From: STATE SUPERINTENDENT
Sent: Friday, September 27,
2002 6:03 PM
To: 'District
Superintendents, ROEs, Directors of Special Education'
Subject: Weekly Message from
State Superintendent Robert Schiller
9/27/02
Good afternoon. I have three items to call to your attention
this week in addition to an update on the new Assessment and Accountability
Task Force and on our ISBE vacancy list.
You may recall the list of
open positions on the ISBE staff that I shared with you two weeks ago (9/13
Weekly Message). We have finalized the
list and necessary preparations and the ISBE vacancy list will be
available Tuesday, October 1, at http://www.isbe.net/Resources.html, or just
click on the “ISBE Resources” button on the bottom left side of our home page, www.isbe.net.
Assessment and
Accountability Task Force. The group met for the first time on Monday, September
23. Bloomington District 87
Superintendent Bob Nielsen and I co-chaired the session, which included a
discussion of organizational and logistical issues for the Task Force and an
extensive briefing on components of No Child Left Behind. That evening we conducted the first of three
public hearings to collect comments and suggestions from local educators,
parents and citizens.
The second public hearing
was in Wheaton on Tuesday evening, and the third of three hearings in this
“early-bird” round is October 1 in Mt. Vernon at the K-3 Primary Center, 401 North 30th Street. There will be other formal and informal
opportunities to provide input to the Task Force as deliberations move forward.
The Task Force will meet twice
in October – on Tuesday the 8th in Springfield and Wednesday the 23rd
in Bloomington. On October 8 the agenda
will include an exploration of how the state tests are aligned and how the
results link to teaching and learning, as well as a review of data and an
initial dialogue regarding some aspects of Adequate Yearly Progress.
For October 23 in Bloomington
(location TBA), the tentative agenda focuses primarily on assessing students
with disabilities and the Illinois Alternate Assessment.
The schedule beyond October
is
o November
6, Springfield, State Board Office
o November 18,
Springfield, State Board Office
o December 10, Oak Brook,
TBA
***************
In today’s message:
§ 21st
Century RFP available
§ State
Board to conduct meeting, budget hearing in Collinsville
§ E-mail
reminder for superintendents, principals, board presidents
21st
Century RFP available
The FY 2003 RFT for the 21st
Century Community Learning Centers grant has been released. Through this competitive grant, about $11.8
million is available to fund academically-focused after-school programs for
schools with high concentrations of low-income students (not less than 40%
of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch).
A competitive priority will
be given to applicants that propose to serve students from poverty who attend
schools that need improvement, and that submit a joint application
between at least one organization.
More information is
available at www.isbe.net/21cclc/default.htm
or 217/782-4321. The deadline for
submitting the applications is 5 p.m. on November 21, 2002.
****************
State
Board to conduct meeting, budget hearing in Collinsville
The State Board of
Education will leave its Springfield and Chicago locations behind on October
16-17 to conduct its monthly meeting in Collinsville at the Holiday Inn, 1
Gateway Drive. At the conclusion of the
meeting on Thursday, ISBE will conduct a public hearing from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
to gather ideas from local educators and citizens about possible budget
priorities for FY 04. The comments will
be used by the Board in their deliberations on an FY 04 education budget
proposal to submit to the Governor and General Assembly in January.
The meeting agenda and
schedule will be available late in the week of October 7.
**************
E-mail
reminder for superintendents, principals, board presidents
Within the next week, you
will be receiving a letter from Wade Nelson, the ISBE Director of Public
Information, urging you to regularly check your email for messages from
ISBE. To serve you, building principals
and ROEs more effectively, we are most often using e-mail to get you
information you need in a timely fashion, or to get information from you that
will help us in making policy and budgetary decision.
If there are principals, or
even fellow superintendents and special education directors who are not regular
email users, please let them know that 1) we need their email address if we do
not have it – they should send it toschoolhouse@isbe.net,
and b) they or a staff member need to check for ISBE messages on a regular
basis. Also, changes to your email
address can be sent to the schoolhouse address.
Local board member
addresses needed. We also want to develop a more efficient and
effective way to get information to and from local board members. If your board members have e-mail addresses
and are willing, please send their names and e-mail addresses to schoolhouse@isbe.net. If they do not use e-mail, we would
appreciate simply getting their name and street address at the schoolhouse
site.
Robert Schiller
State Superintendent
of Education
statesup@isbe.net