a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
Note: The July meeting of the State Board of Education turned out to be a regular one, not a modified "retreat," as Chairwoman Suckla had promised in May when she canceled the June retreat. We will probably have a shortened retreat in August following our regular monthly meeting in Telluride, but the details have not yet been worked out. (We normally hold our August meeting outside of the Denver metro area.)
CONSOLIDATION OF CDE UNITS – When David Smith, director of the Prevention Initiatives unit of CDE, retired at the end of June, he recommended that his unit and the Exceptional Student Services Unit (which handles Special Education and Gifted/Talented Education) report to the same administrator, to eliminate duplication of work and services, which occur mainly in the areas of prevention, literacy, and early childhood. Commissioner Moloney assigned Dr. Ed Steinberg to be the Assistant Commissioner in charge of these units. Sharon Triolo-Moloney will lead Prevention Initiatives, and Terri Connolly will have responsibility for ESSU.
TEACHER PREPARATION – The newly established Reading Directorate is working on creating a specific set of criteria to evaluate the teacher preparation courses in state teacher training colleges to ensure that they incorporate the 5 components of reading and research-based approaches to teaching reading. So far, the RD has approved only two programs that had been given provisional approval at the SBE’s May meeting.
SHARING DATA WITH CCHE – Senate Bill 24 requires the SBE to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with CCHE (Colorado Commission on Higher Education) by September 1, 2006, to adopt a common policy to share student data with qualified researchers and to use the K-12 State-Assigned Student Identifier for students from Colorado high schools who attend Colorado colleges. We have known about this since April when the bill passed, but CDE has not written a draft of the MOU yet, and CCHE has been asking to see it. Commissioner Moloney said that staff is back-logged with work and promised to have a draft for the SBE to approve at our August meeting.
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND – Assistant Commissioner Bill Windler reported on the U.S. Department of Education’s recent communications with us. Regarding the amendments to our plan for implementing NCLB, we have been put into the category of "Approval Pending," which is the 4th lowest of 5 possible designations, because there are issues to be resolved, and we could have up to 15% of our administrative funding withheld if we fail to satisfy them. They will not allow us to use the Lectura (3rd and 4th grade reading test in Spanish) for AYP calculations; state law allows the Lectura to count toward schools’ SAR ratings. The USDE finally sent us a letter on June 27 explaining why we were rejected for the Growth Model Pilot. Their main arguments were that our model doesn’t rely heavily enough on following individual students’ growth and that our proposed individual student growth targets weren’t rigorous enough.
BOARD MEMBERS’ REPORTS – At every meeting, SBE members report on what we have been doing since the last meeting. Because our last meeting was in May, these reports were longer this month. I had a lot to say about the CASE High School and Middle School Summit that I attended in June. You can see my report and others’ on my website, www.hudak.org, under "Meeting Reports."
RESTRUCTURING OF DPS SCHOOLS – Because of the passage of House Bill 1240, the Board was able to avoid requiring Bruce Randolph Middle School and Mitchell Elementary School in Denver to be converted to independent charter schools, as we had to do last year for Cole Middle School; instead, we approved DPS’s plan for restructuring them (the vote was 7:1; Schaffer dissented). These are schools that have had a rating of Unsatisfactory on their SAR (School Accountability Report) for 3 consecutive years.
RENEWAL OF ACCREDITATION CONTRACTS – Gerry Difford from CDE reported that the department is holding discussions with educational stakeholders to determine what changes to propose for the rules for Accreditation. The plan is to make the changes before the end of this year, since next spring all school districts’ Accreditation Contracts come up for renewal. We will consider changing some of the indicators, differentiating between compliance issues and strategies for improving student achievement, and between "input" and "output" issues.
SCHOOLS EXEMPTED FROM THE SARs – State law allows the SBE to exempt schools from receiving SAR ratings if they meet certain criteria. The largest number requesting this exemption are those that say they meet the criteria for having 95% of their students who are "high-risk." I questioned how CDE verifies that the schools requesting the exemption for this reason (such as Colorado Online Academy in the Vilas School District) truly do have students who meet the definition of high-risk. I was told that CDE staff just check the lists the districts submit, which have a count of the number of students who fall into the various eligible categories (such as dropouts, expelled, or having a documented history of drug or alcohol abuse, child abuse, repeated suspensions, or domestic violence), to see if the numbers "look right."
CHARTER SCHOOL WAIVERS – As in previous meetings, I tried valiantly – and failed – to prevent the Board from approving charter school waivers through 2030, 2031, and 2036. (I think 25-30 years is too long for waivers from state laws to be granted; I tried to reduce it to no more than 10 years.) However, I was successful in convincing the Board to deny one charter school the waivers it requested from the laws requiring it to have a school advisory/accountability committee (Pinnacle Charter School, which is moving from Adams County School District 12 to the Charter School Institute).
Cesar Chavez Academy and Dolores Huerta Preparatory High, collectively, raised a challenge to the exclusive chartering authority of Pueblo School District 60, claiming that the district does not have the percentage of students on free and reduced lunch that was the basis for them to be granted the authority. The challengers were unable to prove that the district did not have the correct percentage, so the SBE upheld the district’s exclusive chartering authority on a unanimous vote (DeHoff recused himself from the vote, being the director of the Charter School Institute).
August 1 – Jared Polis and I will be meeting with the school board for the Clear Creek County School District at 5 p.m.
August 9-10 – SBE Work Session and Regular Meeting in Telluride, possibly followed by a Retreat (which may extend to the 11th).
August 29 – (Tentative date) Karen Middleton and I will conduct a Town Hall Meeting in the Arvada City Council Chambers at 7 p.m.
September 13-14 – SBE Work Session and Regular Meeting at CDE.
September 14 – CSAN (Colorado State Accountability Network) training conference for district accountability committees in Pueblo.
September 26 – CSAN training conference for district accountability committees in Lamar.
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