SC GEAR UP
Weekly Memo - 11/3 to 11/9
Some good things going on...
Good Morning SC GEAR UP!
I hope everyone had a great weekend and has an awesome week!
* Congrats to Region 2 for what I'm told was a successful STEM Saturday event at Lee Central High this past weekend. Special thanks to Jomia and Sonya, and their teams for putting on an amazing event.
* Another special thanks to Region 2. We had some concerns with PLAN testing in another Region, and the coaches in Region 2 have stepped up to travel to that Region and assist the school in need with administering the test. This is a great example of collaboration and the new focus on communication we have this year. Great job!
Communication
Two items on Communication:
1) If you don't already, you should consider sharing your Monday Memo's with District leadership. It's yet another good tool to get and keep them informed on what we are doing. They would appreciate the thought.
2) I need your newsletters ASAP! Vickie is working on the Grant Q1 newsletter, but without your contributions it can't happen. One of the complaints in DC was that the District and School folks (and even GC's) stated they wanted to know more about what else was going on across the State. This is a way to ease that tension.
Grades almost in...
Tutoring
As a follow up to the grade piece above, please note that one of focuses this year for Vermadel is not only identifying those students who are failing in core courses, but matching that data with number of tutoring hours received (if any). This will give us some good data on not only whether or not the tutoring programs are running, but also whether or not they are effective in their current design/administration. A child who is receiving hours and hours of tutoring in a course, and is still failing, deserves just as much attention as the child who is not even going to tutoring.
Please continue to stress to the coaches that they have to have parent/student contact documentation in the student file to show where they have identified all those students who are failing or not doing as well and they have contacted them about tutoring.
iImpact Projects
* Make sure you share your Young Lawyers iImpact Community Project Application with the coaches! I expect everyone to submit a project, unless specifically barred from doing so by your District. At this point I only know one District that is not open to allowing for an application to be submitted. Deadline is November 14, 2014.
COMPARISON SCHOOL ASSISTANCE
At the meeting we discussed helping us identify some Comparison schools for our control group.
If you've given Vickie those schools, she'll give you the verbiage and what we are asking them to do, as well as the compensation level we are willing to provide. Please make contact with those schools and inquire as to their willingness to serve as a comparison school. Don't scare them. We don't report them to the State Dept. or publish their individual data. If you haven't reached out to a school, please do so by Wednesday, November 5th.
College Goal South Carolina
Remember, I need one school in each Region to serve as a College Goal Pilot this February. Catherine will need this information by Wednesday, November 5th at the latest. Once you select that school, or you determine a school that you may think works, contact Catherine to get the particulars on training, funding and assistance. It's not a lot, and we will give you everything you need as far as materials, banners, etc.
As a heads up, everyone will be required to be a College Goal site, or collaborate with your neighboring GEAR UP Schools in 2016 & 2017. Might as well see how it's done now.
Thank you for your assistance on this.
COMPASS Initiative - Dual Enrollment / Development
Repost from the last memo, but its important. I do realize that getting a Carnegie unit requested is completely up to the school and some may/may not even want to ask. Gotta explore it. I truly am concerned that if we leave it as an option for our kids, the ones who truly need it will not opt to attend our Summer or afterschool developmental programs.
A) 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.
B) 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. But that would require you working that out with your principals and district curriculum folks to see if that's even possible.
C) 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.
D) 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.
Now, back to item "B" for a second. At the meeting we uncovered something that is a real issue and something that requires your serious thought. I understand that we all have a desire to do the developmental work during the Summer Program. I think that's great. I also don't think that is enough. We need to at least discuss options with the school/district to offer the developmental work during the year as a class. The funding isn't an issue for us, but I do understand the concern of offering a class that doesn't have a Carnegie unit attached to it. With that in mind, can we not ask the school/district to petition the State dept to get a unit for the course we would intend to offer? I've spoken with a few folks and it can be done, but the school has to be willing, and the school/district has to make the request of the State dept.. I believe your district accountability and compliance folks are the one's who would be able to help you with this. The curriculum and syllabus should be available through the technical college.
It adds another layer, but the reality is that allowing this to be optional and offered during the summer is going to limit its effectiveness. Let's at least try to do better.
COMPASS Follow-up
I want to get into the habit of bi-weekly progress reports for where you are on the COMPASS Project, by school. So, by this Friday, November 7, I want you each to send to me a summary of where you are with this project, by school and district, and any issues you are having or need assistance with. I want to know:
- Date of last meeting/contact on subject and who attended
- Date of COMPASS administration
- Technical college that will partner with high school through project
- Plan for Dual Enrollment Course delivery
- Plan for Developmental or "GEAR UP University Transition Course"
- Have you discussed if this "Transition Course" could be offered with Carnegie Unit
- Have you began generating a budget/cost for program
- Issues you are encountering at any level
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.
Vermadel has provided an early snapshot of where we are to start the year. Right now 17.37% of our cohort has completed Biology I.
College Application Month (CAM) events
Done with CAM!!! Thank you all for your assistance with the events. I think this sets us up for great programs next year with the Juniors to expose them to the application, and some really good events in Fall 2016 for our class. Special thanks to Cynthia and Sherry for helping out at the GEAR UP CAMS as well!
Finance Update
Working on the last few Q3 invoices and still need Q4 invoices from a lot of you guys. Please help us get last year closed out quickly.
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. We can do better on Twitter and certainly on Facebook.
For perspective. I have roughly 39 to 40 folks at the administrative level in the SC GEAR UP Grant right now. However, we only have 25 likes and followers on FB and Twitter. How is that even possible? Embrace the Social Media platforms folks. We are going to use them heavily in the next few years to do different college access campaigns.