News for Superintendents and Board Members: June 28, 2007
School Improvement Planning Model
The Instructional Support and Special Education departments will be developing a process and set of support services to assist school districts in developing, implementing and monitoring their school improvement efforts. We are looking at ways by which the IU staff can more deeply assist school district staff in collecting data, discovering data patterns, and implementing strategies to improve student academic growth. As a model for support that follows the Getting Results tool is detailed we will be sharing our ideas with your staff and seeking their feedback.
KITS RWAN
The technicians are working with our partners at Verizon and Conterra to bring online our Year 2 schools. I am pleased to distribute to the Year 3 school entities that signed onto the Act 183 e-Fund grant their checks for $10,000 each. They are: Avella Area School District, Chartiers-Houston School District, Peters Township School District, Ringgold School District, and the Mon-Valley Career and Technology Center. These funds are to be used to purchase equipment to establish or enhance video conferencing capabilities. Through the mega-consortium bulk purchasing arrangement last year KITS school districts in IU1 saved $381,000 compared to list prices and $268,000 compared to PEPPM prices.
KITS Mega-Consortium Bulk Purchasing
KITS RWAN School Districts and CTCs looking to expand their technology capabilities can purchase equipment at a discounted price. For example, a 2000 lumen Sanyo XW55 is priced at $583 versus the PEPPM price of $746 a savings of $163 per unit.
Summer Programs
The Summer School Program for high school students in Fayette County began June 25, 2007 at the Educational Campus at Colonial School. We are offering sections of English (9-12th grade), Math (Pre-Algebra, Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry), Science (Biology and Physical Science), and History (World Cultures and American History) and Physical Education. Currently, there are 352 students enrolled in the summer school program.
Also, we are offering an Online Summer School for all of our school districts through the KITS regional wide area network. We have 68 students from 12 IU1 school districts registered for 15 different courses. This is the third summer that we have offered high school credit courses online. We have been using this program as a pilot with the expectation of offering courses during the regular school year. We believe we can help school districts significantly decrease their costs for students who would otherwise enroll in cyber charter schools.
The Summer Correspondence School managed through the Non-Public Schools program started this week as well. There are 207 elementary aged students involved in this six-week program. Students receive weekly work packets to complete in the areas of math and language arts. Once completed, students return the packets and our teachers review the work and provide feedback to students. This highly successful program provides students with the opportunity to maintain their skills during the summer vacation period.
The Extended School Year (ESY) program managed through our Special Education Department began June 26, 2007. The ESY program will serve 349 school aged students with disabilities.
We began the summer schedule of Courses for Teachers last week. We are hosting 69 courses for 723 registrants this summer. Year to date we have had 11,020 registrations in our courses for credit and other workshop activities.
