Aug. 19, 2008
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Highlights from EMIS Workshop
There are several EMIS reporting changes for the 2008-2009 school year. These changes are designed to reduce the duplicate reporting of data, to report “what is” rather than what best fits, and to prepare for the full implementation of the EMIS redesign to take place in FY10. These changes will allow for better reporting of students that transfer between schools and districts, and for enhanced longitudinal analyses of student educational histories at the state level.
- Student demographic and attendance data moves to “transactional” reporting – static information that doesn’t change (students gender, race, etc.) doesn’t need to be re-reported each period, but changes in Student Attributes and Status - grade level, special education, how arrived to your school and reason for exit, etc. will now be reported via effective start and end dates
- There are fewer Teacher Position Codes, responsibilities will be defined by Assignment Area
- Teacher data will be cross-checked against completed background checks on file at ODE
- All reported Employees, including classified staff, will have a State ID
- Special Education event deadlines do not reset when transferring in from another district
- Special Ed Weighted funding will be derived from Yearend, October and February reporting of event dates and outcomes
- A new Immigrant flag based on “born outside of the US and not attending for the past three years” is added
- A grade level or state equivalent grade level must be reported for all students (for testing accountability purposes)
- A new Graduation Reporting Period is added to capture summer graduates
- Missing Test Records resulting in no ADM will be calculated for FY09 and enforced in FY10. If a student doesn’t have a test record, be sure to indicate the reason the test was not taken.
- Make sure your EMIS Coordinator is identified in OEDS-R!
- Make sure you are included on the EMIS Coordinator distribution list at your ITC to assure communications
- Please check the ODE website for the EMIS Processing schedule for FY09.
- Know that missing the data submission requirement dates and not addressing data quality can affect funding!
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Be seen going green!
Growkids is an eco-conscious fundraising company that is dedicated to promoting earth-friendly products that students, parents, teachers and the community can be proud to support. With their efforts, children are learning to be responsible sellers and consumers while raising money for a worthy cause - their school.
Organic kitchen towels, 100% natural fruit and veggie wash, 100% post consumer recycled paper and salt rock candle holders are just a few items that are offered for your students to sell. 50% of all purchases go directly to your school, and Growkids will dedicate and plant a tree for every sales participant. Like most fundraising, the more you sell the more you earn - and your students will enjoy the solar dough, earth ball or crazy crayon that they would earn.
Growkids is hosting a 2008 National Video Contest for all K-12 students of any school or organization that has partnered with Growkids in 2008.
Topics - entries should choose one of the following:
- Five ways to save the earth.
- How is Growkids different from other fundraisers you have participated in?
- Show how you are 'going green' through Growkids products.
Entries must be received by Growkids by midnight, Monday, Nov. 3, 2008 and must include:
- Maximum duration of 60 seconds (or less) and consist of student work only.
- Full quality/full frame QuickTime/MOV, WMV, MPEG, AVI or DVD format video delivered on CD or DVD.
- Label with teacher/parent contact name, school name, organization/student and topic title.
- Completed and signed entry form.
Submissions are grouped by grade: K-5, 6-8 and 9-12. Entries compete only at their grade level. Winners will be posted on the Growkids "Be Seen Going Green" National video broadcast and posted on the Web sites of other earth-friendly organizations. Entries will be evaluated on creativity, topic portrayal and overall presentation.
Good Luck!
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Contact Us
Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools
33 N. Third Street,
Suite 600
Office: (614) 744-2266
Fax: (614) 744-2255
www.oapcs.org
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OAPCS Annual Conference - Registration is open and Nominations are needed
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Understanding Your Local Report Card
Local Report Cards will be published August 26th, and are sure to bring much analysis and debate regarding the performance of Ohio’s charter schools. Charter schools seek to change the way students are educated and are expressly accountable to demonstrate student learning. In the context of Governor Strickland’s Conversations on Education forums, and his promise to reinvent education and education funding in Ohio, it is imperative for the charter school community to understand the complex matrices that comprise the Local Report Cards.
This document has been designed to assist the charter school community in understanding the four performance measures contained within the Local Report Cards, and how school designations are derived from those measures. The Value-Added metric, new this year, measures the growth in student learning over time, and is considered to be a powerful indicator of a school’s impact on student performance. This year, the Value-Added effect can increase a school’s designation, and next year, it can lower a school’s designation.
We hope that this document can assist with accountability discussions amongst school leaders, teachers, parents, sponsors, board members, and community members.
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...of Performance Assessments for Ohio
The Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio State University Research Foundation, Stanford University, and the Franklin County Educational Services Center, assembled the Performance Assessment Advisory Group to advance Ohio’s academic assessment measures. The challenge is to create a new generation of accountability measures for 11th and 12th graders that balances teacher-generated and standardized assessments, and establishes authentic, performance-based assessments appropriate for 21st century learners.
The Ohio Alliance of Public Charter Schools is pleased to have the opportunity to work with Ohio’s education leaders from: the Office of Governor Strickland, the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, the Ohio Education Association, the Ohio Federation of Teachers, the Ohio School Boards Association, the Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators, the Ohio Parent-Teacher Association, REL Midwest, the Ohio Association of Gifted Children, the Ohio Board of Regents, the Ohio Business Alliance for Higher Education and the Economy, the Ohio Grantmakers Forum, the Ohio Coalition for Education of Children with Disabilities, the Ohio Association of Career and Technical Education, and College Faculty, to accomplish this effort.
With $1,175,000 from the Gates Foundation and $150,000 from the Hewlett Foundation, the charge is to develop agreed upon performance measures for 11th and 12th grade students in English, Science and Mathematics.
An announcement conference will be held Sept. 17, 2008 at the Riffe Center Capital Theatre, from 10:00 am – 3:00 pm. Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, of Stanford University, will provide the keynote, and ODE staff will unveil the project to districts, and describe the application process. School districts selected for the two-year Ohio Performance Assessment Project will examine research on national, international, and locally developed performance assessment models. The best practices of these examples will be used by district teams, along with the project’s Advisory Committee, to construct a single Ohio Performance Assessment Model. The model will be piloted by the participating schools during the 2009-2010 school year.
ODE and the Educational Service Center of Franklin County encourages the attendance of educators and others interested in learning how they can help create supplements to traditional paper-pencil tests as part of the next generation of Ohio’s assessment system.
Critical application dates are:
• Aug. 18, 2008 – Applications Released
• Sept. 17, 2008 – Performance Assessment Conference
• Oct. 22, 2008 – Applications Due
• Dec. 3, 2008 – Notification of Selected Applicants
For more information, contact Chris Downey at ODE at (614) 387-2201.
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A Message from State Auditor Mary Taylor
As the state’s chief taxpayer watchdog, I am committed to holding Ohio’s public entities accountable for the tax dollars they spend. My office routinely audits more than 5,500 public entities that range in size from the smallest township to the largest county in our state. While the Auditor of State’s office is primarily known for our professional expertise in conducting financial audits, I believe we stand out as a national leader for the variety of accounting and auditing services we provide to our clients and the taxpayers of Ohio.
One resource I would like to highlight is our community school financial training workshops. In fact, for the second year in a row, my office is sponsoring day-long training seminars that provide charter school officials with the knowledge they need to help improve the financial management of public tax dollars.
The Ohio Auditor of State’s 2008 Community School Training workshops are specifically designed for charter school board members, fiscal officers, sponsors, coordinators and employees. Representatives from the Auditor of State’s office will present information on several auditing related topics which include outlining basic audit requirements, ways to combat fraud, identifying public records and tips on completing grant applications. The training sessions will take place on August 15 at the University of Akron’s Student Union in Akron, Ohio and on August 19 at the Kings Island Resort Center in Mason, Ohio. For more information, I encourage you visit our Web site.
We offer these training sessions because community schools are a relatively new concept. By definition, community schools are privately governed public schools and are considered part of the state’s education program independent of any public school district.
Charter schools have opened and are operating in communities all over the state. Today, my office audits 326 charter schools, representing nearly six percent of all of the entities we are required to audit. In comparison, there are more than 600 traditional public schools currently operating in the state.
Since many of these entities are new to our auditing procedures, I worked with the state legislature in 2007 to enact a plan to address record keeping deficiencies found in some of the state’s community school districts. The Ohio Department of Education can now withhold state funding if a community school is declared “unauditable.” The Auditor of State’s office declares a public organization unauditable, as a last resort, when administrators fail to submit complete financial statements and other documentation needed to support a routine annual audit.
The measure enacted by the state legislature also prohibits a school’s sponsor from opening any additional community schools while their financial records are considered unauditable. Once the situation is corrected, payments to the school will resume.
The plan is part of a comprehensive approach to improving the oversight, accountability and quality of Ohio’s charter school system. The provision was passed into law as part of the state’s biennial budget and we are already beginning to see progress.
Last year, my office declared 19 Ohio community schools unauditable for fiscal year 2006. We have declared only three charter schools unauditable for fiscal year 2007. Those schools faced the potential loss of state funding - beginning with audits of fiscal year 2007 - as a result of our legislative efforts. That represents an 84 percent decline in the number of new unauditable community schools statewide so I believe our efforts are working.
On March 6, 2008, the Montessori Renaissance Experience in Columbus, Ohio was declared unauditable. It was the first fully operational community school district threatened with the loss of state funding for failing to produce proper documents. However, the school acted quickly to comply with state law and improve the condition of their financial statements. Two months later the school’s audit was released and, with the assistance of my office, it is auditable once again.
Two additional community schools – the Performing Arts School of Metropolitan Toledo in Lucas County and the Phoenix Village Academy in Summit County – were also declared unauditable for fiscal year 2007. The Toledo school closed before the audit began while Phoenix Village Academy continues to struggle with basic audit preparation. Representatives from my office will continue to assist administrators at Phoenix Village Academy with the preparation of auditable financial statements.
My office also provides community school operators with training courses and other resources to help improve accountability and become better stewards of public tax dollars. Last year, we held four financial workshops throughout the state to help give schools the financial tools they need to strengthen operations and improve oversight. The workshops were attended by more than 270 superintendents, treasurers, principals and finance managers of community schools operating in Ohio.
The remaining 2008 Community School Training workshop takes place today, August 19, at the Kings Island Resort Center in Mason, Ohio. Not only will attendees gain valuable insight into avoiding common audit mistakes, they will also earn 7.5 hours of cotinuing professional education (CPE) credits.
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There are less than two months until the OAPCS annual conference. The educational programming for the conference is complete,