Evie Hudak Colorado State Board of Education

a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District

EVIE’S BOARD NOTES – MAR 2005

Note: I was intermittently absent for this month’s Work Session and Regular Meeting. On Wednesday, I left the meeting a couple of times to testify at the Senate Education Committee meeting on bills of concern to the SBE. I missed some of the charter school appeals and the entire Regular Meeting on Thursday because I flew to Washington DC to participate in the Legislative Conference of NASBE (National Association of State Boards of Education). I serve on NASBE’s Governmental Affairs Committee. I was able to participate in a couple of charter school appeal hearings via teleconference.

SBE Work Session (Wednesday, March 9, 2005)

ACCREDITATION – The staff at CDE met with the Harrison School District and reached an agreement with them on specific plans to move them towards getting back to full Accreditation status. The plan calls for an Audit Team consisting of people from Harrison, CDE, and some nearby districts that have had success in closing achievement gaps (Pueblo 60 and Fountain/Fort Carson). The CDE Accreditation Unit will be working collaboratively with the CDE Title I Unit to help maximize resources for the district.
LETTER TO THE EDUCATION COMMITTEES – In order to clarify some possible misunderstandings resulting from a presentation made by Academy School District 20 from Colorado Springs to the Joint House and Senate Education Committees on March 2, the SBE decided to send a letter to the Education Committees. Academy 20’s presentation was primarily to explain why they decided not to have their students take the NAEP exam (National Assessment of Education Progress) and thus opt out of No Child Left Behind (NAEP participation is a requirement of NCLB). What was of greatest concern to the SBE was their assertion that we have "no plans to review the [state’s content] standards." Also, they presented a report rating Colorado’s content standards as a C or D. The SBE’s letter explains that we have a plan and process for reviewing all the content standards and are currently in the midst of reviewing the Math standards. We referred to several other national evaluations of Colorado’s content standards that rated them very high.

SBE Regular Meeting (Thursday, March 10, 2005)

SBE’S STRATEGIC PLAN – We finalized our Goals and Objectives for the next two years. The key changes we made from the previous Strategic Plan are as follows: absorbed the goal for public engagement into all the other goals; strengthened the role we wish to play in impacting state and federal legislation; added a goal to "encourage the integration and collaboration of the delivery of educational services"; added protection of library funding to our concerns for long-term stability of educational funding; added "support for professional development" to our goal of improving educator quality; and added "implementation of accountability measures for all school choice models."

Charter School Appeals (Wednesday, March 9, and Thursday, March 10):

In the case of the Centennial Charter School’s appeal of the denial of their application by Centennial School District, the SBE voted 6 to 0 to uphold the district’s denial of the application (DeHoff was absent on recusal, and I was absent, on route to the airport).
In the case of the Mountain Peaks Montessori Charter School’s appeal of the second denial of their application by the Jefferson County School District, the SBE again remanded the charter school to the district, on a vote of 4 to 2 (Middleton and Munn dissented, DeHoff was absent on recusal, and I was considered absent due to technical difficulties with the teleconferencing equipment).
In the case of the New Vision Charter School’s appeal of the denial of their application by Thompson School District, the SBE voted 7 to 0 to remand the charter school to the district (I was absent).
In the case of the Zenith Academy of Sciences, Arts and Mathematics Charter School’s appeal of the denial of their application by Boulder Valley School District, the SBE voted 4 to 2 to uphold the district’s denial of the application (Polis and Littleton dissented, Munn was absent, and DeHoff was absent on recusal; I participated via teleconference).
In the case of the Teddy Roosevelt Academy Charter School’s appeal of the second denial of their application by the Jefferson County School District, the SBE voted 5 to 2 to uphold the district’s denial of the application (Littleton and Orr dissented, and DeHoff was absent on recusal; I participated via teleconference).

UPCOMING EVENTS

April 14, 10:00 a.m. – Hearing on challenge by Colorado League of Charter Schools to the exclusive chartering authority of the Aurora School District.
April 14, 11:00 a.m. – Hearing on challenge by Jefferson County Parents for School Choice to the exclusive chartering authority of the Jefferson County School District.