Change to PSSA Administration Procedures (FOR CERTAIN DESIGNATED SCHOOLS)

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has directed specific modifications to the PSSA Test Administration protocols. The modified protocol states that the individual(s) administering the PSSA test cannot be the student’s primary teacher. Prior to the notice, PDE only “strongly recommended” that the test administrator or proctor be an individual other than the student’s primary teacher. PDE now is requiring that all schools abide by this modified protocol; this is no longer a recommendation.

Schools are asked to revise their test administration plan according to the new directive, which states that the individual(s) administering or proctoring the PSSA test cannot be the student’s primary teacher. The Office of Accountability is interpreting this to mean that students cannot be tested by their teacher of the given subject, e.g. Math sections cannot be administered or proctored by the teacher(s) that provides the student with mathematics instruction. In cases where the primary teacher provides instruction in both Math & Reading, then that teacher cannot be involved in administering or proctoring any component of the test to his/her students.

Collins Writing Program- Old but powerful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppxtMBbvlXM&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1

Special Report: Governor's Budget Proposal More Info

Special Report: Governor's Budget Proposal More Info

Feb. 7, 2012

PSBA Special Report: Gov. Corbett’s 2012-13 State Budget Proposal

Today Gov. Tom Corbett presented a $27.14 billion state spending plan for 2012-13, which is more than $20 million below 2011-12. Overall, the plan eliminates 33 appropriations and reduces 164 additional line items. The budget provides $9.05 billion for K-12 education.

The largest increase in the education budget over last year is allocated to pensions. The budget includes $916 million, an increase of $315.8 million, or 53%, for school employees’ retirement costs.

The biggest change is the creation of a new Student Achievement Education Block Grant (SAEBG) – $6.51 billion that consolidates the former Basic Education Funding, Pupil Transportation, Nonpublic and Charter School Pupil Transportation and School Employees’ Social Security line items into one block grant.

The grant includes:
* Basic Education Funding – $5.35 billion
* Pupil Transportation – $542.3 million (including Intermediate Unit
special education transportation funding)
* Nonpublic and Charter Transportation – $77.7 million
* Social Security – $504.8 million to school districts and $36.8 million for
intermediate units

No funding for the current Accountability Block Grant program is included under the new grant. The ABG is entirely eliminated under the proposed budget, representing a loss of about $94 million to districts. The budget documents note that the new SAEBG “redesigns school district funding to support decision-makers and encourage high-performance and cost-effective management.” Decision-making authority would rest with the local school district administrators and school boards who would have more flexibility to determine where the funds are most needed in their district and how to prioritize spending with available resources. However, the budget documents do not provide more detail as to what additional flexibility could be provided to schools.

The allocation for the 2012-2013 SAEBG includes four components:
* Component A-- An amount equal to the Basic Education Funding allocation for student achievement for the 2010-11 school year (fiscal year 2011-2012).
* Component B-- A proportionate share of $504,775,000 based on the payment on account of social security for the 2011-2012 school year.
* Component C-- A proportionate share of $542,255,000 based on the sum of the following:
1) The payment on account of pupil transportation allocation for the 2010-11 school year and
2) The Commonwealth share of payments made on behalf of the school district to intermediate units for the cost of transportation for the 2011-12 school year.
* Component D-- A proportionate share of $77,664,000 based on the payment on account of transportation of nonpublic school pupils and transportation of charter school pupils for the 2010-11 school year (fiscal year 2011-2012).

Click here for district allocations of the SAEBG.

Other specific education items under the governor’s plan are:

* Special Education – Special education is level funded again at $1.02 billion. Click here for allocations.
* Career and Technical Education – $74.5 million; includes employee Social Security costs.
* Keystone Exams -- $15.4 million for implementation and makes these changes:
* Reduces the number of exams to three – Biology, Literature and Algebra I
* Eliminates the requirement to be considered part of a course grade
* Modifies the project-based assessment
* Delays full implementation by two years until 2017
* Pennsylvania School Report Card – $471,000 million for the development and implementation of a new accountability system to assess public school districts and public schools, including career and technical centers, charter school and cyber charter schools.
* Teacher and Principal Evaluation Tools – $3.7 million for a new rating process which includes measures of practice and multiple measures of student achievement.
* Real-Time Data Collection - $1.7 million in state and federal funds to improve data collection and reporting to move the commonwealth toward a “student-centered system of education financing.”

PSBA will provide a more complete budget analysis and reaction soon on its website and in the School Leader News.


Feb. 9: Join PSBA for web conference on proposed budget
PSBA will be hosting a member call on Thursday, Feb. 9 at noon to discuss the proposed 2012-13 state budget. During the web conference, Assistant Executive Director for Governmental and Member Relations Beth Winters will provide an analysis of the proposed budget and what the impact to public education may be if passed. Registration for the web conference is handled by AccuConference, PSBA’s provider of web conference technology. To register for this complimentary event, visit: https://www.accuconference.com/customer/Registration/index.aspx?pkRegQG=bfe66dae-d6e4-4353-82c8-5c4d0d9c760f.

Great Common Core Resource

http://web.me.com/acaciatc/UACC/ELA.html

Subject: Background Checks of School Employees

Penn*Link
SUBJECT: Background Checks of School Employees

TO: All Local Education Agencies

FROM: Stephen Fisher, Advisor to the Deputy Secretary
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

School Services Office

RE: The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) Reminds School Administrators of Applicability of Changes

to the Background Check Law Under Act 24 and Availability of PDE Form to Report Arrests and Convictions of Offenses.

Date: Sept. 28, 2011

I. Changes to Section 111 of School Code are Effective Sept. 28, 2011.


Act 24 of 2011 (Act 24) contains a number of significant changes to the Pennsylvania Public School Code that are designed to enhance the safety for school children. Among these changes, Act 24 amends Section 111 of the School Code, which provides for background checks for employees of public and private schools, intermediate units (IU) and area vocational-technical schools (AVTS). Section 111 also applies to independent contractors and their employees who have direct contact with children and to student teacher candidates assigned to public and private schools. The changes to Section 111 go into effect Sept. 28, 2011.



II. Changes to Section 111(e) Crimes: Former Five-Year ban on School Employment is Now a Permanent Ban on School Employment.



Act 24 adds several additional crimes to the list of Section 111(e) offenses that disqualify individuals from school employment. The amendment also increases the period of disqualification for employment for Section 111(e) offenses. The wording of the previous version of the law prohibited anyone convicted of a crime listed in Section 111(e) from being hired for a period of five (5) years from the date of conviction. Under the amendments to Act 24, a person convicted of a Section 111(e) crime will be permanently excluded from school employment.



III. New 10-Year, Five-Year and Three-Year Bans on Prospective Employment for Certain Offenses.



Act 24 also amends Section 111 to now prohibit the prospective employment of anyone who has been convicted of any felony of the first, second or third degree not listed in Section 111(e), from school employment for 10 years after the expiration of the sentence. Further, conviction of any first degree misdemeanor will prohibit employment for five (5) years after the completion of the sentence. The law now also states that a second offense of driving under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance, graded as a first degree misdemeanor, will result in a three (3) year prohibition on hiring from the date of the completion of the sentence for the most recent offense.



IV. Availability of a new PDE Form for Employees to Report Section 111(e) Offenses to School Administrators.



The new law includes an important mechanism to help ensure that current school employees, who may not have been subject to a previous background check, are now required to provide assurances that they have not been previously arrested or convicted of a Section 111(e) offense. Accordingly, under Act 24, all current school employees are required to complete and return to their school administrator, or other person responsible for school employment decisions (the school administrator), a form developed by PDE to report prior arrests or convictions for any offense listed in Section 111(e). This form “PDE-6004” is now available on PDE’s website:

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/background_checks_(act_114)/7493



All current school employees of a public or private school, intermediate unit or AVTS must complete “PDE-6004” and return it to the school administrator by Dec. 27, 2011. School administrators are responsible for making sure that all employees complete this form. If an employee refuses to submit the form, Act 24 allows for a school administrator to require that the employee submit to a current background check under Section 111. In addition, school employees will be required to report to the school administrator within 72 hours of any arrest or conviction of an offense listed in Section 111(e) that occurs after Sept. 28, 2011. “PDE -6004” should be used to report these arrests or convictions to the school administrator.



School administrators are advised to notify their employees of the availability of “PDE-6004” as soon as possible, as well as inform their employees as to whom the form must be returned and the applicable deadlines for return of the form.



V. School Administrator Required to Order Background Check Upon Reasonable Belief That an Employee was Arrested or Convicted of a Section 111(e) Offense.



The new law requires that if a School Administrator has a reasonable belief that an employee was arrested or convicted of a Section 111(e) offense and the employee has not notified the School Administrator of such arrest or conviction, the School Administrator must require the school employee to submit to a current Section 111 background check. That background check shall be at the expense of the employing entity.



VI. Other Changes to Section 111 Under Act 24



Act 24 also eliminates the exemptions which had permitted certain persons under 21 in a job training program in which summer or seasonal students are hired by the district, to work at schools for up to 90 days without a background check.



VII. School Districts Required to Report all Crimes Noted on “PDE-6004” to the Professional Standards and Practices Commission (PSPC)



Under Section 2070.9a of the Professional Educator Discipline Act, the superintendent, assistant superintendent, executive director of an IU, chief administrator of an AVTS or career and technology center, administrator of a charter school or their designees will be required to report to PSPC all instances of employees reporting any arrest or conviction noted on “PDE-6004” or which is otherwise known to them as the result of a background check or otherwise. Contact information for the PSPC, as well as mandatory reporting forms, can be found on PDE’s website: http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/professional_standards___practices_commissions/8829



For additional information please contact Denise Wolfgang in PDE’s School Services Office at

717-783-3750 or dwolfgang@pa.gov.

Problem-Solving Cycle and Implementation/Bernhardt Chapter 5

Professional Learning Communities (PLC’s) are not really new to the education world and have proved to be beneficial to achieving their ultimate goal of increased student achievement. When looking at the problem-solving cycle in Bernhardt’s Chapter 5, the establishing of PLC’s, as well as how they conduct business as a group is a crucial step in creating an environment that can function as an effective group.
Bernhardt talks about the importance of forming small groups that encourage everyone to participate. She also explains that for “whole-staff” change, the whole staff has to be involved. The comparison of this structuring to PLC’s can be related to Schmoker’s book Results Now and Easton’s Protocols for PLC’s. I connect the Problem-Solving cycle to PLC’s because to truly move forward and increase student achievement it needs to be a team effort, at the same time eliminating teachers from working in isolation.
In step 2 Bernhardt talks about setting ground rules for acceptable and non-acceptable behavior to create a “safe room” where everyone is heard and everyone listens. This is closely related to the protocols for conduction the PLC meetings.
The problems or issues are identified in step 3 and an overview of the data is examined. In step 4, a closer look at the data is presented, examining multiple measures to prove its validity. This is also referred to as the “brainstorming” step. Next the political realities have to be considered, such as subgroups, as well as the adversaries, like how many students have not performing at grade level over the past three years.
A good resource for the next step is Getting Results, which provides guidelines for developing an Action Plan. Prior to developing the Action Plan it is pertinent to conduct meetings to take a closer look at the data, specifically using the four categories of demographics, student learning, perceptions, and school processes. Next you are ready to analyze the data, especially the intersections of the four circles, mentioned in Chapter 1.
The implementation steps need to be ongoing and constantly evaluated, as noted in step 8, which will provide a clear picture of what needs to be improved upon, which is the next step (step 9).
In conclusion, the problem solving cycle is on-going, relies upon valid and multiple measures of data and is best achieved through a total team effort. Also, as mentioned previously, a good acronym to model is “SMART,” in reference to goals. They need to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Tangible (Timely has also been used) and Realistic.

Bernhardt Chapter 4 (Vision)

As Richard DuFour says, “The vision should be to get every kid over that bar.” That bar continues to be raised as the cut scores for PSSA’s are in the sights of every school district in the Keystone State.
The most important link to vision planning is to start with leadership, both district-wide and building-wide. Bernhardt notes that strong leadership inspires a shared vision and ensures its implementation.” Further, Bernhardt conveys the vision relying on focus acts of improvement.
It is crucial for the values and beliefs to be understood, which defines a sense of purpose. Next the team needs to develop and share the vision. Finally, an action plan is put in motion, based on accurate and valid data. Bernhardt focuses on establishing ground rules while creating a shared vision. Similar to the protocols in Professional Learning Communities (PLC’s), the steps are to first understand that “this is a safe room.” In addition there is no rank in the room and everyone’s opinions and ideas count. Each person gets an opportunity to speak and each person gets the chance to listen. The focus is on the future and the purpose is improvement.
The Result’s Fieldbook, by Mike Schmoker lists not only administrative leadership as a key to creating and fulfilling the vision, but also teacher leadership. The empowerment of teacher leaders is a way of delegating responsibility and creating teamwork, rather than an environment where teachers may feel micromanaged. The bottom line is that teachers are smart and they need feel validated for their talents. A team of five or six can share a vision while a team of one cannot see very far!