‘Tis the Season! for The GEAR UP Annual Performance Report (APR)
During my years as the Director of Research and Evaluation responsible for three GEAR UP partnership grants in Oklahoma, I would often start my annual APR kick-off meetings with reference to Andy Williams’ Christmas classic It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. While thinking about the APR season does not, for most GEAR UP professionals, conjure images of “marshmallows for roasting” or “caroling out in the snow”, NCCEP has a number of resources available to you free-of-charge that can assist you in, at the very least, making it one of the “hap-happiest seasons of all!”
APR Webinars
NCCEP is hosting two APR related webinars on March 4, 2022. These webinars are designed to help new grantees, as well as answer questions from veteran grantees. Feel free to join one or both. Both webinars will be recorded and uploaded to the Quad for future reference.
The GEAR UP APR for Beginners: An Orientation
Friday, March 4, 2022
12:30-1:30 ET
The GEAR UP APR: A Refresher
Friday, March 4, 2022
2:00-3:00 ET
The Quad
The Quad is an online collaborative community designed for GEAR UP professionals to access GEAR UP related information easily and to also engage in discussion about GEAR UP related topics. During APR season, we encourage you to take your questions to The Quad and post them in the Research and Evaluation discussion space. Here, you can find answers to previously answered questions, discussion threads about APR questions and submission, and technical assistance from NCCEP staff.
Service Definition Guide
Through a multi-state collaboration between members of the College and Career Readiness Evaluation Consortium (CCREC) and NCCEP, an updated GEAR UP Student and Family Definitions: Guidelines for GEAR UP Program Services was developed and is available to the entire GEAR UP community. This guide provides definitions of GEAR UP services and some helpful guidelines for collecting and reporting services through multiple modalities including online, hybrid, and face-to-face. (Please note that due to recent changes in the APR, not all services listed in the APR are included in the guide.)
APR Technical Assistance Documents
In late January, the NCCEP team posted two APR related resources in The Quad. The first is a PowerPoint presentation providing background for the current version of the APR and providing some information on the mandatory and optional APR questions for 2022. The second document is a question rubric that more clearly shows the status of each APR question and provides explanation for how to complete the question.
Prove Team
In addition to these great resources, NCCEP has three Prove team members who are available via email to answer your APR related questions. Please feel free to reach out anytime to Chrissy Tillery, Vice President of Research and Evaluation, at Chrissy_Tillery@edpartnerships.org; Jackie Mania, Director of Research and Evaluation, at Jackie_Mania@edpartnerships.org, or Thomas Cech, Senior Data Scientist, at Thomas_Cech@edpartnerships.org.