a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
SUCKLA: [Absent because of illness.]
SCHAFFER: As the Vice Chair, will be running the meeting, since Suckla is out sick. Welcomed Marjorie Reinwald, Mary Frances Nevans’ assistant. Reported that DeHoff and the Charter School Institute received an award for being an outstanding authorizer, and that Hudak was elected at the Western Region meeting at the NASBE Conference to be on the Nominating Committee. Berman will be appointed to be on next year’s NASBE study group on Promoting Excellence in Career Technical Education. Middleton and Littleton both want to be on the Governmental Affairs Committee; Middleton has been on it for only one year, and she asked to continue on it for the next year. Nobody expressed interest in being on the study group on Middle School: Precursor to High School Reform. There will be no meeting of the SBE in December.
HUDAK: I attended the NASBE conference and was pleased to hear repeated complimentary references during the conference to the report on school restructuring that my study group produced. I urged my colleagues to read the recommendations in the report, especially in light of proposals to eliminate the "other" provision for school restructuring in NCLB – since the most successful efforts at school restructuring appear to be a combination of different strategies, not any one alone. I brought back from the conference a copy of the English Language Learner standards from Illinois, which CDE might be able to use, and suggested that people read the study group report on that topic (Peggy Littleton was on that study group). I went with NASBE on the tour of the School of the Future; it was not so much the technology that made it noteworthy, but the interdisciplinary approach to learning there. I went with the Jeffco Legislative Forum on a visit to Foster Elementary School in Arvada – its dual language immersion program appears to be very successful.
BERMAN: Went to the pre-conference session at NASBE on school nutrition and the prevention of obesity; CDE members went with her, as part of the state team. Went to San Francisco with a team from the Governor’s office, including Representatives Solano and Massey, for the National Governors Association meeting on extended learning opportunities and quality after-school programs to decrease the dropout rate. Made a presentation at the CASB meeting with Suckla, as did DeHoff and I, to get feedback on what the graduation guidelines should be, required by HB 1118. DeHoff and she were on a panel at the Charter School Conference regarding authorizers of charter schools.
DEHOFF: Five of the state’s charter school authorizers (including Adams 12 and DPS) were at a pre-conference before the national charter school conference, in which a discussion was led by superintendents and charter school staff about what is quality authorizing and how to fit charter schools into districts’ strategic plans.
MIDDLETON: DeHoff and she have been meeting to discuss how to improve the SBE’s process on charter schools appeal hearings, along with people from CDE, CASB, CASE, and the Colorado League of Charter Schools, to try to agree on a common quality application, which would help small districts that haven’t any experience with charters. It’s a modified version of what the Charter School Institute uses now. Everyone agrees the appeal process needs to be improved, but nobody has specific ideas yet. DPS has a good process, which has prevented appeals except for one in the last eight years. More detailed best practices are needed to be shared. The next step is to look at the common application. A legislator, Representative Benefield, has the idea of creating a Charter School Division in CDE and is putting together a bill to do that, but the group wasn’t very interested in that idea. Attended a rally called Lights On After School in Aurora – it helps in dropout prevention. It was very exciting; lots of kids participated. DeHoff and she are hosting an Education Conversation with Commissioner Jones and the South Metro Chamber of Commerce to present information collected and get their reactions.
LITTLETON: Despite many contrasting views, the NASBE study group on English Language Learners came to consensus that all kids need to be proficient in English. Was the moderator for the Pikes Peak Superintendents legislative breakfast. Met with the Pikes Peak regional government group to discuss the large influx of people to the military base and its effect on the area’s schools.
NEVANS: The SBE office ordered new microphones for the new Work Session format, since we have gone back to sitting in a square on the floor rather than up at the podium. [We decided at the Retreat to go back to this less formal set-up, so that everyone realizes that it is the Work Session and not the Regular Meeting; we had moved to the podium a couple of years ago in order to use our laptops for e-Board, but now the Board Room is being wired so we can use them at the tables.] The new tables are portable and durable, which will make set-up for the Work Sessions much easier. Tomorrow the SBE will have a special ceremony, as well as a luncheon, to recognize the students who got a perfect score on the ACT. There will be a CDE Open House on November 13, 3:30 – 5 p.m. The Board Relations Office is hosting a training on rule-making for CDE staff. The SBE will be doing three events at the CASB conference – a "coffee" on November 30 at 7:30 a.m.; a workshop on November 30, 2-3:15 p.m. to have a dialogue on Forward Thinking; and a workshop on Dec. 1, 1:45 – 3 p.m. about School Trust Lands. Littleton, Middleton, and Schaffer will be doing another input meeting on HB 1118, focusing on the business community’s input.
STEVENS: The CDE Communications Office is working on updating and improving the website. There are many items that need to be removed. It is a huge quantity of work to do this, but staff is very eager and cooperative about the project. They are still hoping to have it done by February 1, although they are a little behind schedule. They are looking at all the listservs going to districts and trying to consolidate them. In support of Forward Thinking, a web-based planner is being created for the initiatives that are part of it. The Communications Office got 53 media calls in October, which is just a modest amount. There are many more stories that can be sent out from CDE, and they are working on that. They were able to get some press for the Teacher of the Year event, which was very well received.
Berman asked what is being done about the minutes of Board meetings to communicate with the public. Nevans said we no longer mail out the Board Report like we used to. She is interested in a short report after meetings, so the education community knows what went on – like my newsletter. Jones mentioned that people have become fairly "dependent" on mine. He said that CDE will work on doing something like that. Stevens said that last month they sent out a very brief report the day after the meeting on the decisions we made. He would like to put more narrative in it. Nevans asked if we like the minutes she produced from the Retreat and asked if we thought they were too detailed. I said I liked the detail of them, but didn’t have time to read over all of it, when she asked us to proofread it; I got through only half, which was 10 pages. It was twice as long as the notes I took. I said that we’ll probably never have time to check through all the minutes from every meeting, unfortunately.
Schaffer, Suckla, and I submitted proposed changes to the previous draft of the SBE Code of Ethics that we have been working on for the last two months. Nevans and Assistant Attorney General Dyl looked at all the proposals and submitted an annotated draft with everyone’s suggestions and comments. We have 3 versions: The original proposal (Version 1), the "bare bones" version of just what is in the law and what the Board was subject to prior to revisions (Version 2), and a fully annotated version (Version 3). We discussed a few wording issues with Version 2. Tomorrow we will take amendments to Version 2 and vote on it.
Berman questioned removing the Penalties section; she doesn’t think we should leave it up to the public "watchdog" groups to criticize us, because she feels there should be other consequences. I said that the "court of public opinion" is sufficient and I feel that it deteriorates our working relationship to leave the section in. Schaffer said he agrees with Berman. Middleton said she agrees with me. DeHoff said that the portion of the current operating procedures is sufficient, which says: "The Board will entertain resolutions to censure its members who behave in an egregious manner with willful disregard to the Board’s operating procedures and legally promulgated actions." We all agreed that the portion DeHoff reminded us about is sufficient.
Middleton raised questions about the section of Gifts and Honoraria. It is unclear whether it would be legal for us to be "comped" on the registration for conferences, as we often are. There is confusion between SB 51 and Amendment 41 – I said that I would propose a clarifying amendment for tomorrow.
Schaffer raised a concern about removing the principle in Version 1 that says: "Carry out his duty as a public servant by exposing corruption in government wherever discovered." He said that there is a public interest in knowing what kinds of people are working in schools, but it is illegal to disclose the information in a licensure matter. I said that I don’t see how corruption in government applies to what we do; I suggested that we already determine whether licensed teachers have violated the law. Dyl said it has to do with honoring the public trust; the law prohibits certain things from being disclosed. DeHoff pointed out that after we make a determination on a licensure matter, it becomes public. But some of the records are still confidential and are "sealed." Schaffer said that, for example, if a child abuser gets a license, only the 7 of us would know, and we would be obligated to keep the record confidential; he would like it to be something we could expose. That does not appear to be possible legally.
Staff from the Office of Federal Programs – Bill Windler, Pat Chapman, Anita Foxworth, and Alyssa Pearson – updated the State Board on NCLB (No Child Left Behind). They presented the results from the 2006-2007 school and district AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) determinations. The presenters discussed how NCLB Improvement identification works with Accreditation, as well as the support provided to Title I schools and districts which are not making AYP. It is their intention to align the different accountability programs as much as possible. First, they reviewed what the indicators are that make up AYP: (1) a 95% participation rate on CSAP; (2) performance targets (or Safe Harbor) met in Reading and Math – there are two kinds of Safe Harbor – we were approved for an additional one with longitudinal targets; and (3) the "other indicator," which is improvement in the graduate rate for high schools and improvement in the percent of students scoring Advanced on CSAP for middle and elementary schools. They reminded us that targets must be met for the whole school/district/state as well as for each disaggregated group with 30 or more students: special education (IEP), free/reduced lunch, English language learners (ELL), and racial/ethnic.
These are the 2006-2007 results:
Staff from the Office of Learning and Results – Ken Turner, Jo O’Brien, and Jeanette Cornier – presented on the process that CDE will use to review the content standards. This includes both a refining of state standards and assessments and an increased focus on content area support. CDE intends to review the standards prior to reviewing the assessments. Rather than continuing the standards review in the cycle originally determined by the SBE, CDE will encompass all content areas simultaneously and comprehensively. Rather than first reviewing only those content areas assessed, this process will examine and refine all of the Model Content Standards in order to maintain a coherent and inclusive appraisal. To this end, CDE will be (1) hiring an expert third-party group to facilitate a year-long review process, (2) constituting a standards steering committee to define the criteria for the next generation of standards, and (3) hiring nationally recognized standards experts to recommend refinements to our model content standards. The process of revision will include input from statewide constituents in each subject area, grade level, and demographically represented area. This revision will take into account the learnings from previous years’ standards reviews. We will be looking at what level of rigor and relevance are necessary. I asked if we will also be looking at what is realistic and whether people from Colorado will be part of the process. Jo O’Brien said yes. I pointed out that we should have people from beyond each content area advising on the standards, so they will be realistic.
The review will also address the achievement gap. This year, the state has a 30.5% minority-white achievement gap in Reading and 26.7% in Math. The gap between students living in poverty and students not living in poverty is 32.2% in Reading and 27.4% in Math.
CDE is contracting with the Southwest Comprehensive Center at WestEd to lead the standards review and refinement. The intended outcomes are as follows:
CDE is assembling a steering committee as well as comprehensive Colorado stakeholder committees to provide feedback and input to this process. Colorado educators at all grade levels and content areas, professional organizations, university representatives, and technical, trade, and business leaders will be asked to work on this review. The SBE is expecting to consider recommendations to modernize the Colorado Model Content Standards by the end of next year. In the 1993 legislation, the Standards and Assessment Development and Implementation (SADI) Council was created to give the state recommendations to the SBE through the Governor’s office. To our knowledge, the SADI council has not been used in more than nine years. With the advent of HB1118, which calls for a review of the adequacy of the state standards, and the possible re-constitution of SADI, it appears that several reviews of the same standards may possibly commence at the same time. The language of the SADI legislation indicates it is up to the Governor’s discretion to call for the convening of a standards council. Commissioner Jones has sent a letter asking that the Executive Office permit CDE’s year-long, professionally executed, third-party review stand as the state review, considering that it will meet and exceed the membership and duties of what a SADI council would do.
The Standards Steering Committee will report to the SBE in one year as to what changes to the standards they recommend making. Then the assessment frameworks will have to be revisited. By that time we will have to revisit our contract on CSAP with CTB/McGraw Hill, and we will have to put out an RFP for it. By spring of 2011 we should have a new assessment system in place.
Middleton said she attended a presentation by someone from NCES (National Center on Education Statistics) who pointed out that there is a close correlation between CSAP and both NAEP and ACT. O’Brien said it is if we look at Proficient and Advanced only, not Partially Proficient.
Douglas County Superintendent Jim Christensen and Jami Goetz, CDE Director of Educator Licensing, gave an update on the Douglas County Educator Licensing waivers granted by the SBE last spring. Last year at this time, Douglas County had 23 vacancies in Special Education (Special Education Generalists); this year they had only 2, because of the special alternative licensure program they created with the waivers. There are 30 teachers in the waiver program, which they call The Learning Center: 11 in World Languages and 14 in Special Education, as well as 1 or 2 in the following: Science, Math, Technology, Library, and PIR (Professionals in Residence). They reminded us that these are teachers who are already licensed and are getting their endorsement in a new area. The teachers in the program attended a "Bootcamp" (for 7 days, for 8 hours per day, over 2 weeks), one for Special Education and one for other subjects. Then each will have a number of courses they take through the year. They have a group of courses on literacy, to meet the requirements of the Reading Directorate. There is a Teacher Support Team for each teacher, consisting of a mentor, and administrator, someone from the Building Resource Team (teachers who were already in buildings as part of the regular induction program), and someone from the Learning Center. There is an ITP (Individual Teacher Plan) designed for each waiver teacher. The district has collaborations and partnerships with various college/university programs and other people within the district and outside it. There is a governing board for the program. The University of Colorado at Denver is considering allowing the teachers in the program to go directly into its Masters in Education program.
The district believes that the content in the waiver program is richer than it had in its regular Alternative Licensure program. They hope to be a program that other districts can emulate. The program just began this past July, so it is early to determine its success, but the presentation included a testimonial from one of the teachers who is very excited.
One of the lessons learned was they had to figure out how to screen all the applicants for the program. DeHoff said the ITP might be a model that we can be emulated.
Kelly Leid, newly appointed Associate Commissioner for Strategic Partnerships, provided a brief summary of the background he brings and overview of the Colorado Legacy Foundation (CLF) and its organizational start-up, initiatives, and timeline. Leid is a product of Jeffco Public Schools, graduate of Pomona High School. His parents were both educators in Colorado. During the last 3 years he headed a foundation related to a housing development near DIA, which helps with strategic projects with the Aurora School District or wherever his company builds homes. He has been part of a number of public-private partnerships, such as the one for Invesco Field.
The CLF is part of the Commissioner’s Forward Thinking plan. CLF is a new nonpartisan 501c3 non-profit affiliated with CDE; it seeks to build statewide leadership capacity and support for Colorado’s P-12 education system to meet the global demands of today’s rapidly expanding, knowledge-centered economy. Its mission is to accelerate improvements within the P-12 public education delivery system through strategic, statewide public-private partnerships that prepares an increasing number of college-ready students for a sustainable, economically vibrant Colorado. Its vision is to harness the power of Colorado’s greatest resource - its human capital - by maximizing the knowledge of our state’s youngest citizens, making Colorado’s future workforce the most educated in the world. Its objectives are as follows:
The CLF plans to launch a series of initiatives over the next several years to build statewide capacity for transforming Colorado’s public education delivery system in the 21st century:
The CLF will have to hold fundraisers or seek grants for its funding. Some contributions have already been made. The Board of Trustees of the CLF will make decisions about how to do this. (The composition of the Board has not been specifically defined yet, but they envision it consisting of people from the Metro Development Economic Corporation, business leaders from major industries, etc.) There will be an operating agreement with CDE to define the "rules of engagement" for the two organizations. They will have to go through the process with the IRS to get their 501c3. The Foundation for Educational Excellence has offered to act as the fiscal agent for the CLF while they wait for their nonprofit status. Middleton suggested that we might be able to utilize the CLF for other fundraising for CDE projects, modeled after the foundations that school districts use.
Pamela Ice, Director of Online Instruction at CDE, presented a proposed timeline for Emergency and Permanent rules for Online Learning. According to SB 07-215, "On or before January 1, 2008, the State Board, in consultation with the Online Division and the Advisory Board, shall promulgate rules establishing quality standards for online programs administered pursuant to the provisions of this article." Staff at CDE have been meeting with stakeholders and are in the process of developing a schedule of meetings and opportunities for public input. The schedule of meetings will be posted on the CDE website and will be distributed to school districts, authorizers, and online learning providers by the CDE online learning division. Members of the Online Learning Advisory Board (OLAB) were appointed by the Governor on October 23, 2007. CDE is in the process of scheduling meetings of the Advisory Board.
Following is our recommended timeline for online rules:
November – Meet with stakeholders and OLAB to develop standards and draft rules.
December - Draft standards and rules, collect feedback, notice of rulemaking.
January – Adopt Emergency Rules at rulemaking hearing, draft permanent rules with feedback.
February – Adopt Permanent Rules at rulemaking hearing.
March – Permanent Rules published in the Colorado Register.
April - Rules become effective.
We are required to get input from the OLAB on what the rules should consist of. CDE will continue to seek input from stakeholders and OLAB through the entire process. Middleton asked if SBE members would act in a liaison role to OLAB as we do with other boards; Ice said she’d look into it. DeHoff said that CSI has a couple of applications from multi-district online schools and declared a possible conflict of interest.
Schaffer had proposed an amendment at the last SBE meeting to the rules for school finance, to exclude passing time from the definition of "educational process" for the purposes of calculating a student’s scheduled hours. Deputy Commissioner Karen Stroup and Vody Herrmann, Director of School Finance at CDE, addressed us on that topic. Stroup said that passing periods are currently allowed to be included as instructional time. Schaffer asked if it is allowed or in fact just not disallowed. Herrmann said it is allowed. She said that in recent discussions with districts, several have passed resolutions allowing passing periods to count. One reason is that last year’s many snow days caused them to lose some time, and they wanted a buffer. Others have instituted breakfast programs. (Since lunch periods are not allowable to count, it is assumed that breakfast periods are not.) Most are not able to meet the 1080 hours for full funding without counting things besides class time strictly, such as planning periods.
Jim Christensen, Superintendent of Douglas County, and Walt Cooper, Superintendent of Cheyenne Mountain, came to discuss how the issue works in their districts. Cooper said that districts are not doing creative accounting; he said that it’s more an issue of flexibility. He said that if we move away from using instructional time for funding, we get away from the money following the students altogether. He said he isn’t arguing that passing periods are good instructional time, but counting them allows flexibility for things like ACT testing, when freshman and sophomores are not in school. He said it’s not about trying to get to a minimum standard. Christensen said that in high school, students need flexibility for the classes they take, the number of class periods, etc. He suggests a course-based funding system. With some students taking a 5-period day or a 6-period day, and others taking a 7-period day, the funding is available for a number of teachers to teach other courses that students need to take a longer day.
Littleton said we could work on a different way of providing funding while we look at revising the standards. Schaffer said that part of the problem is that districts have many unfunded mandates. Cooper said that the time gained by counting passing time has allowed his district to provide valuable teacher professional development time. He believes that it is an efficient use of dollars, not shifting the chairs on a sinking ship. Berman said that how we should public finance education is a very broad discussion that needs to include the Legislature; in fact, it is mainly in the purview of the Legislature. She thinks that it is worthwhile to consider taking leadership on this issue. I said that we might be "opening a can of worms" that is not worthwhile. I expressed my concern about the same thing Berman mentioned, that we don’t have the power to make major changes in school financing. Schaffer thinks that if we do nothing, there will be no attention paid to the topic. He thinks that is worthwhile even at the point of absurdity. DeHoff said that this whole discussion illustrates the absurdity of the current funding system. He said that districts spend many "wasted" hours trying to figure out how to get to the 1080 hours. Littleton suggested that we do it through a resolution.
SBE’s Legislative Priorities. We worked to try to finalize the document. Changes in wording that were proposed since our legislative meeting during the CASB conference were as follows:
We discussed what to put in about School Finance. DeHoff said that tweaking our statement about local share of school funding is too narrow to address the problems with the issue. Littleton said that maybe we should leave it off our legislative agenda, because this might be the year to talk about it rather than propose legislation. Middleton said that we might want legislation to discuss what could be done, such as the School Finance Interim Committee. DeHoff said the last one didn’t accomplish much, which he thinks is because their task was just to find ways to fix the current system, not make substantive changes to it. Barkis said that nothing prevents us from putting forward a proposal, and there would have to be a committee anyway. When the question was raised about whether to leave something in as a priority, I suggested that we put a general statement about coming up with a solution to school funding. DeHoff suggested: "Move towards a more consistent and coherent funding system for public education." I said that we already have a goal on this and suggested changing it to "Move towards improving the long-term financial stability of education funding." Schaffer asked if it’s possible to ask the JBC for funding to pay for a task force to work on this. Berman said we have a better chance of getting private funding for it. She said that there has been a conversation about our having a dinner with the JBC. Middleton said that we should include the Treasurer’s Office in this discussion too. Stroup said that we shouldn’t overlook mentioning something about the local share of school funding, since it is still a problem. Barkis said it would be helpful to have something on all important topics. DeHoff and I agreed to work on a statement for the local share issue tonight and bring it to the Board for approval tomorrow.
Update on the SAR (School Accountability Report): HB 07-1345 gave the SBE a lot of flexibility on the SAR. There was a meeting in CDE, with sponsors invited, as well as CASE and CASB and some school districts, to go through the bill piece by piece to see how it should be interpreted. It has additional data requirements, for example, combining the SAR as the primary reporting document for NCLB, parents, and "other state requirements" that must be easily understandable to parents. The next meeting is on November 20 to talk about how to implement changes at CDE.
We will try to host a dinner with the JBC on November 13. The Rose Foundation has offered to pay for it.
The SBE will hold its next legislative meeting on November 26. We were going to meet during the December Work Session, but since that meeting is canceled, we will meet before the JBC dinner, if that still happens.
Jami Goetz, from the Educator Licensing Office, and Marty Karlin, from National Educational Systems (NES), which is now the Evaluations System of Pearson, presented regarding the process for setting passing scores for the PLACE test for principals and for the Linguistically Diverse endorsement. NES develops Colorado's state content assessments test for educators, PLACE (Program for Licensing Assessments for Colorado Educators). NES made a recommendation regarding what the passing score should be for each test. NES uses Colorado’s content standards and teacher preparation standards to develop the PLACE. Colorado educators participate in the process for determining the passing scores. Each panel member reviewed each item in their content area. Their judgments are presented to us for a decision.
I introduced the group from the Eligible Facilities Education Task Force – Dr. Skip Barber, Charm Paulmeno, and Representative Peniston – who came to discuss the serious issues facing Eligible Facilities in the state and our work on that issue. I explained that I had been the SBE member assigned to the EFETF in 2002. Peniston said that students in eligible facilities are not being served well under the current structure. Barber explained that an "eligible facility" is the school within a treatment center or psychiatric hospital serving students with significant emotional/behavioral disorders, who might be aggressive or suicidal. The Department of Corrections also places kids to these facilities. All the students are high-risk kids with mental health issues. Many have problems with drugs, sexual abuse, etc. All need increased supervision and cannot function in a regular classroom. Years ago the school districts provided the education for these facilities, and there were only 5 of them. All the kids then were in special education. The extra costs for educating them is paid for out of state funds. There are about 2200 kids in facilities at any given time, which is about 10,000 that cycle through per year. A year ago about 60% were special education students, but it is likely to drop to 50% this year. How Human Services handles the kids have changed. There used to be facilities like Ridge Home and Bethesda Hospital; they are no longer in existence. The average length of stay has dropped from 1.5 years to about 6 months. Day treatment has been added. Most facility schools have one or two teachers. Reductions in funding for residential care is causing greater turnover. The result is that facilities are struggling to cover the costs. Only the most disturbed kids are in facilities now. An example of a student in an eligible facility is a young girl who got into the system because her parents were drug addicts, and she had emotional and behavioral problems. At age 17, she had been in 13 different schools, 12 different placements, and 4 times in psychiatric hospitals. Her "home" district couldn’t pull together a coherent educational history. These kids often fall through the cracks. In the last 20 years, there have been many efforts to reform the system. In 2002, the HB 1246 task force was created, but nothing was done with the results of its report.
The current task force is different from previous ones, in that it didn’t start by addressing the funding issue, but instead looked at what the appropriate structure would be to improve the kids’ education. There are problems with teachers in facility schools – two-thirds turn over each year; 80% are on a TTE or emergency authorization. Facilities pay lower salaries; there is no professional development. Summer programming is an issue, since school funding doesn’t pay for the summer, and Human Services doesn’t pay for summer school. So many teachers work 12 months a year on a 9-month salary. They are not eligible for PERA because the facilities are private. It is hard to pay for special education staffing for special services. There is little in statute addressing them. Another issue is how the teachers can offer all content areas; they are required to be licensed for special education. Students are counted on October 1 and put into a "pot" for funding, which is delivered on a pro-rated basis, based on state average PPOR. SBE approves the excess cost rate for facility students on IEPs. There is no curriculum; the facility schools usually get discarded textbooks. Students are often in several facilities per year. Some school districts did an informal review of the outcomes for students who have been in facilities; they found that very few appear to graduate. Many come from broken families and are lost educationally.
Commissioner Jones said he plans to meet with Dr. Steinberg and the Exceptional Students Leadership Unit to see what can be done. Peniston said she is considering a bill to change the governance of eligible facilities, based on the current task force’s recommendations. Paulmeno said we need to improve funding. Human Services approves the licensing of the facilities. When a district has a facility school within it that has educational orphans, the district is considered the district of residence and the PPOR comes from them. Peniston said they are asking us to direct CDE staff to work with the task force, herself, and Senator Williams to work on this issue. Berman said that she has worked with this for many years on different levels, and she is glad that it is being addressed.
Dawn Taylor Owens, Executive Director of College in Colorado, briefed us on the resources available to students through CollegeInColorado.org. CIC is an initiative of the state to improve students’ consideration of attending college. CIC is done through 4 initiatives. They work collaboratively with all the main educational groups in the state to help get the word out to students in middle and high schools about the importance of going to college. College refers to two-year as well as four-year institutions. Outreach is done to the Latino community especially, since many don’t think college is an option for them financially or have no family history of college attendance. Their spokesperson is Dominique Foxworth of Denver Broncos, who has a passion for life-long education and has taken classes at Harvard; he has been instrumental in breaking down some of the barriers that students have about looking into going to college. They do outreach in schools to train counselors and teachers. Student outreach is done by signing them up on the website. The website has career exploration and career planning, as well as college entry requirements, ACT test preparation, and products to help students plan and pay for college (both scholarships and financial aid). Schools no longer need to pay for access to the planning database. It has webinars for counselors, interview practice, study skills, lesson plans, and understanding financial aid – the FAFSA. It has portals to COF (College Opportunity Fund) and Early Achievers Scholarship. The site has resources for both students and school counselors. Can collect and use data to help counselors. They would like to expand to make available electronic transfers of transcripts and college applications. They would like to help districts customize the products. They are working on lesson plans for career planning.
SBE member Karen Middleton said that she has been working in the area of dropout prevention around the country as part of her paid job. Mississippi has worked on this extensively. We had a presentation at the NASBE conference on it. They had school districts do needs assessments and have technical assistance programs to help. Their program is both dropout prevention and dropout recovery. She recommends that we look at what other states are doing.
Berman said the Dropout Prevention subcommittee of the P-20 Council will have two small recommendations, one relating to data, to look at the factors leading to dropouts and help districts do early identification of students likely to drop out. The other is that they want to look at all the legislation on the books and see if they are even being implemented. Middleton said that there is a lot of research currently existing; see The Silent Epidemic, showing students either didn’t feel challenged or felt that nobody cared about them. We might want to look at setting expectations in Accreditation and creating incentives. Berman said she is glad the committee is going slowly.
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