a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
As was shared yesterday, the Teacher of the Year reception was well received, as well as Schaffer’s presentation (filling in for Suckla); it’s an important event to CDE and the state. Attended the NASBE conference; there were not a lot of chief state school officers there, but it was very helpful to him being new. At the meeting he received a request from Berman and DeHoff to look at standards in our region of the U.S., to see if we might put together regional standards. Met with Chlouber, our USDE Regional Representative, who has agreed to convene a meeting with Tim Watters of McREL to see what other states have. They will look at where some alignment exists, and Chlouber will put together a meeting of the state chiefs in the region. There is considerable disagreement about national standards, and international standards, but there is some agreement and encouragement from USDE about regional standards. Publicly thanked Chlouber, who continues to be a support and resource to our state.
The Governor has issued an Executive Order dealing with employees; got an opinion from our attorney about how it affects CDE, answering these questions: Are we exempt from the Executive Order? Are some of our employees covered? Dyl said professional units of state employees have the right to unionize and bargain. There are 3 different ways they can organize, but it only affects employees in the state personnel system, in which CDE has very few. It’s mostly support personnel, who could participate in a statewide organization negotiating with the Governor, or they could organize with groups people in similar occupations, or they could organize as a department. CDE is exempted from the last kind, because CDE is under the SBE, run by elected officials. But the SBE may decide to recognize a departmental employee group. If the SBE wishes to have the non-classified staff participate in an employee organization, we could under our independent power. Jones said we have about 100 employees in the classified category.
The P-20 Council will be meeting soon with subcommittees making recommendations. CDE staff have been attending the subcommittee meetings, and some SBE members are on some of them. The subcommittees wanted to give the SBE an early indication of what they will be recommending. The Lieutenant Governor, Matt Gianneschi, and Commissioner received that preview. Yesterday Dr. Turner attended some of the subcommittee meetings. He will present to us what he has learned.
Turner said this is not information mentioned in private meetings: The official presentations will be made on November 16 at Fort Morgan Community College. On November 27 at the Children’s Museum there will be a meeting of the P-20 Council to vote on the recommendations. There appears to be consensus on building a P-20 data system, one which is comprehensiveand not just including education data, but also some from Human Services and the workforce. It must be accessible and secure. Its governance would not be a separate agency, but perhaps shared by CDE and CCHE (Colorado Commission on Higher Education). Regarding accountability systems, the recommendations prescribe to the theory of action as to balancing local authority and the general good. They are looking at a longitudinal system but want the EPAS system (Explore, PLAN and ACT System) to be included; they decided not to eliminate CSAP. Because dual enrollment has increased, they want to continue to allow it, with a framework for consistency. They believe we should create two high school diplomas – one indicating college readiness and one indicating workforce readiness. They believe we need to increase the number of guidance counselors, at a ratio of 250:1. Finally, they want the SBE to adopt standards for post-secondary preparation and include it in Accreditation. There were no strong recommendations from the Teacher Quality subcommittee. The Dropout Prevention subcommittee wants to see a sunset of out-of-date laws and wants to ensure that the P-20 data system includes early warning signs of dropouts. The P-3 group says that there needs to be a best practices guide for P-3; that the data system should include early childhood; and that we expand full-day kindergarten and eliminate the wait list for CPKP. The governance system for early childhood is still being debated, as to whether it should be done by an existing agency or a new agency, and how would it be constructed.
I expressed concern about creating a new agency for early childhood, because I don’t want to see more units taken out of CDE, as was done with Part C, nor do I think the Department of Human Services would like to see divisions taken away from them; furthermore, I think that the problem can be solved by allowing for more inter-departmental cooperation. Peggy Littleton said that she expressed the same concern to the P-3 subcommittee.
DeHoff and Berman expressed concern about having two different high school diplomas, but Middleton, who is on that subcommittee, said it would be more like have a core diploma (the workforce readiness one) and one indicating additional qualifications, like Advanced Placement (the college readiness one).
I asked what the Board members think about adding or using the EPAS. DeHoff said he doesn’t support paying for it, because he doesn’t think the tool is high quality. He explained that when his daughter took the Explore, it said that she should be a lumberjack.
In regard to the Commissioner’s Forward Thinking plan, Jones said that it is an important plan for the state. He continues to attend meetings across the state to explain the plan. He recently met with CEA, Junior Achievement, and EDAC to discuss it. There has also been a series of meetings with the Governor, legislators, the CASB board, the CEA board, CASE leadership, every Superintendent group, publishers and editors of newspapers, college presidents and deans, the P-20 Council, foundations, and the League of Charter Schools. Supterintendents completed a survey with questions about the plan. When asked if the three forms of accountability should be aligned, they said yes. Should it be aligned to AYP? No. Longitudinal? Yes. What should Accreditation be based on? Half on a longitudinal analysis of test results. How much should be numerical and how much professional judgment? Not all of one; maybe a third judgment and the rest numerical based on several kinds of data. Jones met in staff work sessions to build plans on five of the goals of Forward Thinking.
Alignment of resources is being looked at by CDE staff, expanding some resources to scale and to be very transparent about the CDE budget. We are having a complete analysis done through WestEd, to make efficient and effective use of federal funds; it’s a resource analysis. They will identify what other states are doing effectively. WestEd will make a formal report on their findings. They will be available for technical assistance when we make changes. The timeline to start collecting CDE data is November 15; they will conduct interviews in early December; and the final draft of the matrix will be ready in middle to late December, with final report at the end of January. We want it available as close as possible to the beginning of the Legislature’s session. WestEd is located in Phoenix; has access to experts in many topics. They have worked with us on CADI (the process for reviewing school districts), as well as the charter school review process, and other things. NCLB includes a requirement and funding for USDE to contract out for comprehensive centers, which the Southwest Comprehensive Center is in at WestEd. Thus, there will be no cost to CDE for their services. They are connected with the regional labs (like McREL). Although they are federally funded, they are impartial and are not an arm of the federal government. Karen Stroup-Mock says they are "quite impressive," and we aren’t working with them just because they are free. WestEd contracts out with one of the best auditing firms in the nation; we get to pick the ones we work with.
Colorado will be hosting the national middle school educators conference next year with between 10,000 and 15,000 people in attendance. CDE is working with the planning committee to see what actions CDE can take to help, and we are partnering with CAMLE (the Colorado Association of Middle-Level Educators). We will have a chance to showcase best practices from our state at the conference. I pointed out that NASBE has a study group on middle school, so it would be a good convergence for us, and we should be sure that a Board member from Colorado is on that group.
The list of school districts on Accreditation Watch and Probation was sent to us; the decisions were made based on the Regional Managers’ recommendations. This year, 6 districts were removed from Watch [Greeley, Fort Lupton, Lake County, Florence, Branson, and Dove Creek]. One district moved from Probation to Watch [Miami-Yoder]. One district moved from Watch to Probation [Aguilar]. Two districts remained on Probation [DeBeque and Vilas]. Finally, 9 districts remained on Watch [Westminster, Fort Morgan, Yuma, Ellicott, Harrison, Alamosa, Centennial, Ignacio, and Montezuma-Cortez].
An analysis of the achievement gap has been completed, based on the SBE rules; we were sent that report. CDE will be working with districts that have the smallest gaps to learn best practices, and they will be helping districts with the largest gaps.
Approved an amendment to the SBE meeting calendar approved last month, changing the dates for the SBE meeting in May 2008 from May 7-9 to May 14-16.
(1) ENDORSEMENT PREPARATION PROGRAMS
Approved the content of the following proposed endorsement preparation programs:
[Colorado school districts, boards of cooperative educational services (BOCES), accredited independent schools, and accepted institutions of higher education, or any combination thereof, may apply to the SBE for approval of an alternative principal preparation. The proposals have been reviewed by a committee that includes representatives of higher education and educators who are experts in the field of alternative licensure and principal preparation programs.]
(2) EDUCATOR INDUCTION PROGRAMS
Approved or re-approved the educator induction programs as follows:
[The Educator Licensing Act requires school districts hiring new and new-to district licensed educators to implement induction programs approved by the SBE. In addition, the SBE rules require a cyclical review of induction programs.]
(3) PLACE TEST
Approved the recommendation of CDE staff to accept a passing score of 56 for the Linguistically Diverse Education (017) PLACE Test and a passing score of 58 for the Principal (080) PLACE Test.
(1) HEARING ON AMENDMENTS TO SCHOOL BUDGET RULES
Scheduled a hearing and notice for approval of amendments to Rules for School District Budget Law for [Rules for Budget Law have not been updated since 1994. Legislation has been passed that has affected various elements of the Rules for Budget Law. Significant changes have occurred in this section of law with the expansion of choice involving charter schools and the Charter School Institute and related reporting requirements. Additionally, FY2003-2004 legislation drove multiple changes in budget law due to financial deficiencies in two school districts. The proposed rule revisions incorporate all of the statutory changes and bring the rules into compliance with current accounting practices. Also of importance is that Articles 44 and 45 of Title 22 are cited within the Accreditation Indicators, again elevating the importance of bringing these rules into alignment with statute. The proposed rule changes have been reviewed by the Financial Policies and Procedures Advisory Committee with recommendation to forward proposed changes to the State Board.]
Scheduled a hearing and notice for approval of amendments to Rules for Accounting and Reporting. [Rules for Accounting and Reporting have not been updated since 1993. Legislation has been passed that has affected various elements of the Rules for Accounting and Reporting. Significant changes have occurred in this section of law with the expansion of choice involving charter schools and the Charter School Institute and related reporting requirements. Additionally, implementation of GASB 34 (Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement 34) required changes in fund structures and reporting formats in school districts’ annual financial reports. The proposed rule revisions incorporate all of those changes and bring the rules into compliance with current accounting practices. Also of importance is that Articles 44 and 45 of Title 22 are cited within the Accreditation Indicators, again elevating the importance of bringing these rules into alignment with statute. The proposed rule changes have been reviewed by the Financial Policies and Procedures Advisory Committee with recommendation to forward proposed changes to the State Board.]
Approved emergency Type III educator authorizations for 2 initially and 5 renewals on a vote of 5:2 (DeHoff and Littleton dissented). [Local districts may request Type III Emergency Authorization to employ non-licensed teachers, principals, administrators, or special services providers if they agree to provide an induction program. The SBE’s approval is based on consideration of whether the district has demonstrated a shortage of licensed personnel and the employment of non-licensed personnel is essential to preserving the instructional program and to the well-being of the children enrolled.]
Mary Frances Nevans, our Director of State Board Relations, proposed deleting the following from the SBE Operating Procedures, because she said it’s an unnecessary, self-imposed time restriction that interferes with the timeline for approval of rules:
"Adoption of Rules. In accordance with Colorado statute and State Board rules, the State Board of Education shall hold a formal, publicized hearing at least one meeting prior to its consideration for adoption of any new rules or amendments to existing rules."
She is holding a rule-making training for staff next week, so she needs to know if we agree with this suggestion. For example, there was no testimony on the hearing on the Summer School Grant Program, and the Board would have been able to adopt them right away instead of waiting an extra month, as is currently required. For the Online rules, the current timeline makes it very difficult to adopt both Emergency Rules and Permanent Rules within the required timeframes. I expressed concern about making this change, since with the ECEA rules, we saw that public testimony can raise many issues that we would need time to think about; I would hate to feel pressured into adopting the rules immediately after a hearing, and I felt that there was pressure to do so with those rules. Nevans said we are allowed to take it under advisement up to 180 days. Schaffer proposed we not delete the paragraph, but instead add the following: "However, upon unanimous consent of the Board, rules may be adopted immediately following a public hearing." We unanimously approved this addition (rather than the deletion).
After yesterday’s discussion, we agreed to a version of the SBE Code of Ethics that consists of a summary of all the laws consolidated together in one section, with the full provisions of the laws included by reference (in an appendix).
I had proposed changes to the Gifts and Honoraria section to conform better with state law, as follows [my proposed new language is in capitals, and the proposed deleted language from the originally proposed draft is in strikethroughs]: "No state board member shall KNOWINGLY receive OR ACCEPT any compensation, gift OF MONEY, INCLUDING A LOAN, PLEDGE, OR MONETARY payment of expense, reward, gratuity or anything of value OR AN IN-KIND GIFT exceeding $50 FOR THE PURPOSE OF DEFRAYING ANY EXPENSES RELATED TO THE OFFICIAL DUTIES OF THE BOARD MEMBER, EXCEPT FOR COMPENSATION PAID IN CONNECTION WITH THE PERFORMANCE OF HIS OR HER OFFICIAL DUTIES, OR REIMBURSEMENT FOR ACTUAL AND NECESSARY EXPENDITURES FOR TRAVEL AND LODGING AS PROVIDED BY LAW, INCLUDING SCHOLARSHIPS FOR CONFERENCES. NO BOARD MEMBER SHALL ACCEPT A GIFT OF MONEY FROM ANY PERSON WHO IS A PROFESSIONAL OR VOLUNTEER LOBBYIST. from any source for any matter or proceeding connected with or related to the duties of such member, unless otherwise provided for by law. This provision is not intended to restrict usual social amenities, ceremonial gifts or unsubstantial advertising gifts. Compensation, gifts, expense money, rewards, gratuities or anything of value within the meaning of this statement which practically cannot be returned shall immediately be turned over to the Colorado Department of Education to be considered by it as state funds or state property." DeHoff pointed out that the last sentence could be a problem, if we have a family member who is a volunteer lobbyist, and Amendment 41 does not apply to us; we agreed to delete it.
Berman suggested a clean-up in the Conflict of Interest section, adding "In cases where a board member has declared a conflict of interest," before the list of what "All board members shall" do if they have a conflict of interest.
The Code of Ethics passed unanimously with these revisions.
(These remain confidential until action is taken by the Board.)
Instructed department staff to issue a provisional teacher license to an applicant for a teaching license.
Littleton and Schaffer dissented.
Discussed the proposed amendments to the rules for the Administration of the Exceptional Children’s Educational Act. [The proposed amendments to the ECEA rules are required in order to conform to the amendments to the ECEA as set forth in SB06-118, SB07-255, and HB07-1244, including alignment with the Federal Individuals with Disabilities Educational Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) and its implementing Part B and Part C. Additionally, these amendments are proposed in order to do the following: (a) adopt new criteria for the disability category "specific learning disability"; (b) reorganize these rules for purposes of providing enhanced clarification for implementation; (c) clarify language; and (d) make technical amendments, including renumbering made necessary by reorganization of the rules, correction of typographical errors such as misspellings or inaccurate legal citations, and reformatting of the rules.]
Dr. Steinberg and Laura Freppel from ESLU updated us on the status of the rules. They said that they had met with several Board members after the hearing in October, and based on those meetings, as well as the public hearings, the side-by-side version of the rules and comments has been revised. They decided to make one revision to the rules, on the topic related to comprehensive assessments in the area of suspected disability, because of concerns expressed by several people testifying. To 4.02(4) they added: "and shall ensure that the initial evaluation is sufficient to appropriately identify all of the child’s special education and related services needs, whether or not commonly linked to the disability category in which the child has been classified." Steinberg and Freppel said that this is word-for-word from the federal guidelines except for "ensure" and "appropriately" and it doesn’t exceed the federal guidelines.
DeHoff asked about the criteria for implementing RTI; staff reported that they had added the following: "No later than August 15, 2008, each administrative unit and state-operated program shall submit a plan to the department describing how the administrative unit or state-operated program will implement the criteria set forth in this section 2.08(6)(B)(II) by August 15, 2009."
I made a motion to restore the wording that is in the current rules about the age of transition services, adding to 4.03(6)(D), the following: "Beginning at age 14, the IEP shall contain a statement of transition service needs of the child." DeHoff and Littleton said they agree with staff not to add it. My motion failed on a tie vote; Berman, DeHoff, and Littleton dissented (Suckla was absent).
I made another motion to add the following to 4.03(6): "and shall ensure that the annual goals are adequately specific and measurable to monitor the child’s progress toward achieving the goals." My intention for this was to address concern about the requirement for short-term objectives being removed from the rules for all students except those eligible to take the CSAPA. DeHoff and Littleton said they agree with staff. Middleton said that her P-20 subcommittee had discussed concerns that special education students are not getting specific and direct enough encouragement for postsecondary planning. However, the motion failed on a tie vote; Berman, DeHoff, and Littleton dissented (Suckla was absent).
The rules were passed unanimously with the approved revisions.
Adopted proposed amendments to the rules for the Administration of the Summer School Grant Program. [The Summer School Grant Program for Academic Achievement requires the SBE to adopt rules for implementing the program. The program is designed specifically to fund intensive summer reading, writing or mathematics programs for children who have scored "Unsatisfactory" on CSAP reading, writing, and mathematics components for the previous academic year and are entering 4th through 8th grades. These rules were adopted by the State Board in May 2007. However, in June 2007, Legislative Legal Services notified the Department of some discrepancies with the rules. LLS has recommended that the following items be added to the rules: a description of the time frames for distribution of the grant moneys, and a description of the method by which the Department will evaluate the progress of programs. Therefore, amendments to the rules are necessary. A hearing was held in October 2007.]
Deputy Commissioner Karen Stroup-Mock and Will Kugel from CDE reviewed the CDE budget request submitted to OSPB and approved by them. It’s the same as what we proposed (!) except that the Governor asked that we also include an additional $2 million to restore funding to state grants for publicly supported libraries program. This past year we spent $95,000 in legal services for charter school appeals.
Ann Barkis met with us to approve our revised legislative priorities. We had one final change under School Finance: "Support efforts to improve the long-term financial stability of education funding and develop a comprehensive school finance solution."
We unanimously approved the SBE Legislative Priorities for 2008, as revised.
The SBE will be asked to approve Teacher/Special Service Provider Induction Programs submitted by Landmark Academy and the Wray School District.
The SBE will be asked to approve the Colorado Department of Education’s School Nurse Induction/Mentor program.
Staff will explain the proposed timeline for Emergency and Permanent rules for Online Learning.
This item is for information only for November. The State Board will be asked in January to certify December payments to school districts for state share of total program. [The State Board of Education is responsible for determining the amount of funding which local school districts receive monthly from the state under the provisions of the Public School Finance Act. Districts are entitled to receive these funds by the 25th of each month. This is to notify the Board that the December 2007 payments to school districts will be changing. The exact amounts are not available for certification at the November Board meeting. The final December payment amounts will be presented to the Board for certification at the January 2008 meeting.]
CHRIS ELNICKI (the Social Studies Coordinator for the Cherry Creek School District): Is here representing Social Studies teachers. Social Studies teaching is being eroded. Concerned that the "year of" review of content standards has been eliminated, just when it was going to be the Year of Social Studies. Ideally ideas about Social Studies would be integrated into reading instruction at the elementary level, but it is rare and isolated. Little assessment done in the area. We know that readers with a broad background knowledge and wider vocabulary do better in fluency. However, it is more common for literacy content to be fictional rather than history, civics, economics, and science. Lack of resources is the reason. There needs to be some organization and structure around this to encourage more of it to happen. The student population in the achievement gap is usually one with a lack a deep background knowledge, and more instruction in Social Studies would increase their opportunities to achieve. We need to put greater emphasis on this content in K-12 and even beyond. Has had conversations with Jo O’Brien and Ken Turner to collaborate on this. There had been planning for the Year of Social Studies, and people are hoping that discussions in the standards review won’t be focused solely on college readiness and job readiness, but will include citizenship.
The SBE held a recognition ceremony for the students who achieved perfect scores on the ACT test. There were 24 students this year, the most ever. [There were 17 in 2005 and 6 in 2006.]
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