November 2012

Dear Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science Project Director:

It is time to prepare your annual performance report (APR) for program year 2011–12. The due dates for submitting your APR are the following:

• Regular Upward Bound and Veterans Upward Bound projects: December 12, 2012
• Upward Bound Math-Science projects: December 31, 2012

Please note that regular Upward Bound and Veterans Upward Bound projects adversely affected by Hurricane Sandy may submit their APRs as late as December 31, 2012.

The online data collection Web site for the UB programs will be available to you on November 14, 2012, via the Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science "Performance" pages:

• http://www.ed.gov/programs/trioupbound/performance.html;
• http://www.ed.gov/programs/triomathsci/performance.html.

This is the last year that grantees will use the APR data structure that reflects the objectives of the 2007 competition; the APR for the next reporting period (2012–13) will be revised to reflect the HEOA, the new regulations, and the objectives of the 2012 competition. You will have opportunities to comment on the draft APR in 2013.

Please note that, while the Department will use your 2011–12 APR for monitoring purposes and to report aggregate performance data for the UB and UBMS programs, we will not calculate or use prior experience (PE) points based on this year’s data, since PE points for the 2012 competition were based on your 2008–09, 2009–10, and 2010–11 APR data.

Completing the APR

You may recall that, through intensive work with grantees in 2011, the Department resolved inconsistencies in projects’ participant rosters and in participants’ expected high school graduation year cohorts. With this essential data established, the Department now considers the 2009–10 and 2010–11 APR files to be correct and final. This means that, except for new students, 2011–12 cohorts must match those in 2010–11 APRs, and grantees must restore records for any participant who may appear in this year’s Match to Prior report.

Avoiding mismatches: Occasionally, a project unintentionally ends up in the confusing situation of having two records for one student, generally due to inconsistencies in how the project recorded identifying data for the student (first name, last name, SSN, and date of birth). Identifying data for each participant in your APR file (except for new students) must match the data in your 2010–11 APR, even if you have discovered that last year's data contained errors or misspellings; for the sake of the UB system of records, consistency trumps other considerations.

Should you need to contact the Help Desk regarding a data check, please note the identifying number which you will find at the very beginning of every message; this will help us to resolve your problem. Please remember that any pop-up that begins with the word "Message" is an important reminder, but it will not require you to make any changes in your data. Pop-ups that begin with the words "Validation error," on the other hand, do require you to revise at least one data entry.

HELP DESK AND SUBMITTAL

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 UBWEB@cbmiweb.com. 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 on week days that are not Federal holidays from November 14, 2012 until December 31, 2012. During the holidays and peak times, 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.

Please remember that, after you submit the completed APR electronically, you must also fax to 703-832-1360 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. If for any reason you need to revise your performance report data after you submit it, please do not fax in the corrections; you should contact the Help Desk for information on revising your report and resubmitting it electronically. Note that TRIO will generally be able to accommodate revisions only until your deadline. 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://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/staffdirectory-cupt.html.

Thank you for the time and effort you dedicate to performance reporting each year and for your commitment to providing complete and accurate data. Please retain source documents in a readily accessible form so that they can be verified during an on-site visit.

Sincerely,

Gaby Watts
Director
Upward Bound and Educational Opportunity Centers Division
Student Service

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