SC GEAR UP
Weekly Memo - 9/29 to 10/5
Thank you all for a great National GEAR UP Week!!!!
Good Morning SC GEAR UP! I just wanted to thank you all for putting in such great work last week during National GEAR UP Week. Based on some of the photos I saw, it truly was an outstanding celebration of our students and our program. Let's be sure we bring that same excitement and enthusiasm every day to our schools, students and families we serve.
Please make sure you send the photos from last week to Catherine or Vickie for posting on the GEAR UP and SC CANGO website!
Your schools should receive one more delivery from National GEAR UP Week. We couldn't get the flash drives done in time, but they are on the way.
Monthly Plans by School due Wednesday, October 1, 2014.
Meeting for this Month
Tutoring
I'm getting killed on Tuesdays for not having more kids in tutoring. Please put your GC's on notice that at some point, they will need to provide documentation where they have identified every student who is failing (at least) and those who are not failing but need assistance and contacted them about coming to tutoring. I can't ignore the low numbers much longer...
In addition, please have your sign in sheet constructed in such a way where the student's name is printed out in one column, and they have to sign beside it to show attendance. This shows where the coach has identified everyone who SHOULD be there, and has the student certify that they attended. Please don't have one person sign everyone in.
COMPASS Initiative - Dual Enrollment / Development
- Be sure that your discussions with the technical college will have two tracks: a dual enrollment track for higher fliers, and a developmental track to catch up those kids who test into developmental coursework. You will need to work out a plan for both. If that is one instructor teaching both types of courses, that's fine. Just plan for both. Keep in mind that for 11th grade, at least, the majority of our students may receive feedback from the test that they need developmental assistance. Be sure that is a major part of your plan. I do realize every school will differ. But ideally, it would be really good if we could get a developmental or dual enrollment course built into the student schedule. This would eliminate you having to recruit kids or nag them into the developmental sessions (like we have to do with tutoring). But that would require you working that out with your principals and district curriculum folks to see if that's even possible.
- Discuss existing options with the high school. Some of our schools actually have partnerships with the local Techs to provide D.E. coursework. If the better option is to pay for transportation to get the kids to the Tech school, then great.
- There will be a cost associated with this project, and it will likely need to be placed in your 2014-15 award letters to start next year in Q4. You'll need to get me figures at some point on cost of the instructor(s) and the books.
- every meeting, every month, I want to have a report on your progress.
- remember that Sonya has done this project before. Use her as a resource if you get stuck or pushback.
Objectives for 2014-15
The SCGU Grant objective for 10th grade will be that 80% of our students will pass Biology by the end of 10th grade.
Award Letters for Year 4
All Y4 Award letters were sent to you guys last week (with 2 exceptions). Please get them signed and back to us as soon as you can.
Don't forget to establish the type of data you wish to collect to show your initiatives effectiveness. This is going to be very important moving forward. For year 5, if you don't have data showing that an initiative works, I am told I cannot fund it. If the data you DO have doesn't show a positive effect, I cannot fund it. I'm giving warnings now so that we are all on the same page this time next year.
College Application Month (CAM) events
Thank you for making the Sept. CAM events a success! It is extremely important that we make them successful in the GEAR UP Schools to make sure this initiative is something we continue with the c/o 2017. I'm thinking that next year I'm going to have all of us converge on one CAM event as a team and help that school for the day. Maybe one school in each region. Let me know if this is something you'd like for this year though.
As a heads up, I'll be asking you to look into helping with any College Goal SC events in February as well.
CAM events scheduled for September/October are the following:
Loris High School
9/30 10:00am
Wilson HS
10/2 8:30am
Military Magnet
10/3 9:00am
Estill HS
10/3 8:00am
Edisto HS
10/3 8:00am
Scott’s Branch
10/7 10:00am
Hemingway HS
10/8 8:30am
Colleton County HS
10/9 8:30am
CE Murray HS
10/9 9:00am
Lee Central HS
10/9 8:30am
Dillon HS
10/14 9:00am
Woodland High School
10/16 8:30am
Ridgeland Hardeeville HS
10/16 8:30am
Mullins HS
10/21 8:30am
Kingstree HS
10/21 8:30am
Darlington High School
10/22/8:00am
Marion HS
10/29 and 30
Finance Update
Get your Q4's to us as soon as you can.
Remember, you're on call between 2:30 and 4:00 on Tuesdays in case I need to share my KW experience with you.
Please make sure you have that wonderful cover sheet on your invoice that shows what each expenditure was for. It helps tremendously to have a quick guide to explain.
Social Media Update
The SC GEAR UP Facebook and Twitter are now both up!!!! Please have the coaches encourage students to like and follow SC GEAR UP on social media.
Remember, the registration for CCTI Module 2: Early Career Awareness and Planning is now open and ends on September 26th. Registration link which will open on September 8th: http://sccango.org/collaborative-counselor-training-initiative/.