HUDAK’S BOARD NOTES – MAY 2008

NEW SBE WEB ADDRESS

Just a reminder that the SBE office has upgraded our eBoard page. To connect to our calendar, agendas, audio streaming during our meetings, and other information about the SBE, go to https://eboard.eboardsolutions.com/Index.aspx?S=60967. To find the meeting agendas, click on the "Meeting" box in the upper left corner, then scroll the cursor down to "Board Meeting." You can then select which meeting you would like to see.

OPENINGS ON NEW CAPITAL CONSTRUCTION BOARD

With the passage of the Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) Act, the application process is now in place for the Public School Capital Construction Assistance Board. The BEST legislation provides financial assistance to school districts and charter schools for capital construction projects. The function of the PSCCA Board is to protect the health and safety of persons using public school facilities and to ensure that the facilities provide a safe and un-crowded environment that is conducive to student learning. The SBE has 3 seats to fill on the PSCCA board – a school board member, a public school superintendent or administrator, and a school facilities planner or manager. The SBE’s appointees must represent different areas of the state as well as urban, suburban, and rural school districts. Applications are due by Friday, June 6, 2008, at 4:00 p.m. If you are interested, please send information to herrmann_v@cde.state.co.us or fax to 303-866-6888 or mail to CDE, Attention: Vody Herrmann, 201 East Colfax Avenue, Denver, CO 80203.

SBE Work Session (Wednesday, May 14, 2008):

• EARLY CHILDHOOD TEAM REPORT – The CDE staff in Early Childhood Initiatives reported on the many programs they are involved with. They have a national reputation for cross-system collaboration, including working with local partnerships, private agencies, the Lieutenant Governor’s office, higher education, and several state and federal governmental agencies. They direct the Colorado Preschool Program, serving about 13,000 high-risk children in the last year (it will be over 20,000 next year) in all but 7 school districts; early childhood special education through Part B of IDEA, a federally mandated program for 3- to 5-year-old children with a developmental delay or disability; Child Find, a service to screen and evaluate children from birth to age 6 suspected of having a developmental delay or disability; and Results Matter, a program that is used to describe child progress across specific developmental and educational domains. They coordinate the 31 Early Childhood Councils, active in 56 of Colorado’s 64 counties, enhancing collaborative planning, networking, funding, and coordination for early childhood programs. They also sponsor the Expanding Quality Initiative in Infant/Toddler Care and Education.
• GGDC REPORT – The Graduation Guidelines Development Council (GGDC) gave its report based on HB07-1118, which passed last year at this time and required the GGDC to advise the SBE on minimum graduation guidelines. The report is entitled "Reimagining High School in Colorado" (see the SBE Agenda for a copy). Although SB08-212 (CAP4K) has changed and expanded the work of the SBE in regard to graduation guidelines, the GGDC believes that the report is still useful to us in reviewing the content standards and defining postsecondary and workforce readiness. In the view of the Council, graduation guidelines should be a reflection of proficiency on identified standards – not a list of classes completed, not solely measured by course credits attained, and not solely measured by performance on a "high-stakes test." Instead, the Council recommends a paradigm shift from "seat time" to content mastery, and it made recommendations in the following areas: standards-based education, core curriculum to meet the needs of the 21^st century, multiple student-based assessments, multiple and diverse pathways to a diploma, career planning, and alignment of P-12 content standards with postsecondary admission requirements. The Council defined postsecondary readiness to include a transition to four-year colleges and universities, two-year academic and career/technical colleges, trade apprenticeships, the military, or other career preparation pathways. The GGDC’s recommendations regarding the content standards are that there should be fewer academic standards, but there should be additional standards for character, 21^st century skills, and CTE (Career and Technical Education).
• ALLIANCE FOR QUALITY TEACHING REPORT – The AQT presented its 2008 report, "Shining the Light II: State of Teacher Quality, Attrition, and Diversity in Colorado," a follow-up to a report done in 2006. The report shows that although there is no definition of teacher quality, it correlates with good scores on college entrance tests; academic subject matter preparation, particularly in Math; teacher certification; National Board certification; and professional development that focuses on specific subject matter and student learning, has significant time devoted to it (not just one day), is aligned with school improvement goals or curriculum materials, and is collaborative. Most of all, teaching experience contributes to teacher quality; novice teachers need a lot of support to be successful, including continuing professional development, good induction and mentoring, appropriate teaching assignments, and a manageable workload.

SBE Regular Meeting (Thursday, April 10, 2008):

• PERMANENT RULES FOR ACCREDITATION – We passed the revised rules for the Accreditation of School Districts, incorporating the changes proposed last month. The revised rules allow CDE to implement a streamlined Accreditation contract and a more efficient annual review process. They include Colorado’s Growth Model, contain measures of post-secondary readiness, add a new requirement for CDE to provide pre-populated data to districts, and change some of the Accreditation labels. The rules lay out the process in much more clearly. "I am ecstatic," I said about the rules at the SBE meeting. "These changes have been a long time coming."
• EXTENSION OF ACCREDITATION CONTRACTS – Because current district Accreditation contracts expire July 1, and the new rules are substantially different, we extended districts’ existing Accreditation contracts an additional six months (to December 30, 2008). The new contracts will be in effect through June 30, 2014.

• CERTIFICATION OF ONLINE PROGRAMS – We approved the certification of the following seven multi-district online programs, based on the requirements of SB07-215 and the rules we passed in March for the Administration, Certification, and Oversight of Colorado Online Programs: Hope Online Academy, Branson School Online, Colorado Connections Academy, Colorado Virtual Academy, Kaplan Academy of Colorado, Insight School of Colorado, and Karval Online Education. This was the first opportunity for the SBE to approve the certification of online programs. In subsequent yearly cycles, there will be two opportunities for applicants to become certified. There are seven others that applied for approval but did not yet meet expectations; the Unit of Online Learning has begun the process of helping them to adequately address their areas of weakness.

• EMERGENCY RULES FOR SCHOOL COUNSELOR CORPS – We adopted emergency rules for the Administration of the School Counselor Corps Grant Program, based on HB08-1370, which must be implemented by July 1. The purpose of the funding is to help secondary schools with postsecondary preparation. Input for the rules was taken from the Postsecondary Preparation Subcommittee of the Preparation and Transitions Subcommittee of the P-20 Council. We also accepted some additions submitted by the Colorado Children’s Campaign, implementing additional quality standards for the schools that receive the grants, to ensure that the education providers receiving the grants analyze their policies that may block or enhance student learning, graduation rates, and promotion and grading policies. The emergency rules become effective immediately and will expire on or about August 15, 2008. A hearing for the permanent rules will be held at the August 14 SBE meeting, with likely adoption.
• REVIEWS OF OUR TWO STAFF MEMBERS – We did our annual review of our two staff members, Dwight Jones, the Commissioner of Education, and Mary Frances Nevans, the Director of State Board Relations. Both were hired last June. The actual reviews were done in Executive Session, but we announced that we are satisfied with the work of both people. Based on legislation passed last year, we were required to seek input from superintendents and school board members around the state on the job that the Commissioner is doing. We received comments from nearly every one of the 178 school districts, and they were extraordinarily complimentary.

SBE Retreat (Thursday, May 15, 2008):

• SBE STRATEGIC PLAN – We reviewed our Strategic Plan to consider whether it needs to be updated or changed. We had a facilitator to help with the process. After reviewing the Commissioner’s "Forward Thinking" plan and the changes that have transpired in the education world during the last few years, we decided that we should make some changes. We tentatively decided to revise our Mission statement, possibly to the following: "Provide leadership and guidance that ensures public educational opportunities for all Colorado students to achieve academic and personal success." But after spending a considerable amount of time discussing this, we were unsure if we really want to do it. Also, we didn’t have time to look at the Goals and Objectives (since the agenda had allotted only 2 hours for this topic). We agreed to have our Chair and Vice Chair determine some time in the summer we will all be together and can finish the work, when we are not tired out following a two-day meeting.
• SBE BUDGET – Because the Legislature cut the SBE’s budget for next year by over $40,000, we discussed how to cut our expenses accordingly. Although we could request an emergency supplemental in the fall (which is allowable to cover unforeseen expenses for the rest of the fiscal year), the Joint Budget Committee would not consider it until January, and our NASBE dues of $27,000 are due before then. In looking at our required expenses, other than NASBE dues and out-of-state travel (which is mainly for attending NASBE meetings), there seems to be little flexibility for making cuts. The salaries of our staff (Mary Frances Nevans, Director of State Board Relations, and her assistant Marjorie Reinwald) are included in the SBE budget. We need to cover the costs of Board meetings – even if we cut down to the minimum requirement of 4 meetings per year, we would save only $8,000; we need to hold more meetings than that to accomplish all the tasks that state and federal laws require. We decided to keep the NASBE dues out of the budget for now and try to work out something with NASBE for a discount. We will shave costs from other places in the mean time and request a supplemental in the fall.

GRANTS OF EXCLUSIVE CHARTERING AUTHORITY

We granted exclusive chartering authority for one year as follows:

• Pueblo School District 60, based on the district having more than 3% of students in charter schools, above the state average of 6.62% (the vote was 4:2, with Schaffer and Littleton dissenting, and DeHoff recused; a challenge was presented by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta Charter Schools).
• Montezuma-Cortez School District, based on the district having a greater percentage of students on Free/Reduced Lunch in their charter schools than the district average – the district’s charter schools have 47.23% and the district average is 41.75 % (the vote was 6:0, with DeHoff recused).

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• May 23 – I will be meeting with the Teacher Quality Commission, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
• June & July – No regular SBE meetings, but we will likely have a short teleconference to appoint the members of the Public School Capital Construction Assistance Board.
• June 6 – I will be meeting with the Teacher Quality Commission, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• June 25 – The Commissioner’s Cup awards luncheon will take place – details to follow.
• July 11 – I will be meeting with the Teacher Quality Commission, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
• July 23-24 – At the annual CASE conference, the SBE will be presenting a workshop on the standards review and implementation of CAP4K.
• July 25 – I will be meeting with the Read to Achieve Board, 10 a.m. to noon tentatively.
• August 13 – SBE Work Session, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. [Note: We usually hold our August meeting some place other than Denver, to give out-state people a chance to attend a meeting, but we may be prevented from doing so this year because of budget cuts.]
• August 14 - SBE Regular Meeting, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at CDE.