From: STATESUP
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2004 3:17 PM
To: STATESUP
Subject: Weekly Message from State Superintendent Robert Schiller
6-25-04
Good afternoon,
Suffice to say there is
nothing to report at this time from
Next week, because of the
July 4th weekend, permitting there are items of interest to you, we plan to
send out the weekly message on Thursday.
Last week I asked for your
assistance in the search to fill positions for the next year of financial
oversight transition in East St. Louis District 189. This week I am pleased to
announce that the East St. Louis School Board yesterday accepted our
appointment of interim CEO, Stan L. Mims, Ed. D., who is the
current Superintendent/ Chief Education Officer of Round Lake Area
Schools. He is set to begin July 1st and is already working to hire the
management team. Please see our announcement at: http://www.isbe.net/news/2004/june24_04.htm
Have a good week,
Robert Schiller
State Superintendent
of Education
Today’s message
includes:
Extension of RFPs and Parent/Guardian Survey Deadlines
ISBE has extended the
submission date for applications for two Requests for Proposals (RFPs), the
Parent Mentor Project and the
Also, the timeline for the
collection period of the Parent/Guardian Survey has been extended through
If you have questions about
the RFPs or the Parent/Guardian Survey, contact Deb Kunz at 217/782-5589.
Due Dates for Filing General State Aid Claims
Section 18-12 of the School
Code provides that the General State Aid claim “shall be certified and filed
with the regional superintendent by June 21 for districts with an official
school calendar end date before June 15 or within 2 weeks following the
official school calendar end date for districts with a school year end date of
June 15 or later. The regional
superintendent shall certify and file with the State Superintendent of
Education district State aid claims by July 1 for districts with an official
school calendar end date before June 15 or no later than July 15 for districts
with an official school calendar end date of June 15 or later. Failure to so file by these deadlines
constitutes a forfeiture of the right to receive payment by the State until
such claim is filed and vouchered for payment.”
If there any questions regarding this process or timelines, please
contact Jim Mathes in the Division of Funding and Disbursement Services at jmathes@isbe.net or 217-782-5256.
Missing Enrollment Data Reminder
In an effort to provide AYP
participation calculations based on accurate first-day-of-testing enrollment
data, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is providing an electronic
early data correction window now through
During the data collection
process, the number of students enrolled on the first day of testing should
have been entered for each school with one or more tested grades and then these
enrollment data should have been approved at both the school and district
levels by the district superintendent.
To date, about 80 schools in
about 70 districts have not entered any enrollment data for their schools in
the SchoolHouse system. All district
superintendents have been contacted directly by ISBE Student Assessment staff
regarding this situation. In order for
ISBE to use the data in final AYP participation calculations, separate
approvals are required on SchoolHouse for each school and for the district as a
whole (all schools).
Unless these data are entered
and subsequently approved by the district superintendent, AYP participation
cannot be calculated and the affected school(s) will be considered as not
having made AYP.
If enrollment data have been
entered for a school, but these data have not been approved at both the school
and district levels, the district superintendent should review the instructions
on pages 21 – 23 (HOW TO APPROVE ENROLLMENTS) in the Illinois Data Collection User’s
Guide, which is available on the ISBE Web site at www.isbe.net/assessment
If you still have questions
about the approval process after reviewing the instructions, please contact
Pearson Educational Measurement at 800/627-7990, state code 814.
School Bus Safety
The National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration (NHTSA) has warned school districts of broken or
defective welds in the roofing structure of Carpenter school buses manufactured
at that company’s
The State Board of Education
is responding to a legislative request that asks us to identify the number of
pre-1996 Carpenter school buses still in use by
Please e-mail ISBE at agreen@isbe.net and provide the following:
District name:
Contact name:
Phone number:
Number of affected Carpenter
buses in use:
English Language Proficiency Standards
Administrators and teachers
are invited to learn more about the English Language Proficiency Standards
(ELP). Administrator training is
scheduled for one-day sessions on July 12, 13, or 14, 2004. Initial learning
opportunities for teams of teachers will be offered in September. Teacher
training will be conducted in two-day sessions.
Developed by a consortium of
ten states with input from
Interested educators should
download the registration form and call Hanka Szymborski at 847/803-3112 two
weeks before the event to register for these free workshops. Additional learning opportunities for
administrators and teachers will be offered during the 2004-2005 school year.
Reading Improvement Block Grants Reallocation
On Monday, letters were
mailed to eligible school districts letter notifying them that a reallocation
of $474, 231 in Reading Improvement Block grant dollars is being distributed
per the original formula. All projects
have been extended until August 31.
Schools may use the money
according to grant guidelines. Final
completion reports should include all expenditures for the period of July
1-August 31 from the FY04 grant. Schools
must file their completion reports by September 30.
If you have questions, please
contact Gale Meisner at 217/557-7323.
NCTAF Weekly Digest
In This Issue:
-- Achievement Gap Widens In South Carolina Schools
-- Educators Divided Over Fast-Track Certification
-- 4th-Graders Say Principal Urged MCAS Cheating
-- Nearly 800 PA Teachers Agree To Retirement
-- Editorial: No Child Left Behind A Failure
-- At Least 90 Percent Of New Jersey Teachers Met Federal Standards That They
Be Rated "Highly Qualified"
-- California Says 200 Teachers Helped Kids Cheat On State Exams
http://www.isbe.net/pdf/nctaf.pdf
News Clips
This week’s news clips may be
accessed at http://www.isbe.net/news/2004/newsclips/040625.htm