opportunities), you must also 

send your resume to 

OESEPeerReviewRecruitment@ed.gov. If 

you have interest in serving as a 

reviewer specifically for RSA 

competitions (Chart 4B) also send your 

resume to RSAPeerReview@ed.gov and 

osersprs@ed.gov. The subject line of the 

email should read ‘‘Prospective 2021 

Peer Reviewer.’’ In the body of the email 

list all programs for which you would 

like to be considered to serve as a peer 

reviewer. 

Requests to serve as a peer reviewer 

should be submitted at least four weeks 

prior to the program’s application 

deadline, noted on the forecast page, to 

provide program offices with sufficient 

time to review resumes and determine 

an individual’s suitability to serve as a 

peer reviewer for a specific competition. 

If you are selected to serve as a peer 

reviewer, the program office will contact 

you. 

Accessible Format: On request to the 

person(s) listed under FOR FURTHER

INFORMATION CONTACT, individuals with 

disabilities can obtain this document 

and a copy of the application package in 

an accessible format. The Department 

will provide the requestor with an 

accessible format that may include Rich 

Text Format (RTF) or text format (txt), 

a thumb drive, an MP3 file, braille, large 

print, audiotape, or compact disc, or 

other accessible format. 

Electronic Access to This Document: 

The official version of this document is 

the document published in the Federal 

Register. You may access the official 

edition of the Federal Register and the 

Code of Federal Regulations at 

www.govinfo.gov. At this site you can 

view this document, as well as all other 

documents of this Department 

published in the Federal Register, in 

text or Portable Document Format 

(PDF). To use PDF you must have 

Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is 

available free at the site. 

You may also access documents of the 

Department published in the Federal 

Register by using the article search 

feature at www.federalregister.gov. 

Specifically, through the advanced 

search feature at this site, you can limit 

your search to documents published by 

the Department. 

Program Authority: Elementary and 

Secondary Education Act of 1965, as 

amended (20 U.S.C. 6301 et seq.), 

Higher Education Act of 1965, as 

amended (20 U.S.C. 1001 et seq.), 

Individuals with Disabilities Education 

Act (20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq.), and the 

Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended 

by the Workforce Innovation and 

Opportunity Act (29 U.S.C. 701 et seq.). 

Donna M. Harris-Aikens, 

Senior Advisor for Policy and Planning, 

delegated the authority to perform the 

functions and duties of the Assistant 

Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy 

Development. 

[FR Doc. 2021–12845 Filed 6–22–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4000–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Applications for New Awards; 

Rehabilitation Short-Term Training: 

Client Assistance Program 

AGENCY: Office of Special Education and 

Rehabilitative Services, Department of 

Education. 

ACTION: Notice. 


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