Dear Project Directors Letter

Dear Talent Search & EOC Project Directors:

It is time to prepare your annual performance report (APR) for program year 2007–08. You must submit your report no later than November 30, 2008 via a Web site (described below) that will be available as of November 3, 2008. Due to new guidance on maintaining, collecting, and reporting racial and ethnic data, you will find some changes in the report compared to last year's. Please also note that all grantees must report outcomes for program year 2007-08 based on the standard objectives proposed in the 2006 application.

The 2007-08 APR has been changed to adhere to new reporting requirements on how grantees must maintain, collect, and report racial and ethnic data on the participants served. In Section II of the form, Item C: Participant Distribution by Race and Ethnicity has been modified to reflect the Department’s new requirement. We have included information in the Instructions, beginning on page 7, that highlights the requirements and that is designed to ensure data quality.

How the report is organized: For both programs, Section I requests basic identifying information about the project, while Section II covers demographic information and requests data on target schools. Sections III and IV reflect the new standard objectives found on the Program Profile page of the 2006 application packages for Talent Search (page 74) and EOC (page 75); these sections appear in separate versions for the two programs so as to reflect their differing sets of standard objectives. Section III requests the educational status of differing groups of participants at the time of first service in the budget period; these groups allow grantees to report on sets of participants specified in the objectives. Section IV asks grantees to report on the educational status of participants at the end of the budget period and to show the extent to which the project succeeded in meeting its objectives.

As you know, the Talent Search and EOC programs' enabling legislation requires the Department to award five-year grants, rather than four-year grants, to certain applicants based on the results of the competition. Consequently, 2007–08 was for some grantees the fifth or even fourth year of a grant begun prior to 2006. In order to allow the Department to report aggregate data gathered in a uniform manner, all TS and EOC grantee must report on the standard objectives in this report.

Target schools: At the end of Section II, all Talent Search grantees and EOC grantees serving target schools must enter the schools they served during the budget period. Before submitting the APR, grantees should discuss any changes in target schools (including changes in schools' names) with their program specialist. New schools should be added only if you have received prior written approval from your program specialist. Projects are asked to use the online link to the National Center for Education Statistics to locate the identifying number for their target schools in the NCES's Common Core of Data.

EOC objectives B, C, and D: EOC projects should note that, for the three standard objectives referring to participants not already enrolled in a postsecondary school, the instructions for the annual performance report specify that this means those not enrolled in postsecondary education at the time of first service in the budget period. Thus, those not enrolled in postsecondary education at the outset of the budget period would include, for example:

• a high school senior

• a high school graduate or GED recipient who never previously enrolled in a postsecondary program

• an adult who began college several years ago but dropped out and now wants to try again.

These are examples only and do not cover all possibilities.

Submitting the report online: All Talent Search and EOC projects must use the online reporting application to submit the 2007–08 performance report. The instructions for submitting the report and the links to the secured Web site maintained by our contractor will be available on November 3, 2008 at the following Web addresses:

http://www.ed.gov/programs/triotalent/report.html (for Talent Search)

http://www.ed.gov/programs/trioeoc/report.html (for EOC)

From either of the links provided above:

1. Click on the following URL: https://trio.ed.gov/tseoc.

2. Once at the contractor's Web site (entitled "Talent Search and EOC Online Annual Performance Report for Program Year 2007-08"), you will need to register; you may do so well in advance of actual submittal of reports. To allow time to resolve any problems that might occur with registration, we ask you to register as early as possible.

To register, after clicking on "First Time User? Register Here," you will enter the project director's first and last names and e-mail address and the project's PR award number (found on the Grant Award Notification). If this information matches the data that the Department currently has on file, a user ID and temporary password will be sent to the e-mail address on file. If discrepancies exist, you will be directed to a "Registration Failed" page; if necessary, your program specialist and the Help Desk will be sent an e-mail message requesting verification of data on the project. Verification will occur within 24 hours if the program specialist can readily confirm a change in project director or e-mail address; if the program specialist has no prior knowledge of the change, it may take longer). Once the Help Desk has received verification from the program specialist, you will be notified to continue with registration.

3. Once you have your user ID and temporary password, you may enter them on the site in the top box of the left side of the page; click "Log in." You will be guided to select a new password and then to log in again.

Your new password must be at least eight characters and include combinations of the following:

• at least one English uppercase character (A-Z)

• at least one English lowercase character (a-z)

• at least one numeric number (0-9)

• at least one non-alphanumeric special character (e.g., !, @, #, $, &, *, %, /, +, -).

After three failed attempts to access the Web site, you will be locked out and must call the Help Desk to obtain access. If you forget your password, a "forgot password" link is available or you may call or e-mail the Help Desk for assistance (see telephone number and e-mail address for Help Desk below).

4. Follow the instructions for completing and submitting the report via the World Wide Web.

We have pre-populated most of the data fields in Section I of the report to reduce your reporting burden. Please review the pre-populated fields, including the project director's e-mail address, and revise and update these fields as needed. You may change the data in all fields except for the project's PR Award Number, the Grantee Name, and the Report Period.

Faxing Section I: You must submit, via fax, a signed copy of Section I of the report form that certifies that the information submitted electronically is readily verifiable and that the information reported is accurate and complete. After completing the entire report on the Web, you will be able to print a copy of the completed form. Section I of the printed report form will include signature lines for the project director and the certifying official for the grantee institution or agency. Once the form has been signed, please fax in a signed copy of Section I only of the report form to 540-301-0307. Please do not fax in a copy of the entire report.

Help Desk: If you encounter technical problems accessing the Web site or using the Web application, please contact the Help Desk by either telephone at (703) 846-8248 or e-mail at [email protected]. Please note that the Help Desk will try to contact projects within 24 hours of receiving the telephone call or e-mail. The Help Desk will be available to respond to your questions from November 3, 2008 – November 30, 2008. During peak times, from November 17, 2008 through November 30, 2008, it may take longer for you to receive a response. Thus, I encourage you to prepare and submit your performance report as soon as you have collected complete data. If for any reason you need to revise your performance report data after it has been submitted, please do not fax in the corrections. You should contact the Help Desk for information on revising your report and re-submitting it electronically.

Thank you for the time and effort you dedicate to performance reporting each year and your commitment to providing complete and accurate data. Please retain the source documents in a readily accessible form so that they can be verified during an on-site visit. If you have questions regarding the performance report requirements, please contact your program specialist directly. To ascertain your program specialist's name, telephone number, and e-mail address, please visit http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/staffdirectory-cupt.html.

Sincerely,

Geraldine G. Smith
Team Leader
College and University Preparation Team
Federal TRIO Programs