This week, members of ISBE staff and I completed a very
successful series of six regional conferences with superintendents. It is
continually gratifying and energizing to meet with so many of you and hear what
is on your minds. I hope those of you who have been able to attend have left
with more information and a better understanding of the agency’s NCLB activities
and updates.
Also, I’d like to bring your attention to several
important items covered at the recent Board meeting and thank the
representatives from three school districts for accepting our invitation to
attend and provide district financial status and background for our Board. Please visit our Board webpage for
documents related to the recent board meeting http://isbe.net/board/Default.htm
This week’s message
contains:
·
Update on Federal
Relations/NCLB
·
Update on General State
Aid and Hold Harmless
·
Impact of the 2004
Budget and Budget Implementation (Education) Act on Gifted
Education
·
Driver Education Cost
Claim Due
·
Changes to Driver
Education Blue Slips
·
·
RFP for Mathematics and
Science Partnerships
·
Annual Financial Report
Calculation of Profile Score and Designation
·
·
Announcing ‘Wild About
School Meals’ Workshop
·
Newsclips
Update
on NCLB/Assessment
As requested by USDE, ISBE staff and I met recently with
a team of individuals regarding Teacher Quality issues. The team was composed of 3 USDE staff
and 2 external persons from the field of education. They were interested in understanding
the Board's policy of
The Assessment and Accountability Task Force met on
September 16th. Members heard status reports on various issues (e.g., RFSP for
revised assessments; IAA and IMAGE exams; status of schools for 2003-04). They discussed several of these in
detail, particularly alternate assessment.
A subcommittee was established to discuss school and district rewards,
which will report back to the full task force.
The Appeals Advisory Committee, created by Public Act
93-470 (SB 878 of 2003) to give districts an opportunity to appeal their
placement on state academic warning lists, held its organizational meeting on
September 16th. Several of its
appointed members serve on the Assessment and Accountability Task Force so these
meetings were held back-to-back.
There are 2 teachers – Ava Evbuoma, Flossmoor and Trudy Grishom,
Waukegan; 2 superintendents – Charlie Kent, Jr., Country Club Hills and Robert
Nielsen, Bloomington; 1 principal – Becky McCabe, Urbana; 1 parent – Gretchen
McDowell, Chicago; 1 business representative – Norman Jones, Bloomington; 1
Chicago representative – Phil Hansen and 1 member of the general public (a
school board member) – Ron Gray.
All have been appointed by the Superintendent to serve. They drew straws for terms of office (4
for 3 year terms and 5 for 2 year terms) and selected a chairperson. Three appeals have been received to
date, and will be heard at the upcoming meeting of the Committee on October
9th.
Update On General
State Aid and Hold Harmless
The State Board has not yet received
final certified EAV data from the Illinois Department of Revenue for Cook and
Once final certified data is received,
the State Board will also calculate the GSA amount due each school
district. In the mean time,
payments are being made at 100% of the statutory $4,810 foundation level
pursuant to the formula even though the FY04 GSA appropriation appears to be
insufficient to pay this amount.
Public Act 93-21 provides that any GSA shortfall is to be reduced first
from the poverty component.
The
Impact of the FY2004 Budget and Budget Implementation (Education) Act on Gifted
Education
There have been dramatic changes in the
financial and statutory provisions for gifted education in
Financial
Provisions
The State Board of Education supported
funding for the Gifted Education Reimbursement Program in its FY04 funding
proposal. The funding proposal was
approved by the Board in 2002-03 and then shared with the General Assembly and
Governor Blagojevich.
In Governor Blagojevich’s Budget Address
of April 2003, he proposed to roll some categorical grant funds, including
gifted education funds, into the overall line item to increase General State Aid
funding to schools. As a result,
there was no funding proposed for the Gifted Education Reimbursement Program in
the initial legislative appropriation bill for
2003-04.
Prior to the finalization of the budget,
no legislative amendments were made to reinstate gifted education funds into the
program. Hence,
no funds for the Gifted Education Reimbursement Program were included in the
final budget for 2003-04.
Other changes were made in the final budget amendments that affected the
gifted education program provisions in law at the state
level.
Statutory
Provisions
Since the mid 1990’s, Chicago has received
funds in a general education block grant and an educational services block
grant, in lieu of receiving separate State funding for each program. The Gifted Education Program was
included in the statutory description of the programs to be addressed with block
grant funds. In the FY2004 Budget
Implementation (Education) Act, an amendment to Senate Bill 744 of 2003, the
reference to “gifted
education” was removed from the block grant
description.
The School Code also required the State
Board of Education to analyze the current and anticipated problems and
deficiencies in education, and design and prepare a Comprehensive Educational
Plan to improve the situation. A
list of areas to be considered while formulating this Comprehensive Educational
Plan for elementary and secondary education was presented. "Gifted" was
removed from this list of programs to be
considered.
The FY2004 Budget Implementation
(Education) Act also affected the way that schools could use funds from summer
school grants from the State Board of Education. References in the School Code to "gifted and talented
children" were removed from Summer School Grants (Sec. 2-3.61) and
from services provided by Regional Service Centers (Sec. 2-3.62). These services had included experimental
projects for students and gifted education institutes for
teachers.
Article 14A of the Illinois School Code
set parameters for the gifted student program. It provided the authority for the State
Board to administer the gifted program, to establish standards for personnel in
gifted programs, and to “provide that, to the
extent possible, with the resources available, all gifted and talented children
have an opportunity to receive services and participate in appropriate
programs.” Article 14A
also provided for the creation of the Gifted Advisory Council and enumerated the
responsibilities of the council. The
FY2004 Budget Implementation (Education) Act terminated the gifted mandated
activities in the School Code by repealing Article
14A.
Summary
Now that Article 14A of the Illinois
School Code has been repealed, school districts are no longer mandated to
provide certain gifted student activities as they once were. However, in the era of attending to the
needs of all students and "leaving no child behind," it is imperative that
school districts address the needs of their gifted student population.
Assistance from
the gifted community and its supporters for school districts in meeting the
needs of their gifted students is more crucial now than ever
before.
If you have
further questions, feel free to contact Dr. Wendell Meeks, Curriculum and
Instruction Division, at 217/557-7323.
Comments or concerns about the statutory or financial status of gifted
education may be directed to your state representative or
senator.
Driver Education Cost Claim Due
October 1
Claims for costs
associated with Driver Education courses offered by school districts are
statutorily due on October 1. Paper claims will not be sent this year
as claims will be required to be filed electronically through ISBE Web
Application Security System (IWAS) at https://isbe.net/iwas located on the
ISBE homepage. The Driver Education
claim (ISBE 54-30) will only be available for transmission until
Changes to Driver Education Blue Slip
Procedure Begin Monday
The Illinois State
Board of Education (ISBE) in cooperation with the Illinois Secretary of State
(ISOS) has developed a new electronic process that will eliminate the need for
printing 127,000 yearly Driver Education Blue Slips for students who have
completed classroom and behind-the-wheel training. Beginning
In addition, school
districts will be able to submit driver education instructors for approval via
the Driver Education – Driver Instructor Eligibility system which can also be
accessed via IWAS. Districts can
submit driver education instructor information which will be cross-checked with
ISOS for serious driver violations such as a suspension, revocation or a
restricted driving permit. This
system was developed to be in compliance with 23 Illinois Administrative Code
Part 252 Driver Education Section 252.40 “Driver Education Teacher
Requirements.” The full text of the
Driver Education rules can be accessed at http://www.isbe.net/rules/archive/pdfs/252ark.pdf.
ISBE staff will notify the appropriate district
superintendent via email if there is a suspension, revocation or restricted
driving permit as indicated from ISOS.
ISBE staff may disapprove an instructor for submitting classroom or
behind-the-wheel data to ISBE if notified by ISOS of such
violations.
Questions about
these new procedures can be directed to Janet Ovall, Division of Funding and
Disbursement Services at 217-782-5256 or via email at jovall@isbe.net.
Electronic applications are now available on the State
Board website for proposals to deliver “X-type” CPDUs and Induction and
Mentoring programs that will help beginning teachers establish eligibility for
the Standard Certificate. The
electronic applications for self-assessment and NBPTS-related coursework are
likely to be available by October 6.
The proposals will be evaluated on their completeness
and their consistency with the requirements, most of which are built into the
electronic applications. However,
we urge you to review the rules and the information on the State Board website
prior to developing your proposals.
In the near future, we will provide examples of each
type of proposal, using actual submissions from districts, ROEs, higher
education institutions, unions and others. Our initial goal will be to illustrate
the kinds of programs and activities that have been submitted and approved. However, we also hope that these
examples might become replicable models.
We are very much aware that, at this time, there are
very limited ways for beginning teachers to meet the requirements for the
Standard Certificate. We also
recognize that between budget cuts and ever-increasing demands on your time,
this is not a good time for thoughtful development of new initiatives. We are working on these problems on two
fronts:
We do have ideas for both challenges and we will get
back to you within a couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, please inform your beginning teachers that this effort is in
progress and ask for their patience.
Professional Development Provider
Status
The Professional Development Provider system which you
have been using for teacher certificate renewal proposals has been modified to
accommodate the new programs and activities for moving from Initial to Standard
certification. Our transition to
the new system has had the following results: viewer access to previously
approved certificate renewal programs is temporarily unavailable and we have a
small backlog of notices waiting for response. If you have a concern that relates to
these problems, please let us know via email -- certrenewal@isbe.net.
The new system includes a renewal option for provider
approval. This is aligned to the
year of expiration of the previous approval and will be displayed only to
the providers whose approvals are due for renewal. If your approval expires in 2003 (all
providers whose approval expired in June 2003 were previously granted an
extension until October 1), you must affirmatively indicate your desire to
continue to serve in this role. If
you have not already done so, please immediately go to the PDP system and click
on “Renew/Update Approved Provider Status” link (after you log in). The critical date for this cycle is
RFP
for Mathematics and Science Partnerships
ISBE is proud to announce the release of a
new request for proposals (RFP) for professional development opportunities for
K-12 mathematics and science teachers.
The Illinois Mathematics and Science Partnerships program is authorized
through NCLB, Title II, Part B and approximately $3,200,000 will be awarded to
A comprehensive needs assessment is
required by the legislation. ISBE
is organizing an on-line needs assessment for K-12 teachers (http://www.isbe.net/teachers.htm). Please encourage staff and colleagues to
participate in this valuable process between September 26 and October 31. It is estimated that the survey can be
completed within ten minutes.
Anonymity is assured; participants will only need to identify teaching
assignment and county. Prospective
partnerships need to be able to access this vital information in order to
respond more effectively to the professional development needs of our K-12
teachers of mathematics and science.
Please contact Gwen Pollock, gpollock@isbe.net or 217/557-7323 for further
information.
Annual
Financial Report Calculation of Profile Score and
Designation
The purpose of this notice is to alert you to a couple
of errors found in the “Estimated Financial Profile Sheet” (FPDPG2a) of the FY03
Annual Financial Report (AFR).
These errors do not affect your AFR data. This sheet was included as a tool for
districts to calculate a preliminary FY04 Financial Profile Score. The errors have to do with how some of
the calculations round the data and the assignment of the “Warning” and “Watch”
designations. A new sheet should be
available on our website within the week at http://www.isbe.net/sfms/afr03/afr.htm. We apologize for any problems this may
have caused.
We are in the process of reviewing the Financial Profile
System to determine if any adjustments are needed for system improvement. It is possible that the calculation of
the final FY04 score (and FY03 score) could change based upon the system
review. A message will be sent
through the Superintendent’s Bulletin to alert you of the final decisions
regarding changes to the calculation of the Financial Profile Score. If you have further questions regarding
your AFR, please contact Debbie Hemberger at 217/785-8779 or if you have
questions regarding the Profile, contact Sally Cray also at
217/782-8779.
ISBE staff presented at the Executive Board meeting and
quarterly conference for the Illinois Alliance for Administrators in Special
Education (IAASE) in
ISBE staff including Chris Koch, James Gunnell, Gail
Lieberman, Tim Imler and Peter Leonis met with representatives of IAASE to
discuss and strategize approaches to special education funding reimbursement
following the amendatory veto. Pros
and cons of various strategies were discussed. The amendatory veto will result in HB
1180 sunsetting in one year's time essentially making the bill's implementation
more trouble than it is worth. The
bill was designed to simplify the reimbursement process and was alleged to
significantly reduce paperwork.
Chris Koch led the Illinois Team to the National
Leadership Summit on Improving Results for Youth in
Participants prioritized transition objectives of the
Interagency Coordinating Council and
Announcing ‘Wild About School Meals’
Workshops
We invite you to explore the world of school meals with
speakers from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), Nutrition Programs
and Support Services; Illinois Nutrition Education and Training Program; the
Illinois Department of Public Health; the St. Louis District Dairy Council and
the Midwest Dairy Council this October at the Wild About School Lunch
workshops.
The purpose of the workshops is to provide an update to
participants on the changes for the new school year and review the National
School Lunch and School Breakfast Program regulations. These workshops are geared for business
managers, food service directors,
managers, or persons responsible for the administration of the food
and nutrition services in schools.
Workshops will be held at the following 6 locations
across the state:
Pre-registration is required. Please register no later than five days prior to
workshop date. A
brochure with more information is available at ../pdf/wild_brochure.pdf
Newsclips
http://www.isbe.net/news/2003/newsclips/092603.htm.
Robert Schiller
State Superintendent
of Education
statesup@isbe.net