Ready To Learn Community Collaboratives for Early Learning & Media

Contingent upon federal appropriations, we plan to select a final group of CC-ELM stations for funding in the fourth and fifth years of the RTL grant (October 2018 – September 2020). We expect to announce the program, including the number of stations and funding levels, in 2017.

We provide a template for the budget, but no template is provided for the narrative section. The narrative should include all items outlined in Section VII. Proposal Requirements, Part A of the RFP in the order listed.

There are a number of eligibility requirements, including implementing RTL content and models in the last five years.

Because Year 1 will be primarily the planning period, applicants are not expected to include many details about their plans for these deliverables. Stations are responsible for addressing the items outlined in Section VII.A of the RFP (Proposal Requirements) in the order listed.

Stations will be reimbursed in a timely fashion upon receipt and approval of bi-monthly financial reports.

CPB, PBS and the RTL research consortium, led by EDC/SRI, are in the process of identifying project-wide engagement measures which the selected stations will be required to track. Under CPB’s direction, EDC/SRI have created tools to support this effort, and will be providing stations with technical assistance throughout the grant term. EDC/SRI may also conduct national research with CC-ELM, for which EDC/SRI would be responsible for institutional review board (IRB) approval

CC-ELM may choose to use a portion of their budget to cover the cost of working with local evaluators. All stations must provide statistical data that demonstrates the impact of its RTL work on children, families, and educators. The measurements will be determined by CPB, PBS, EDC/SRI and local partners.

Tablets (iOS or Android) and desktop or laptop computers will be required to implement RTL content. Stations should include in their budgets equipment costs based on these requirements. If actual equipment needs differ from this estimate, the budget will be revised.

The 2015-20 Ready To Learn grant will include professional development support from the Boston University School of Education (BU-SED) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Both partners will support training caregivers and educators from diverse backgrounds with free resources on a variety of platforms. The specific support will be determined as the project evolves.

Please contact your station Chief Financial Officer to confirm your station’s status.

The first year of the project will serve as both a planning and implementation period for new CC-ELM stations. CPB anticipates that CC-ELM will spend between four and six months conducting needs assessments, determining evaluation strategies and outlining a full project plan with community partners. The remaining months should be devoted to implementing RTL content and resources with the target audience.

While knowledge of the RTL frameworks is not considered essential for writing a high quality proposal, stations who are interested in seeing the documents may download them here. A more robust online version of the frameworks will be available to the system and its partners in the future.

Applicants are not required to identify community partners in their proposals as these will be determined during a collaborative needs assessment process during the project period. See Section VII. Proposal Requirements, Part A of the RFP.

The grant will fund only PBS KIDS Ready To Learn content developed during 2015-2020.

The grant funds may not be used by stations to produce transmedia content.

Proposals will be evaluated based solely on the criteria listed in section VIII of the RFP.