News for Superintendents and Board Members: October 25, 2007
Benedum Grant
Based upon the success of the Keys2Work implementation in Washington, Fayette and Greene county school districts, IU1 sought and has been awarded funding from the Benedum Foundation to implement two companion programs: MyCareerJourney and PA e-Mentoring. The grant will allow IU1 staff to
- Provide career development and exploration programs to middle school students, reaching a younger and broader audience beyond the high school level
- Provide high school students with career mentoring to assist in guiding them in post-secondary decisions
- Encourage local employers to become actively involved in career development programming offered to regional students
- Provide local businesses an opportunity to engage in sponsorship/marketing opportunities to sustain the program regionally. This 2-year grant has been funded for $97,000 in each year
Common Cents Initiative
At the PAIU monthly meeting with the Secretary of Education and his staff, the IU Executive Directors reported to John Troxel, Deputy Secretary for Administration, that superintendents and board members lacked enthusiasm for the initiative. We lobbied to have changes made to the program guidelines with some success. Apparently, the Governor's office rejected our suggestion to eliminate the requirement for a public meeting and web posting for the initial results of the study. However, PDE did make the following modifications to the guidelines based upon our feedback:
- The application due date to PDE has been extended to November 15, 2007. It was originally set for November 1, 2007.
- PDE is asking all IU Executive Directors to submit an application to PDE identifying only those school districts who want to participate in the Common Cents Shared Service Program even if that number does not constitute the majority of school districts within the IU region. The participating school districts must still submit an approved school board resolution authorizing participation in the program.
All other program requirements remain as originally stated.
