CWCS August 2006 ES Agenda

Please read the agenda, along with each of its links (all links available in ES Manual for future reference).

The agenda quiz must be completed in your ES WEBfiles BEFORE 3:00 pm the day before your ES meeting.

1) Dates to Remember and Dated Duties

a) All ES Meetings August 15, 2006 and February 22, 2007

Click here for directions to the August 15^th meeting, and please print a Meeting Schedule. Note that a Continental Breakfast and Lunch will be provided. We will have a brief time to discuss the ES agenda, so come prepared with any questions for discussion and/or research.

Your regularly scheduled ES meetings will commence in September.

b) August 17: Back to School Night/New Learning Center Open House from 3-7:00 (Drop in any time during these hours to meet vendors and staff, and to see the new facilities).

Location: Modesto Learning Center 4713 Greenleaf Ct. Ste. A, Modesto

c) August 18: PLIPs Begin preparation and document in learning records, using last year’s STAR and CAHSEE data, your students’ Personalized Learning Improvement Plans according to the CW Curriculum Policy. (Same as last year’s “interventions” just using different wording.) To view STAR scores for continuing CW students, see Edusoft Directions.

d) August 25: Preliminary Assessments for all First Semester Graduates due to be e-mailed to your advisor according to the Graduation Procedure. Tammy Hushaw will be available at 3:45 at the all ES Meeting to offer training on the paperwork required for graduation packets.

e) August-September Scantron Testing for all 2-12^th grade continuing students (or new students that were not enrolled through Centralized Intake Procedure). Encourage your students to do their best on their test! A new policy was added to the Scantron Training (note the newly compiled document). If an appointment is made with a proctor, and the appointment is missed without giving 24 hour notice, a $50 deduction will be made from the instructional funds. Please forewarn your parents. All ESs should have completed their pretest for all students no later than September 30^th.

f) September 18-22- 1^st Quarter Writing Prompts/Benchmarks: Prepare now by making sure that you have enough Writing Prompts booklets for your families. When you do your first meeting of the school year, mention these dates to refresh their memories, so that when the topic is brought up at your September learning record meeting, it will not seem like a foreign concept.

g) October 3 and 4^th CAHSEE for 11^th and 12^th graders

h) CW Paperwork Timetable: Use this paperwork timetable as a guide when planning your school year work duties.

2) Things to Do

a) Student Detail Screens: Check your Student Detail Screens today for the following:

-check for any new contact info (address, phone, e-mail, etc.) for the families. To change a student’s address or phone number, please e-mail stuaddresschange@ieminc.org (note new email address). ESs do not contact parent support for this service.

-check the student grade level- tests will be ordered early using this (if it needs to be changed, e-mail stuassign@ieminc.org)

-check that Instructional Funds were deposited for each student

-check that Immunizations, Student Agreement, Charter, etc. are all marked "in" for each student

-for any 2006 potential graduates that didn't graduate, change their grad date to 2007

If you have any questions regarding the information on the student detail screen, please e-mail studentrecords@ieminc.org.

b) First Meeting: Items to complete with or give to your Parents at your first meeting. Complete and mark all forms by September 29^th on the parent checklist in WEBfiles, and keep them in your students’ files but be prepared give them to your advisor or the school office if they are needed.

Remember the "Where to find WEBfiles forms" link at the top of the Generic Forms Page for help in locating forms in WEBfiles.

- Graduation Requirements Agreement: Please do a Graduation Requirements Agreement for all of your 9th graders and for any high school student new to our school. This form is printed from WEBfiles and must have the information marked into the database by September 29^th deadline.

- First Meeting Information Sheet: Remember to complete a First Meeting Information Sheet with each of your families, both new and returning. These forms are now kept by the ES and the information is marked on the parent checklist in WEBfiles

-General Information Sheet: Don't forget to print out General Information Sheets from WEBfiles for each of your families.

- State Standards: A copy of the parent overview of the state standards for the appropriate grade level for each of your students.

c) High School Courses: After your first meeting, please check to see that the course work on the report card/student agreement is accurate. Any students underage that are taking high school courses should also have a report card made at this time. This information will be used for ordering STAR tests. This would also be a good time to check to see if Summer School grades were recorded for any of your HS students that took Summer School.

d) CWCS August Newsletter: A copy of the August Newsletter was mailed to each of your families and to all ESs. Please encourage your families to read subsequent newsletters online.

e) Student Demographics:.All newly enrolled students should have completed the demographic information on their applications, but we may have students from the past with this information still missing. Please review the Demographic Survey Training, and then check to see that this is complete for each of your students. If it is missing, provide a letter and a survey for that a parent and request that it please be completed.

f) Kindergarten Retention: If your student needs to repeat Kindergarten, please have the parent sign this form linked to the cde website and mail it to the IEM office in Placerville attn: student records. It is an auditable document. They can only repeat Kindergarten once.

g) New CW ES Manual: We have a new link for the CW ES Manual. If you have the old link bookmarked, please delete it and replace it with this link. The link from the CW website has been updated. We want to be sure that you have the newest and most up-to-date information, so please be sure that you do this right away.

h) Student Count: If you are expecting students, or you want to decrease your student count, please notify stuassign@ieminc.org right away as students are being assigned based on your desired count in the database. Spaces cannot be “held” for students that you are anticipating will enroll. Enrollment is on a first-come, first-serve basis, based on when complete applications are received by the IEM office. (Any increases in student count must be approved through your advisor).

i) Sherri Nelson mailed a letter to all continuing ESs this summer. Here is the letter if you did not receive it.

j) E-mail Response: Due to the geographic set-up of our school, it is critical that you read your e-mails every school day and respond within 24 hours to all e-mails received from any employee of CWCS or IEM as stated in the ES job description. E-mail is our main method of communication. If you encounter difficulties with your ISP that last longer than 24 hours, it would be wise to call your advisor so that they can inform you of any critical information until your service is restored. If you have not been receiving all ES emails from the ES listserve, please e-mail cmiller@connectingwaters.org Thank you!

k) Updated CWCS Contact List: For your records and for your parents' reference, a new CW Contact list has been posted to the CW website and to the ES Manual.

3) Training Items

a) New Attendance Addition: The auditor has requested that we add a box on the rollsheet tallying the number of absences for all students on the rollsheet. The box is at the bottom right of the grid and says "total abs". Please remember to include this number, even if it is "0".

b) Centralized Intake Procedure: Please note that all CWCS students must be enrolled through the Centralized Intake Procedure and that currently only siblings of active CW students may be enrolled by their ES once they appear on their prospective list. When meeting with a family after the Centralized Intake, please be sure to use the procedures and forms found at the above new link.

c) NCLB Highly Qualified Teachers: Although not all of the steps are completed, we have a beginning procedure for meeting the NCLB HQT requirements. We are providing HQT for all of our students, but it is required that any student attempting High School standards courses and any 9-12^th grade students comply with the requirements.

d) Assigning Carnegie Units: All students are assigned to their grade level according to their age. When assigning Carnegie Units to students, there may be atypical situations. For students who are remedial, follow the directions in the High School Grade Placement Policy. For underage high school students follow the Assigning Carnegie Units to Students Under Typical High School Age Policy. Please note that unless approved by your advisor and assessment is notified, grade level changes after initial grade placement can not be made. Also note for CWCS: Beginning this year, an underage student may not take PE for high school credit. Starting this school year, any high school course completed as an underage student must be aligned to the CA content standards.

e) No Grades/Credits Earned: New policy regarding No Grades/Credits Earned.

f) Community College Summer Courses: New Policy regarding Community College Courses taken in the Summer.

g) Mandated STAR vs. Mandatory School Assessment: When discussing the STAR Assessment with your families, please be very careful how you word your encouragements for the students to attend. Do not say, “If you don't take the STAR you will be dropped from the school.” (The actual issue is, if they miss two school appointments they will be dropped.) The Mandatory School Assessment listed on the Assessment Confirmation form, is a required school assessment, and if they don’t meet the requirements of this exam, they will be dropped from the school. This exam, which is only offered in Waterford and is 5 days long, can be waived by participation in the STAR which is offered in several geographic locations and is not as lengthy. Our ultimate goal is 100% participation in STAR, and the offer of using the STAR as a means to waive the Mandatory School Assessment is an incentive to reach that goal!

h) CAHSEE: Please use the Curriculum Policy suggestions for your students that have not passed the CAHSEE. Also use the CAHSEE Prep Resources for selecting the right CAHSEE prep curriculum for your student. Students must use these resources, and/or be enrolled in CAHSEE prep courses, and/or receive weekly tutoring as needed. Classes or tutoring appointments missed without prior notice are considered truancies so the students should be warned at the first of the year regarding these requirements.

-All 12th graders that would like to have the opportunity to return next year for more opportunities to attempt to pass the CAHSEE, must attend all three testing opportunities during their 12th grade year.

-If a student has met all other graduation requirements and just needs to pass the CAHSEE, they must be completing a minimum of 10 credits of CAHSEE prep in the subject area(s) of need.

i) End of Year LR Meetings- Remember, all LR meetings must be face to face. The end of the school year can be difficult, so one possible way to meet all of your families at the end of the year for the last LR meeting is to schedule an end of the year “park day” where all of your families join together for a day at the park, or come to see you at a library or local public location. The 2^nd to last learning record of the year can be used to view all current work and project ahead to what the student will be accomplishing over the next learning period. The last learning record can be typed beforehand, and then all that needs to be done at the last learning record meeting is review the work to see that it matches what was projected, and sign and collect the rollsheets. If this sounds like a possibility for you, you may want to plan ahead so your families will know about your “park day”!

j) Learning Records: (We have a new superintendent who will be invited to look at our records.)

Learning records should only document new learning, and not repetitive activities unless the student has learned increased skills or abilities, and if so, these should be noted.

For example, writing PE can be difficult, but it can be done. Young children usually do a variety of activities - skating, riding bikes, 2-square, hop-scotch, etc. They often delight in showing their ES the new skills or improved abilities and it can be noted as a teacher comment! For older students, statements like "The student walks daily to complete the requirements of PE 2A" for three LR's in a row, is too repetitive and does not show new learning. You can state "The student walks regularly for increased cardiovascular conditioning walking about 1.5 miles in 25 minutes - and the next learning period it can be said, " increased walking pace to 1.5 miles in 20 minutes." (Or something similar). Students can site heart-rate, distance or time (or all three), and for many sports you can use words like “developed stamina, increased strength, etc”. Usually the learning is there, it is just that we forget to ask about it. Asking the high school student to keep a journal of their activities, noting nuances, can help the ES when documenting the learning in the LR. There are some books and programs for teaching about sports that can enhance a PE program. Division of Independent Study (North Dakota) is an approved vender that has PE courses.

Other activities not typically done through a text book, computer learning, typing, career exploration, art, etc. should be handled similarly.

k) GEAs: Please note the information found in Themepark Guidelines when creating a PO for Marine World.

Also, when relaying information about GEAs sent on the parent listserve, please be careful to call attention to details about processes and procedures as the trips may vary from year to year.

l) Agenda Quiz: Note that the agenda quiz is now required to be completed by 3:00 the day before your ES meeting. This is because many of our advisors have to travel the day of the ES meeting and are unable to check your quiz on the same day. Having it done before 3:00 the day before gives them time within their normal work hours to check your quiz before the meeting.

m) Parent Support Phone Calls: All new families will be called by Parent Support within 45 days of their enrollment as a courtesy to see if they have any questions and to see that they are satisfied with the school’s service.

n) New CWCS Org Chart: New CWCS Org Chart

o) IEM New Phone Policy: Since IEM provides business services to the schools, they recently created this new IEM Phone Policy for dealing with phone calls from people in the field.

p) Websites for Teachers:

-Dance Mat Typing from Cher Silva:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing

-Websites researched and recommended by nations top librarians also from Cher: http://www.ala.org/gwstemplate.cfm?section=greatwebsites&template=/cfapps/gws/default.cfm

-Stationary (and a lot more) for elementary students: http://www.primarygames.com/print_zone/stationery/stationery.htm

-PBS Online TeacherSource (http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/)  offers 3000+ free K -12 lesson plans and activities correlated to national and state standards. TeacherSource Subjects include: Arts & Literature, Health & Fitness, Math, Science, Social Studies, Pre K-2 and Library Media.

4) Messages from School Departments

a) Assessment

- CAHSEE: Refer to the CW Assessment Chart and the CW Assessment Calendar to review the CAHSEE dates and eligiblity rules. More info coming soon on how to sign up your CAHSEE students in the database for a specific site.

-CELDT: We have a group of ES's that are being trained specifically to administer the CELDT. Only those ES's will be doing this testing, preferably at the Learning Centers, as needed. If you have a student that answered the language questions on the school application with any language other than English, they will need to be tested. The assessment dept. will assign these students to a trained ES to administer the test and the student will contacted with the location and dates of the test.

- The Modesto Bee has a practice CAHSEE test.

b) Curriculum

-August Curriculum News from Lori Freeman

-Online Curriculum Suggestions- New updated online suggestions from Lori Freeman

-New Curriculum Suggestionsfor Science K-12,History K-12, and Math K-6

-Remember that we have Holt Study Guides available for a-g English!

-Central Intake Curriculum: If you have a family that would like to order the curriculum given to them at the Centralized intake, see Central Intake Curriculum for more information.

-Odysseyware Online training available for ESs that may have students interested in using the online version of Odysseyware! The training is four hours long (online) and space is limited. A $100 stipend will be paid to all who attend, but call now as it is a "first come-first serve" situation! Contact the Waterford Office if interested.

-Scholastic Book Fair August 16-27th at Modesto Learning Center.

c) Guidance

-a-g course information has been updated!

-CSF/NHS deadline coming soon.

-If you have students wanting to take the PSAT on either Oct. 18th or 21st, they will need to contact their local high school ASAP to sign up.

-PLAN (pre-ACT) test for 8^th, 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th graders

-2006-07 SAT and ACT - College Entrance Exam Test Dates and Deadlines
-If you have a student wanting to take an AP Exam in May, please have the student contact Mary Halter as soon as possible to find a testing site.
-Please encourage your students to attend the Guidance Workshops. Plan ahead and have them put these on their calendars!

-Important guidance information for class of 2007
-Check out this new website: www.cacareerzone.org for self assessments and more!

d) Human Resources:

OPEN ENROLLMENT: The 2006 Open Enrollment period begins September 1 and ends September 29. During Open Enrollment, eligible members may enroll, change health plans, or add eligible family members not currently enrolled under this program. Any changes made during open enrollment take effect January 1, 2007. This includes open enrollment for vision, and chiropractic coverage as well. Contact Nancy Perkins for additional information at nperkins@ieminc.org , phone 530-295-3566 or 800-979-4436

e) IT

-Edusoft: The current Edusoft roster has been uploaded as of August 1. The most recent passwords and user names are available in FileMaker. The ES info is on the opening page and the Parent info is on the Parent detail page.

-New Vendor Search: In response to one of your requests, IT has developed a new vendor search that will allow you to search by the starting letter or any word that appears on the vendor page. This page is located on the CW website, under parent/ES resources. Let your parents know about this valuable tool!

-Service POs: Note that there is a new spot to see that a service PO has been closed out by the office.  Go to ES Webfiles, View/POs.  The date field has been added, since for a “Service PO”, the complete "X" may not be indicated.  But now if the “Date Signed off” has a date entered, the PO is complete, even without an “X” in the “Complete” field.  There will be no more charges against that PO.

 -Cumes: There is now a new spot to see if a cume is in. Go to ES Webfiles, View/Active Students, then click on the detail link for the student you wish to check.  The cume section is on the second row of info down, near the AESS section.

f) Learning Centers:

-ESs please be respectful of the learning center guidelines. The clerks want to serve you and the students by providing an orderly, clean environment. Space is limited at the Ceres learning Center so make sure that you schedule an appointment with the clerks prior to meeting with your family so that you have ample time to meet. If you do not schedule ahead you may need to meet somewhere other than the center. This is also true at the Modesto Center since we not only have classes but also intake and other school meetings. Thank you for your cooperation.

-Materials for parent pickup at learning centers will be kept for 2 weeks only, after that time the ES will be asked to pick up the materials for the family.

-Tentative Modesto Learning Center and Ceres Learning Center Fall Classes

-New Learning Center Clerks: Lindsey Quilici, Christine Lagow, and Rebecca Duncan

g) Vendor Relations

- DELL computers: CWCS is now using DELL as the vendor for our school computers. All computers must be ordered from DELL. (Purchases other than computers may still be made from Gov Connection).

- K12 Information: CWCS K12 Ordering Information. This information will be in the ES manual under "Curriculum Resources". Please also note their Issue Resolution Matrix, and this note:

"In an effort to make the beginning of school easy, K12 has created an Issue Resolution Matrix for your reference. The matrix is a list of common issues, points of contact and expected resolution. If the issue is not resolved, then the appropriate point of contact is listed to escalate the issue.
Self Help: help.k12.com has a large FAQ section that can help guide teachers and teaching adults/ parents through OLS and trouble shoot other issues.
Customer Care: 1-866-626-6413, option 1 to reach a customer care representative."

-New PO Approval process: Loie Varner will be taking the place of Nancy Mack regarding POs from vendors like Border's Books, Rainbow Resources, etc. Her e-mail is lvarner@connectingwaters.org . This information will also be updated on the PO Request form.

- Note from Starline Press: “We are looking forward to a new year helping you educate the next generation of leaders. This next year will see an increase in the amount of courses we have to offer (Including Algebra 1A and 1B, Personal Finance 2, English Rapid Remediation, and Creative Writing) along with more improvements to our existing courses.”

- Office Depot- Large Office Depot catalogs available for free. Add the item to your PO for shipping to the ES. sku number is 566669