a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
I have expressed to fellow Board members my discomfort with starting our meeting with a prayer. The Legislature does one before the call to order, but we do it after, meaning that because I prefer not to participate, I have to leave, which is disruptive. I mentioned that a moment of silence or an inspiration would be acceptable to me. Polis said that if it makes a member of the Board uncomfortable, we shouldn't do it. Orr said that he initiated the saying of the prayer because the Continental Congress prayed - based on their concern about conducting the business of building policy and trying to rely on our own human wisdom to do government business. Orr said that he wishes to seek guidance because he doesn't feel adequate to make these important decisions - and (joking) "frankly, to get along with all of you." He believes that if we pray together as a Board, it gives us more power. Suckla said that when she was on the Columbine Commission, someone said that God was not in school. Munn said that today is the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., which reminds us about the importance of respecting diversity. But there should be a balance of the importance of prayer. To carry forth the people's business and be respectful, he believes it calls upon us as Board to work in a fashion of cooperation and not be divided by our individual beliefs. Prefers to replace the prayer with a moment of silence.
Moloney said that we're not the first school board to run into this. When he was superintendent in a district, the school board president was a minister and wanted to have a prayer. There were concerns expressed similar to mine. He consulted a lawyer about what they could do to go forward; he recommended that they could have a prayer 5 minutes prior to the call to order, inviting different clergymen from the community.
DeHoff said that we have three options: do a prayer before the call to order, have a moment of silence, or have an inspirational/patriotic moment. DeHoff asked me to say which I prefer. I said that I'd prefer a moment of silence or inspiration, because we all could do that together. If a prayer were held before the meeting, I'd feel excluded. Burnett said that sometimes groups do things that people don't want to hear, such as when CEA mentioned their support of Schoettler at the beginning of a luncheon. Baca prefers the inspiration. Polis suggested that people who want to pray could do it in an other room in the building prior to the meeting. It was asked whether the inspiration could be a prayer; I said that we should agree that it won't be.
The consensus was that at 8:55 a.m. those who wish to pray will meet in the back room behind the Board room, and the meetings will have an inspiration rather than a prayer.
The JBC just met at 8 a.m. this morning and shared the negative supplementals they will be putting forth (budget-balancing actions for the current year's budget to deal with the revenue shortfall). CDE's budget will have a reduction of $8.5 million, including some reductions in CSAP funding (which can be paid for by NCLB money), elimination of the Colorado School Awards Program, and some additional cuts for regional libraries (because these had not yet been disbursed). In addition, education cuts include elimination of the following: this year's textbook funding (saves $15 million), the Teacher Pay Incentive Program (saves $4 million), the Summer School Grant Program, additional funds for the School Breakfast Program, Facility Summer School Grant Program, additional state aid for increasing enrollment districts, and School Improvement Grant bonuses. The JBC met with the joint House and Senate Education Committees, and there was discussion about eliminating any CSAPs that aren't required by NCLB - which is the 11th grade ACT, 9th grade CSAPs, and the writing CSAPs. The SBE is quite willing to eliminate the ACT, but we'd like to retain the other tests so that we can do longitudinal analysis and because writing is a vital skill. Soon there will be a meeting of the SBE and the educational stakeholder groups to try to come some consensus about what else should be cut.
Last month we talked about the importance of a full-time legislative liaison. CDE has found that some money we use for federal lobbying purposes - which we don't need because of the good efforts of Windler on NCLB - can be used to pay for this; we will hire Byron Pendley (formerly of the CDE's Finance Unit) to do so. Polis pointed out that since Pendley will be the SBE's "eyes and ears" at the Capitol, it is important for him to report to us. Munn is helping DeHoff write up a job description, and I volunteered to help.
Regarding the DPS request for emergency contingency reserve funding (on tomorrow's agenda as an information item), we will be considering asking for a supplemental on the contingency reserve so that we can give them the full amount requested, but in the mean time, we're giving them all that remains in the fund. Munn asked if we could vote on it tomorrow rather than February; if we have a motion to suspend the rules and it passes unanimously, we can do that.
In 1987-88, CDE took a cut of 35 FTE; then they allowed us to collapse our line items into fewer lines and to have flexibility in where the cuts took place. Now during this last year the Governor required a total of 10% across-the-board cuts in all departments (there was the 4% cut and then the 6% cut) - since we're only 5 months into this fiscal year, we haven't done the cuts yet, although we haven't filled staff vacancies. These cuts leave the staff very thin, and people are doing much more work with no additional pay. The proposal to make up for the remaining money is to move some staff to federal funding. But we have to be careful not to fund all of our assessment personnel out of federal funds, since those will go away in a few years.
OSPB projects that the Education Fund will be bankrupt by 2005-06, three years sooner than previously projected. Furthermore, the JBC will recommend that the Maintenance of Effort be reduced to 3.82% (since the economy was in a downturn for two years in a row, Amendment 23 allows a MOE of less than 5%.).
Fiscal notes: CDE gets confidential copies of proposed legislation to write fiscal notes for bills.
SB 64: SAR clean-up bill (Windels, S. Williams) - has many good technical corrections. A problem is that it moves the window for giving CSAPs to a month later. It will likely undergo many changes.
Governance of the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind (McElhaney): This bill proposes to change CSSB so that its appointed board would have rule-making authority; makes it a school for the state but with a chartering authority, and an "LEA" for federal purposes. CDE staff sees some troublesome technical and counterproductive aspects of the bill.
There are two bills regarding students transferring for the purposes of athletics.
There is a bill proposing that if a Colorado graduate needs to take a remedial course in a Colorado college, the college would charge the tuition back to the school district that the student graduated from.
There is a bill to remove the SBE's authority to determine whether teachers' licenses should be revoked if the person commits a felony OR a misdemeanor.
(FYI, Susan Neuman resigned yesterday from USDOE.) Last week the U.S. Department of Education approved our NCLB plan for our assessment/accountability system and AYP, thus allowing us - along with only 4 other states - to receive our federal funding.
We tried to define our AYP in a more longitudinal way, but the USDOE refused to allow it. It will have to be based on the statewide baselines for reading and math at the elementary (grades 3-5), middle school (6-8) and high school (9-12) levels. The additional indicators required will be graduation rate for high school (mandated indicator) and the number of children scoring Advanced (we got to choose this one - selected something for which we have data already) for the elementary and middle school level. The "safe harbor" provision says that any subgroup that didn't make AYP but makes a 10% or more increase in non-proficient students becoming proficient, the school is considered making AYP. The major subgroups required are economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities (IEPs), limited English proficient, and the major minorities, which for our state are Hispanic, black, Native American, and Asian. In regard to the concerns expressed about the unrealistic requirements of AYP (e.g. Students on IEPs being required to improve 26% in the first two years), Moloney said that it will be the same for everyone in the country, and we will make a good faith effort to accomplish these goals and leave it to Congress to deal with the realities.
For purposes of NCLB, the academic year will be considered to be from one CSAP administration to the next.
Pat Chlouber, our Regional Representative from the USDOE (and former SBE member), said that CDE has put together an exemplary team to develop our state's plan, and it is a credit to us that we were one of the first 5 states to have our plan approve. We are about 10 years ahead of many states, because we already had state standards and assessments. AYP has been very contentious, and she believes that there will be more flexibility in the future. Thanked us for what we have done so far and for being so cooperative with the federal government on this.
Roscoe Davidson, Deputy Commissioner, said that we are still working on the other parts of the plan that will be approved later - highly qualified teachers, safe schools, parent involvement, etc. Davidson convened a group of superintendents last week to talk about moving forward to implement the provisions of NCLB. The Regional Services Unit in CDE is already doing a lot to help districts. CDE will pull together any resources we can find to be of technical assistance.
There will be a conference March 5-7 on accreditation, accountability, and NCLB at the Marriott Hotel near Parker Road and I-225.
Under NCLB, teachers are required to be highly qualified. Dorothy Gotlieb, director of the Office of Teacher Licensure and Professional Services, has been working on various issues that have come up in regard to this. Questions have arisen regarding emergency authorizations. Gotlieb explained that teachers with emergency authorizations would be considered highly qualified because they must participate in a qualified teacher preparation program. It is particularly a concern about getting all the content area approvals for rural teachers, special education teachers, etc. - test or 24 credits?
History shows that 8 out of 10 people have dropped out of principal preparation programs. Gotlieb believes that the new preparation program will prevent some of the "shock" that caused so many of these dropouts.
We will need to write rules for out-of-state teachers to transfer their license to Colorado. Ironically, this is a bill that Gotlieb sponsored as a State Representative, and now she is the staff drafting these rules.
We will have to pass the rules for the Teacher Pay Incentive Program, even though the JBC is proposing to cut its funding (that will not have been passed before the time that we are required to have the rules in place).
Gotlieb is doing a review of areas for licenses and endorsements, which will necessitate some small amendments to rules. There is the issue of paid versus non-paid internships and student teaching. She is working on the state teacher recruitment website. Has done site visits to two higher education institutions. Working on getting Praxis so we can approve the cut scores. We need to approve the mechanism for the approval of teacher preparation in independent schools, because it isn't done by CCHE as the public institutions are. Will be looking at whether the Teacher in Residence and Alternative Preparation programs are equivalent to the quality teacher preparation programs in colleges. We have no idea how well any of these programs (that we have approved) are doing. The Alliance for Quality Teaching is doing a study of them based on student achievement data, etc. We should have a cycle of looking at programs that have been approved.
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