Name of Grant Program: Financial Literacy Pilot Program
Fund Code: 740
PART III – REQUIRED PROGRAM INFORMATION
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The urgency of financial education in our state has been highlighted by the current economy and the need to equip
students with the knowledge and skills needed to become self-supporting and to enable them to make critical
decisions regarding personal finances.
In year three of the Financial Literacy Pilot Program 10 school districts will continue implementation of their projects. This
continuation grant is designed to support district teams and program activities to engage students in financial literacy
education as designed in the FY13 planning year. This includes project evaluation and participation in an overall program
evaluation.
The following components are asked for in a response to this continuation grant:
A. Updated contact information
B. Description of the FY14 implementation progress, outcomes, and planning process
C. The FY15 implementation plan
The implementation plan is the focus of this continuation grant and will include, at a minimum:
1. A description and syllabus for the proposed program to be taught in the 2014-15 school year;
2. A description of the professional development (PD) to be provided to support teachers to implement
the program;
3. scale-up plans; and
4. A timeline for implementation efforts.
D. A project evaluation
The overall goal for the financial literacy program, inclusive of all participating districts, is to positively
impact student knowledge and skill relative to financial literacy and mathematics standards. The
Department has contracted with the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute (UMDI) to serve as the
single, statewide evaluator to conduct evaluation activities associated with the grant. Each project (district)
is required to contribute data to support this program evaluation. This includes a review and analysis of
each project’s local project assessment/data sources and involves the administration of a financial literacy
assessment across all districts.
E. Required meetings
Grant recipients will be required to attend financial literacy grant program events: a webinar and a
progress/sharing meeting in May.
F. FY15 Budget information
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Section A. Updated contact information
Please provide updated contact information for those who will constitute the financial literacy team.
District:
Partners:
School:
CONTACT INFORMATION*
Position
*Principal/Assistant
Principal or Dept.
Chair
*Math teacher
Name
Mailing Address
Telephone Number
Email Address
Role in the program
*Teacher: Business,
Economics, Social
Studies, Consumer
Science, etc.
Guidance Counselor
Additional school staff
member
* Representative from
Local Community
Partner
Local Higher Ed
Institution
Professor/ Instructor
District level
Administrator
Other
*Required. Please insert additional rows if needed.
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Section B. Description of the FY14 Implementation progress, outcomes, and planning
process.
Briefly describe the implementation process the district financial literacy team completed in FY14, and the major
accomplishments and products.
Section C. The FY15 implementation plan
Present the financial literacy course and related project elements the district financial literacy team designed and the
proposed implementation plan. Highlight how the course and related project elements will be engaging to students,
provide opportunities for real-life applications of math and financial literacy standards, and, if applicable, the use of
technology tools, digital media, and online resources.
1.
Describe and/or attach the syllabus and related elements.
Please note that the design of the financial literacy project is expected to meet these criteria:
 be part of a credit-bearing course with appropriate rigor at the high school level;
 contain a minimum of 25 hours of classroom instruction (or equivalent of online instruction);
 align to standards that address the following topics:
o understanding and applying algebraic functions, exponents, and using formulas in spreadsheets
(refer to the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for Mathematics and the Massachusetts
Technology Literacy Standards and Expectations, especially page 14; refer to Additional
Information)
o financial decision making, income, buying goods and services, saving, using credit, investing, and
protecting and insuring (National Standards for Financial Literacy, see Additional Information);
o social studies/economics standards are applicable and may also be included.
 Include a student project, reality fair or similar experience for the students that demonstrates
applications of math and financial literacy standards in the context of personal financial situations.
Include in the syllabus or description:
 The grade levels the project is designed for;
 Whether the course and related project elements are required or elective;
 Which department has the primary responsibility for the project; and
 Alignment to standards.
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Please fill out the table below to note the number of students that are anticipated to participate in your
project. As a reminder, in order to evaluate the program’s impact, a sufficient number of students need to
participate and student demographics should include groups of students from a range of socio-economic
levels, English language proficiency and students at various achievement levels.. The table below indicates
minimum guidelines.
Number of Students to be Served
Student population in
Minimum number of
grades 9-12
students participants
<600
60
600-1500
90
>1500
120
Numbers of Student Participants
Year of Pilot
Planning/ Impl.
9th Graders
10th Graders
11th Graders
12th Graders
2.
2013-14 (actual)
2014-15 (actual)
2015-16 (projected)
2016-17 (projected)
Describe the professional development (PD) to be provided to support teachers in implementing the
program.
Professional development of a minimum of 12 hours should be specifically chosen to support instructional
staff and partners with the knowledge, skills and confidence to address the topics covered in the pilot
project. Describe the professional development that will be provided, its purpose and include who the
participants will be. Be specific about both the content and the type of PD model that you will use (i.e.
course, workshop, online training, professional learning community, etc.)
3.
Describe plans for scale up of the project to include more sections, students, or participants in the 20152016 school years.
4.
Provide a timeline for implementation efforts. Use the table below or your own format to demonstrate how
the work of this team will be accomplished. Required activities include:
a. meeting as a collaborative team (indicate approximate meeting dates in the timeline);
b. attending, as a team, the financial literacy grant program webinar and meeting;
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c.
d.
implementing all components of your financial literacy project; and
anticipated dates and activities related to conducting the project evaluation.
2014-2015 Pilot Second Implementation Year
Be sure to include the instructional and evaluation data collection to be done.
Projected
Dates
Activity
Objective
Projected Personnel
Please add rows as needed.
Section D. Project evaluation
Program evaluation: The overall goal for the financial literacy program, inclusive of all participating districts, is to
positively impact student knowledge and skill relative to financial literacy and mathematics standards. To this end,
the Department has contracted with the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute (UMDI) to serve as the
single, statewide evaluator to conduct evaluation activities associated with the grant. The evaluation began early in
the 2013–14 school year.
Each project (district) is required to contribute data to support this program evaluation. This includes a review and
analysis of each project’s local project assessment/data sources and involves the administration of a financial
literacy assessment across all districts. Each grantee is expected to cooperate with the following data collection
activities:

Project Leader Interviews: District and/or school-based project leaders will be interviewed by phone about
program activities.

Teacher Survey: Participating teachers will complete a web-based survey about professional development,
program impacts, and perceptions of program features.

Program Materials: Programs will be asked to submit syllabi of courses related to the financial literacy pilot
program.

Common Pre-Post Student Assessments: During Year 2, grantees will be required to submit the results
from a common student assessment that will be supplied to each site and administered to each student
participating in the program.

Supplemental Data Request: The data request that each district submitted in spring 2014 will be continued.
It will include information on program partners and student participants, as well as possibly additional
information to be determined. For each participating student, the school will provide the state-assigned
student identifier (SASID), pre- and post-score on the common assessment, and the courses and activities in
which the student participated. The evaluator will provide a spreadsheet that the site will need to complete
and submit with this information. The submission date is to be determined, but is anticipated to be about
mid-May of 2015. UMDI will no longer ask projects to report on local, site-specific evaluations.
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No action relative to the program assessment is needed for this proposal; the district’s awareness of and willingness
to participate in the program is all that is needed at this time.
Please fill in the following contact information for the school or district contact for any inquiries related to the
evaluation:
Name:
Title:
Phone:
Email:
The implementation timeline in the prior section also needs to include the anticipated dates and activities related to
conducting the project evaluation.
Section E. Required meetings
Grant recipients will be required to attend two financial literacy grant program events: a webinar in Fall focused on
program goals, grant expectations and evaluation processes, and an in-person district progress/sharing meeting in
Spring to highlight successes and lessons learned to enhance district efforts. No action relative to the required
meeting is needed for this proposal; the district’s awareness of and willingness to participate in the meetings is all
that is needed at this time.
Section F. FY15 Budget information
FY 2015 (from award approval through June 30, 2015)
Approximately $20,000 is available per school district. When designing the program’s proposed budget, please
categorize expenditures in the following table:
Category
Description
Amount
(Include # of participants and number of
hours, if appropriate)
Implementation work (overall program
costs, materials, evaluation, stipends, etc.)
Stipends
Substitutes
Materials
Associated costs for mentoring and
technical assistance to support
implementation
Professional Development
Stipends for teachers to participate in
external financial literacy PD
Substitutes
Training supplies
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Course fees
Consultants
Travel costs (In-state)
Indirect costs for school districts at the
ESE rate
Student materials for implementation
Other
GRANT TOTAL
Matching/Supplemental Funds from
Community Partner(s)
(Optional)
Third Year of Implementation (2015-2016)
Please provide an estimate or qualitative response to the following for planning purposes:
 Will the costs for the program change in the year 2015-16?
 If the anticipated costs will be different from the preceding year, please describe the anticipated changes
and (scope of) budget differences.
In addition to this document, be sure to submit Part I General-Program Unit Signature Page and Part II the
Budget Detail Pages for the Current Grant Period (upon approval through June 30, 2015 ONLY).
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