FY 2022 Call for Reviewers

2022 Call for Peer Reviewers closed on August 21, 2022.

CALL FOR PEER REVIEWERS WITH K-12 EDUCATION EXPERIENCE

Full-Service Community Schools Grants U.S. Department of Education

The Department has received $75 million in funding for the Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) program for FY 2022, of which approximately $68 million will be used for new grant awards. In the FY 2022 FSCS grant competition, we seek to support: the planning, implementation, and operation of full-service community schools that improve the coordination, integration, accessibility, and effectiveness of services for children and families, particularly for children attending high-poverty schools, including high-poverty rural schools.

In support of this competition, we now seek individuals who can participate in review panels that will help us to select grant award winners, to provide written analysis and scoring of submitted grant applications, and to provide constructive written feedback to applicants.

Who Would Be Successful Peer Reviewers of Full-Service Community Schools Grant Applications?

• Persons who are school principals or other school leaders (such as curriculum coordinators or coaching specialists), teachers, district leaders, foundation officers, university faculty (who work with schools), researchers, evaluators, professional development providers, or other individuals who have significant and current K-12 education experience.
• Persons who have administrative, project management, or some other leadership experience which helps them to bridge their understanding of what happens in the classroom with what it takes to implement, sustain, and grow new educational programs.
• Persons who have wide-ranging experience, and who can assess across a variety of K-12 areas to identify the ideas that are most promising vs. those which are commonplace or less likely to be effective.
• Persons who have direct K-12 experience and expertise in the following content areas:
  • Educational reform;
  • Educational equity;
  • Family and community engagement;
  • Needs and assets assessments and organizational analysis;
  • Program evaluation;
  • School climate;
  • School leadership; and
  • Social emotional learning.

• Persons who are excellent writers, good critical thinkers, and committed to completing assigned tasks in a professional and timely manner.

Instructions to Apply to Become a Peer Reviewer

• To be considered, please send a copy of your resume (maximum of 5 pages) to FSCS@ed.gov.

and

• If you are selected by FSCS to participate, you must also register and submit your resume in G5 (www.g5.gov), though you can also do this step now. For support with this process, you may contact the G5 helpdesk at edcaps.user@ed.gov or call 1-888-336-8930. G5 will require you to submit your resume in a PDF format only.
• When the G5 system prompts you for your areas of specialization, select all that are applicable to you, but please ensure you select each of the aforementioned content areas for which you have expertise: for example, “Social Emotional Learning,” “School Climate,” etc.

Please note that submitting your resume and/or registering in G5 does not guarantee that you will be selected as a reviewer.

What to Include in Your Resume (maximum of 5 pages)

In addition to sharing highlights of your career history and your current experience working in relevant areas of K-12 education, please share the following (if applicable):

• Indicators of any relevant knowledge/experience in leading or overseeing program innovation, scaling of effective practices, and program dissemination.
• Indicators of any relevant experience working in rural education.
• Whether you have previously been a Department of Education peer reviewer, including serving as a peer reviewer for the FSCS or Promise Neighborhoods (PN) programs; whether you have worked on a funded FSCS or PN grant project; or whether you have served as a project director or staff person on another recent Department of Education grant.

Responsibilities/Payment

• The reviews will take place over 3-4 consecutive weeks starting in the late September (specific dates TBD). If you are selected, you will be contacted to confirm availability for the specific dates.
• You will be expected:

• 1. to participate in one training webinar;
  2. to read, review, and evaluate approximately 8-12 full length applications;
  3. to participate in approximately three to four panel discussion conference calls (each several hours in length);
  4. to complete written evaluations of applications based on the selection criteria; and
  5. to make revisions of your reviews following the panel discussion. All reviews will be submitted in the Department’s online G5 system.

• Payment will be $250 per application (approximately $2,000-$3,000 total) after successful completion of all required tasks.

Reviewer Selection Reviewers who are selected to participate will be contacted by the FSCS team or its contractor and asked for additional contact information, availability, and potential conflicts of interest. Those not selected will remain in the FSCS reviewer pool for future competitions.

Conflict of Interest You are not eligible to be a reviewer if you will be applying to the competition, if you will be involved in the preparation of a grant application, or if you would stand to benefit from an application that were to receive funding in this new competition. You are eligible, however, if you are a current or past FSCS or PN grantee and are not submitting a new application under the FSCS competition.

Program Information For more information about the FSCS Program, go to the program website at: https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-discretionary-grants-support-services/school-choice-improvement-programs/full-service-community-schools-program-fscs/.

Please direct all questions to the FSCS Peer Review inbox at FSCS@ed.gov.