a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
Schaffer had Steve Ruddick, his former colleague in the State Senate who is now a judge, swear him in. He said that he purposely asked a Democrat to do it, for the symbolic effect.
(Chairwoman Suckla asked us to report on what committees we serve on or as a liaison to, and to add only vital other issues.)
DEHOFF: The only committee he is a liaison to is CoLAB (Colorado Library Advisory Board), which advises on grants and making libraries as efficient as possible. He is on the NASBE Board of Directors as co-director of the Western Area.
MUNN: Sits on the Finance and Audit Committee of NASBE, which “thankfully meets by conference call.”
MIDDLETON: Is on the Steering Committee of the Colorado Campaign for the Civic of Mission of Schools. Was asked to be on the steering committee of the Alliance for Quality Teaching. Will be on NASBE’s Civics Study Group. Added that she testified with Hudak at CDE’s meeting with the Joint Budget Committee, which asked the State Board to look at what investments for change we would like to make within the next 5 years.
HUDAK: I am the liaison to CSEAC (Colorado Special Education Advisory Committee). I had been appointed to the Eligible Facilities Education Task Force, which completed its work, but now that EFAC (Eligible Facilities Advisory Committee) has been formed, I will be the liaison to that. I am also on the Early Childhood Task Force of CCI (Colorado Counties Inc.), which just was formed. I am no longer on any NASBE committee, but for the last 5 years I was on its Governmental Affairs Committee. I, along with DeHoff, met with the state legislative Committee on Legal Services on Monday and tried to defend the rules we passed last year on the Exceptional Children’s Education Act, but the committee unanimously negated them.
LITTLETON: Will be on NASBE’s Early Childhood Study Group this year.
SUCKLA: Is the liaison to CASB, the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs, CICC (Colorado Inter-governmental Children’s Commission), Department of Local Affair’s Mineral and Energy board, the Governor’s K-20 Alignment Council, and NASBE’s Governmental Affairs Committee. She will have Schaffer serve as her back-up for the NASBE committee.
(Suckla then asked us to tell a little about ourselves and our family, since Schaffer is new.)
SCHAFFER: Has been married for 20 years and has 5 kids. The oldest, who are twins, just went to college. He works in the oil and gas industry and is also involved in wind power and mining.
LITTLETON: Is married with 3 children. Is doing commercial real estate currently, to avoid traveling so much as she used to do in her former jobs. Her son is in the ROTC in New Mexico, and her older daughter just went to college in Georgia. Her husband is also in the oil and gas industry.
HUDAK: I have been married for 33 years and have one daughter, who is 24 and has a great job. I was a teacher for 20 years, then manager of the office of the League of Women Voters of Denver. Now I am the state coordinator of the School Readiness Quality Improvement Program in the Colorado Department of Human Services.
MIDDLETON: Her husband just got elected to Aurora City Council. Is writing her dissertation on higher education policy. Has two step-daughters and two dogs.
MUNN: Practices law. His wife is a belly dancer and teaches belly-dancing. Is a huge fan of the Pittsburg Steelers.
DEHOFF: Is married and has 4 daughters, the youngest of whom is a senior at Columbine High School and is in Westernaires; she is performing at the stock show, riding in 2-3 performances a day. Is the Executive Director of the Charter School Institute. His wife teaches at Red Rocks Community College.
MOLONEY: Has been married for 36 years; his wife teaches AP Chemistry and Biology and received a national award for her students’ high scores. Has two children. His daughter spent a year in Antarctica, and tomorrow is going to Australia – both for the National Science Foundation. His son taught in Spain, and is now in southern California working for a sporting goods firm.
SUCKLA: Has been married 34 years to her childhood sweetheart; they have one son, age 24, who is a professional bull-rider. He has been very successful in it. She and her husband are cattle ranchers. She lives 414 miles from here.
Middleton said that she appreciates Munn and DeHoff “riding herd” on the achievement gap issue, but there is so much more coming at us. She suggested that we look at all the issues we have to deal with and have members take responsibility for each of them. For example, we have had a discussion about online programs. She would like to work on that issue, as well as data. Munn said that we could tie this to our Strategic Plan. Suckla said it’s a good idea, and she will add it to tomorrow’s agenda. Suckla said that she would also like to talk about adding time to our meetings on Thursdays so we can get more done.
Budget. Last month Karen Stroup promised to bring us a contract for CELA (Colorado English Language Assessment); staff arranged to start working on it as a Purchase Order so the SBE could look at the proposed contract. CTB/McGraw Hill is flying in next Tuesday to discuss the contract. We will be assessing all students qualified under ELPA (English Language Proficiency Act), about 90,000; they found enough money from federal funds to pay for CELA this year. We will be doing it in the spring. Many districts were already using a CTB assessment as one of the three that they had been able to choose from. We would like the state to pay for it in the future. Regarding CSAP, CTB was selected to continue providing the CSAP; they were the least expensive and met all the requirements of the RFP. Many requirements had to do with mitigating risk factors related to giving the test in a timely way. It was a rigorous process of selection; we will now be working on the contracting process. We are hoping to have it as soon as possible, hopefully no later than April. Littleton asked if they can get the CSAP results back in a more timely fashion; Stroup said that the timeline has been shortened somewhat and CTB will continue working on it; however, because the students’ responses are not all short-answer, it takes a long time to score the tests. Stroup thanked Middleton and me for helping answer the JBC’s questions at CDE’s budget hearing in December. They asked us to let them know what areas we want to invest in, such as early childhood, and where can we put money for long-range results. The state’s audit on online programs has begun, looking at the following: how students are funded, what the statutes require, how clear the statute and rules are, what the quality of the online education programs is, how the programs operate, how long students stay in the programs, and what students are exempted [from the prohibition against students who were not enrolled in a public school the previous year]. The final audit report is not expected to be done for 6-12 months. The auditors work for the Legislative Audit Committee. When their report is in draft form, CDE and SBE will be able to see a confidential copy. It is not public information until they report to the committee. They will have a set of recommendations. Typically, staff responds to the recommendations, but the SBE can work with staff on how we would like to see the responses worded. We would be welcome to join staff when the public hearing takes place with the committee. On Monday, CDE will meet with the JBC about our requests for supplemental funding, $33.6 rather than $23 million originally requested, because there were more students that we had originally expected, including Katrina kids and the “boom” in the Vilas online program. I pointed out that the information presented to the JBC showed that Vilas had an 813% increase in at-risk students, and Branson had a 381% increase, whereas most districts had about 25% or less.
Legislation: Byron Pendley would be willing to continue sending us a list of bills and their status weekly. Polis said we should do a better job of deploying SBE members to testify. The House Education Committee meets on Tuesday mornings, Senate Education on Wednesday mornings, and both on Thursday afternoons. Middleton said that if we see problems in bills when they are introduced, we should speak with the sponsor and not wait until testimony to deal with them. Suckla suggested that we add time in our Thursday afternoon meetings to discuss bills. I said that we should also use our YahooGroups to discuss them in between meetings. CDE staff talks with bill sponsors in the fiscal note process and shares the SBE’s opinions at that time. There is a tentatively scheduled meeting for us with the Joint House and Senate Education Committees after our February meeting. Pendley said that the chairs of both committees would like to have a special conversation regarding 5th year programs; they are working on a date for that meeting. At the rule review on the ECEA rules, the committee voted to let our rules expire in May. The 60% limit for online and charter schools will be removed. He explained that because we didn’t adopt rules for all 10 provisions of the statute (we didn’t do 2 provisions because of a conflict with IDEA), they removed all of the rules in that section. There will be a bill this year to amend ECEA this year, in which we can fix the second issue. I mentioned that I have written a letter to the Democrats on the committee, pointing out that in the Assistant Attorney General’s opinion, our rules were legal. Finally, regional trainings for civics teachers utilizing the $200,000 (allocated last year for civics education) have been planned, primarily for Friday-Saturday time periods, in four areas of the state.
The last six months has been spent gathering input from various groups for ideas for amendments to the state’s consolidated plan for NCLB. Windler reviewed the history of the state’s work on NCLB, including the recent efforts to propose amendments to our plan. He said that the HR-1 Hub Committee will recommend changes to NCLB when it is reauthorized. He reviewed proposals for amendments compiled from recommendations of our advisory groups. These are the major ones:
Suckla said that the Board should discuss the process by which we take the recommendations into consideration and determine amendments to the State Plan. She asked us to write down our thoughts on each of the recommendations.
We agreed to hold our annual February Retreat on the 27th to 28th. Middleton asked what our purpose for the Retreat this year is. Schaffer suggested that we leave all the decisions for the agenda, timing, and location to the Chair.
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