NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND/ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS

SCSC to Provide Regional AYP/NCLB Services

In December 2006 the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) announced a new initiative to work with Minnesota’s Regional Service Cooperatives to provide local support for Minnesota schools and school districts in their efforts to meet federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements. Under this agreement, the following goals will be met by your regional service cooperative AYP/School Improvement Coordinator Team:

1. Develop a comprehensive system to support Title 1 districts, schools and Charter schools in developing their internal capacity to assist their schools identified as not making AYP.
2. Assist Title 1 districts, schools and charter schools identified as not making AYP in the development of successful long term continuous improvement plans based on research-based best practices, state standards and triangulated data, and that are incompliance with federal requirements as defined in NCLB P.L. 107-110, Section 1116 and Section 1117.

The Service Cooperative regional model will deliver assistance directly to schools and districts to facilitate local efforts to increase capacity and improve student achievement – including the development and implementation of required improvement plans to schools identified as needing improvement. This model includes support at several levels: the school team, the district team, and the Regional Support Team (comprised of representatives from school districts in the region, an AYP/School Improvement Coordinator, and MDE Professional Development and Evaluation Specialists.)

SCSC’s Education & Innovations Director, Wanda Sommers Wall, has assembled a team of experts to assist Districts with their AYP needs. Mary Jenatscheck will lead the team. She was most recently with the Minnesota Department of Education’s School Improvement Division and the Waseca Public School’s as TAP Coordinator and Principal. Mary is joined by Jane Schuck, a former principal of twenty-five years with the Mankato and Lake Crystal School Districts, and Stephen Carlson, an educator with over 30 years of experience in Title 1 and Special Education services in southern Minnesota.

Under NCLB, AYP represents a certain level of student achievement on statewide tests. Every year, the achievement level for making AYP is raised. SCSC School Improvement Coordinators are currently working with four “consequences stage” identified member schools/districts in their improvement planning process this academic year, it is anticipated that the number of schools identified as not meeting AYP and in the consequences stage will double if not triple by the next academic year. Because we know the number of schools in the consequences stage will increase next year, we are working on ways to assist all schools and districts to be proactive in making NCLB Adequate Yearly Progress. Although the grant dollars are targeted exclusively to our four regional districts this grant period, we will be offering specific AYP and school improvement training opportunities to other schools and districts both regionally and state-wide. We will keep you posted on these opportunities!

Detailed NCLB/AYP information has been mailed to every district. If you have any questions, please contact either Mary Jenatscheck: mjenatscheck@mnscsc.org, 507-838-8310; or Wanda Sommers Wall: wkn@frontiernet.net, 507.389.1076.

> Next NCLB/AYP Article: AYP Regional Update