a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
– Staff from the Douglas County School District came to speak to us about the waivers from state laws and rules they are requesting in order to create their own program for teacher licensure. Their request also includes waivers from laws on teacher employment rights and dismissal procedures. Consideration for approval of the waivers was added to the SBE’s Regular Meeting agenda just two days before the meeting. Douglas County staff told us that the state’s programs for Alternative Licensure – which Douglas County is already able to provide – require too many courses for teacher preparation and are too restrictive as to which endorsements are allowed (for example, the state doesn’t offer an endorsement in Mandarin Chinese). They also said that state law makes firing bad teachers too difficult, and since the district would be hiring people with "fewer skills" than regular teachers, the ability to fire them immediately would be needed. The district’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers supports the proposal for the waivers and would be involved in delivering the proposed alternative teacher preparation program.
– We received the final report of the Governor’s Education Alignment Council. Pam Suckla, our Chair, who was on the Council, complained that it didn’t have the agreed-upon "disclaimer" indicating that members of the Council were not in full agreement on all the recommendations. She also said that the Council did not consist of all the proper stakeholders. The report recommends that we have statewide graduation requirements, a high school exit test, more specific content standards delineated for each grade in high school, and changes in the CSAP so that it can be graded more quickly. We decided to convene our own discussions about high school reform with the proper stakeholders, including school board members, superintendents, and experts from
– Focus groups are being conducted to give more input on the Science standards. Feedback from the focus groups will be posted on the CDE website after each session, and it will be open to public comment in November. The SBE will consider CDE recommendations in December. Besides adding the concepts of forces and motion to Physical Science, CDE is looking to reduce the Earth Science benchmarks from 50 to 41, and Life Science from 54 to 44. (A "benchmark" is a detailed description of the knowledge and skills students should acquire within each grade level range.) Jo O’Brien, Assistant Commissioner for Learning and Results, adamantly insists that the following are rumors and not true: that we are totally revising the Science standards, will replace evolution with Intelligent Design, have eliminated two of the Science standards, and will bury the assessment frameworks.
– We discussed whether to approve the waivers that the Douglas County School District asked us to grant them. Polis said he has questions about how it would affect the district’s ability to comply with the Highly Qualified Teacher requirement of NCLB, why the proposal didn’t "flow through" the licensure unit at CDE, and how extensive the workload increase would be for CDE if other districts are granted the same waivers. The CDE staff that would have been able to answer these questions were all out of town or out of the country. Moloney said that we have the capacity to make adjustments in our NCLB plan if we find out later that this is improper. I asked a staff person from the licensure unit who was present at the meeting if Douglas County can already do the things they are asking for without the waivers. She said yes, except for special education and principal licensure. Munn made a motion to delay the vote on the issue until next month, because we had just gotten much of the information about the waivers in the last couple of days. That motion died on a tie (the Democrats voted in favor and the Republicans voted against). However, the discussion on this topic was interrupted by the hearing on the ECEA rules, and when we got back to it – at 12:25 p.m. – we reconsidered the motion to postpone the approval and it passed unanimously. Nevertheless, DeHoff told Douglas County to proceed with their procedures for implementation because he is sure the waivers will pass next month.
– We conducted a hearing on proposed changes to the rules for the Exceptional Children’s Education Act that are required by Senate Bill 06-118 and House Bill 06-1375. People from the Rocky Mountain Deaf School, a charter school in Jefferson County, came to oppose the changes in the payment of excess costs for out-of-district students, which they feel would prohibit them from using some of their funds to pay for their building, so they would have to close the school. People from the State Advisory Committee for Gifted and Talented Education came to support the changes in the rules for GT, but people from the Boulder Valley School District said they oppose some of the changes because gifted education would become mandatory, and the requirement for gifted students to have an Advanced Learning Plan would increase administrative costs.
– CDE staff explained to us what the expectations are for school districts in regard to safety. Accreditation Indicator H requires districts to have a discipline code, a bully-proofing plan, a threat assessment plan, and an emergency crisis plan. The CDE Regional Managers find that most districts have very detailed safety plans.
October 18 – CSAN (Colorado State Accountability Network) and I will be doing a training for district accountability committees near Trinidad, in the Primero School District.
October 21 – I will be doing a workshop at the Region VIII Head Start Conference in Colorado Springs about how the State Board of Education is involved in early childhood; also, I will be doing one on the PTA’s Standards for Parent/Family Involvement and how they relate to early childhood.
October 25 – Jared Polis and I will be meeting with the Summit County School Board at 6 p.m.
November 6 – CSAN and I will be doing a training for district accountability committees in Buena Vista.
November 8 – SBE Work Session, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at CDE.
November 9 – SBE Regular Meeting, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at CDE.
November 13 – CSAN and I will be doing a training for district accountability committees in Burlington.
November 16 – I will be speaking at a forum sponsored by the MetroNorth Chamber of Commerce about school finance and the role of the Department of Education.
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