On-Line/On-Demand Courses
I. How to Successfully Write Your $5 Million U.S. Department of Education School Climate Transformation Grant this Spring 2025
This five-session on-line/virtual symposium will help districts conceptualize and write a winning proposal for the expected 5-year federal School Climate Transformation Grant that should be announced in Spring, 2025. This symposium will discuss the needed Grant background, content, and submission logistics. Dr. Howie Knoff, who has written 5 awarded Climate Grants, will be the Session Leader.
Background
Available since 2015, the U.S. Department of Education’s School Climate Transformation Grant Program is a five-year $5 million per award open competition for individual or partnering school districts wanting to upgrade their multi-tiered approaches to school climate and safety, classroom management and student engagement, and students' social, emotional, and behavioral success.
Dr. Howie Knoff has collaborated with over 30 districts since 2015, helping them to write and successfully submit their Grant Proposals. Six of these proposals were fully funded (totaling over $20 million), and Howie worked with the eight participating districts--for up to 40 on-site days per year--as their National SEL/PBIS/MTSS Expert to help implement each Grant's professional development, consultation, and multi-tiered services and supports.
Howie is a Past-President of the National Association of School Psychologists, an international school improvement consultant, and he taught at two Research I universities for 22 years--leaving as a tenured Full Professor. He also was the school improvement/ PBIS/ MTSS State Director for the Arkansas Department of Education for 13 years, he is a Senior Fellow with The Center for Model Schools, and he is the founder of Project ACHIEVE--the only nationally-designated (through SAMHSA) evidence-based school improvement program in the country.
Awarded only once every five years, we anticipate that the next Request for Grant Proposals (RFP) will occur in the late Spring/early Summer of 2025, and that Grants of up to $5 million for each site will be available. Once awarded, the Grants will formally begin--with the funds awarded--on October 1, 2025.
In the last two Grant cycles (2015-2019 and 2019-2024), a total of 140 awards were made, and they were distributed across the country to different sized districts—even individual schools. Thus, this is one of the largest U.S. Department of Education grants available.
But the Grant is very competitive, the Application process is very complex, and each Proposal's Narrative and Budget sections must be written carefully to maximize the points available. In the last cycle, the lowest “winning” awarded Grant received 101 out of 110 possible points.
Critically, in order to win, the Grant Proposal (a) must conform strictly to the criteria in the RFP, (b) must use a nationally-recognized evidence-based model and National Thought Leader, and (c) must provide the data to make a compelling argument that the Grant is needed and has a high probability of success.
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What this means is that the most-prepared Districts have the best chance of being awarded the Grant.
To help your District prepare: I (Howie Knoff) am leading this five-session School Climate Grant preparation symposium to guide you through the Proposal-writing process.
Once the Grant RFP is released in the Spring, I will then be working with any District that wants to partner with me to write and then implement the Grant with me (if awarded).
As part of this Spring Partnership, I will help you to write a (hopefully, winning) Proposal absolutely free. If the Grant is funded, you will commit to our five-year partnership. If it is not funded, you pay nothing.
But. . . even if you are not interested in later partnering on the Grant with me, at least right now you can take this five-session "course" with me, and learn how to write your own proposal !
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When: Three Live Sessions (November 8; November 15; December 13)
Two Pre-Taped Sessions (Available November 22; December 6)
All Sessions Archived / Available On-Line through July 31, 2025
Live Sessions 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Eastern Time
What: 7.5 Contact Hours of Video Presentations/4.5 Independent Study Hours (On-Line Readings)
(12 Continuing Education Units total--Certificate Provided)
Where: Zoom/Virtual
Who: Dr. Howie Knoff, President, Project ACHIEVE Educational Solutions
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Pricing Options for the Five-Session Grant-Writing Symposium
$249.00 (Single Purchase) /
$499.00 (2 to 5-Member Teams-- at One Site) /
$699.00 (6+ Member Teams-- at One Site)
FIVE 90-Minute Sessions Starting November 8, 2024
Tuition and Links to the Sessions are Copywritten and Non-Transferable under Federal law.
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Course Sessions
Session 1 (November 8, 2024; 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Eastern Time; Live)
What is the U.S. Department of Education's School Climate Transformation Grant, How is "School Climate" Defined, and What Will this Grant Bring to My District/School?
Session 2 (November 15, 2024; 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Eastern Time; Live)
What Multi-Tiered SEL/Positive Behavioral Support Student, Staff, and School Outcomes Should Our Proposal Target, and How Will We Measure/Evaluate Them. . . in a Successfully-Funded Proposal?
Session 3 (Available November 22, 2024; Pre-Taped)
What are the Best Evidence-based SEL/Positive Behavioral Support Components to Use in our Successful Proposal?
Session 4 (Available December 6, 2024; Pre-Taped)
What are the Best Evidence-based Multi-Tiered System of Support Processes to Use in our Successful Proposal?
Session 5 (December 13, 2024; 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Eastern Time; Live)
Grant Preparation Necessities: Collecting Your Needs Assessment Data and Preparing Your Grant Writing and Support Infrastructure
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Objectives and Outcomes
During this course, participants will learn:
- How the School Climate Transformation Grant is organized, and the component parts to a complete and competitive Proposal.
- How "school climate" is defined and how it relates to school safety, classroom management and student engagement, and students' social, emotional, and behavioral success.
- What specific student, staff, and school (and Grant) outcomes will likely be in the upcoming Grant, and how they can be effectively and efficiently measured.
- The research, principles, and practices underlying effective SEL/Positive Behavioral Support and multi-tiered systems of services, supports, and interventions, and how they relate to the Grant and Grant Proposal.
- What districts need to do to prepare the Grant--including a Needs Assessment to demonstrate a compelling need, writing the Narrative and the Budget, completing all federally-required forms, getting letters of support, and navigating the submission process.
II. Teaching Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills to Improve Student Engagement, Self-Control, and Achievement
[CLICK HERE for a FREE 46-Minute Introductory Webinar from this Course]
[0 Social Skills Course Brief Syllabus March 2022.pdf]
This fifteen-session (with an additional Bonus Session) on-line/on-demand video-course is for administrators, general and special education teachers, related service professionals (counselors, educational/school psychologists, social workers), and other interested educators or clinicians.
This comprehensive course gives you everything that you need--at the school, staff, and (preschool through high school) student levels--to plan and implement an effective, evidence-based, multi-tiered SEL/Positive Behavioral Support system that produces real student outcomes relative to their social, emotional, and behavioral interactions.
The Course specifically teaches you how to teach students social, emotional, and behavioral skills--through an evidence-based social skills program that was identified by CASEL as a Key Model Program in 2005, and it described in detail elements within the five science-to-practice components needed by any effective SEL/PBSS system, along with the multi-tiered services, supports, and interventions needed by challenging students.
The Course comes with over 15 hours of presentations, numerous readings and monographs, quizzes and discussion questions, and it provides a 25-hour Certificate of Attendance.
Learn how to teach your students the interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills that they need to be academically and behaviorally successful.
III. Implementing Effective Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports: Academic and Social-Emotional Prevention, Assessment, and Intervention
[CLICK HERE for a FREE 35-Minute Introductory Webinar from this Course]
[0 0 MTSS Course Syllabus 2021.pdf]
This seven-session (with two Bonus Sessions) professional development video-course provides everything that districts and schools need to evaluate, redesign, and implement their own successful multi-tiered systems of support. Designed for district and school administrators, student service and special education directors, and related services personnel, this is accomplished by providing field-tested tested, step by step information on how (a) to implement a sequential MTSS process with decision rules on involving consultants, early intervention specialists, the MTSS Building-level Team, and services for students with disabilities; (b) to establish a well-functioning MTSS Building-level Team; (c) use a science-to-practice data-based problem-solving process to analyze struggling students; and (d) how to link functional assessment results to high probability of success academic or social, emotional, and behavioral interventions.
Here's What You Receive with this Course:
- Over 16 Hours of Video Expertise from Dr. Howie Knoff (On-demand and Available to View Anytime and Forever)
- Audiofiles of Each Presentation
- Powerpoint Handouts for Each Presentation
- Additional Readings and Field-tested Implementation Tools
- INCLUDED IN THE COURSE: Project ACHIEVE Monographs (written by Dr. Howie)--
A Multi-Tiered Service and Support Implementation Guidebook for Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap
The Get-Go Process: Transferring Students’ Multi-Tiered Information and Data from One School Year to Staff and Prepare for the Next
[CLICK HERE to View these Two Monographs]
- Quizzes and 25-Hour Certificate of Attendance
IV. Coping with Stress in a Stressful World: Teaching Students How to Manage Their Emotions, Thoughts, and Behavior
[CLICK HERE for a FREE 30-Minute Introductory Webinar from this Course]
[0 Stress Course Syllabus 2021.pdf]
This four-session video-course is for administrators, general and special education teachers, related service professionals (counselors, educational/school psychologists, social workers), and other interested educators or clinicians.
The course differentiates between anxiety, stress, and trauma, and discuss how students’ emotional “triggers” result in fight, flight, or freeze responses. We talk about ways to teach students emotional self-regulation in the classroom so that they learn how to prevent and prepare for stressful situations. And, we address how to analyze why some students still have difficulties, and what cognitive-behavioral interventions our mental health professionals may need to consider. All of this is adapted for both general and special education classrooms.
