SC GEAR UP
Weekly Memo - 2/15 to 2/21
Happy Tuesday!
Good Morning SC GEAR UP!
I apologize for the Memo being a day late, but yesterday was a holiday for State employees so I didn't have time to do much. I'm glad everyone made it back safely from Philly.
My Take Away
I think we all had a great conference, but I think like most things, we all take different things away from these things. Most of the conference flies by so it's hard to retain things unless they truly hit home. I had the pleasure of attending the APR session at the end of the conference as I always do. But at this session James Davis made sure that he left us with 1 important thought, which I will probably adopt as my mantra for the remainder of the grant. He stated that 2 questions will drive the evaluation of our Grant, and if we don't accomplish anything else, these two things need to be our focus:
1) Did your GU cohort graduate high school at a higher rate than the non GU cohorts?
2) Did your GU cohort enroll at a post-secondary institution at a higher rate than the non GU cohorts?
He stated that if we don't move the needle in those two areas in our schools, then we have failed. I hate losing.
Let's get to work.
Capacity Building
Capacity is behind us! Thank goodness. Thank you for making the trip a success. I think there is something to keeping the group small, but a lot of that depends on getting the correct people in the group. Thank you for getting a good group together and thank you for making the trip enjoyable for them. I noticed you all looking out for them and making sure they felt as a part of the family. That was much appreciated. And thank you for filling in and carrying on when I felt under the weather. Let's make sure we do something to follow-up with those who attended and let's make an effort to keep the momentum going with engagement on both the school leadership and parent levels. Lastly, I really enjoyed having Ms. Montague with us. She provided a nice perspective on how parents see GEAR UP. Vickie will be getting the notes/parental engagement list of ideas from the after meeting out in the next week or so. Good job everyone.
Moving forward, I need to reiterate that we will probably send a similar sized group to California. The only way that would change would be if more folks get accepted to present. Special priority will be given to those individuals who are chosen to present at the National Conference. Please note the deadline to submit a proposal is about a month out. I want to see your group's proposals BEFORE they are submitted.
Also, please note that we will not be signing off on any nominations for the annual awards. So please don't get folks hyped up about nominating students for Youth of the Year or anything like that. If you have questions, please let me know.
Alright, take a breath and I'll be bothering you about San Francisco in a month or so.
Finance
Meeting Change
remember, we have moved the February Meeting from 2/18 to 2/25. We're still at the Chamber and I want to try to again streamline it to stay focused and not be in there all day. I will want to hear about your take on the conference at the meeting, but I want to hear about it in the form of an Action item or 2 that you feel you want to implement or try.
Tutoring
Gotta keep monitoring the tutoring programs. Remember, if there is a kid who is failing, that is not attending a tutoring program, your coach will need to document that contact was made and why the student isn't coming. I get asked every other week about tutoring. I just want to be in a position to say the GC is doing all they possibly can.
College Goal South Carolina
I'm hearing great things about the College Goal events that have occurred and the planning going on for the upcoming ones. Let's make sure we put on great events in our schools. I'm told the Estill event was awesome! Great job Katrisa and Sonya. Please pass my congrats on to Ms. Garvin as well.
Comparison School Follow-Up
Please follow-up with the Comparison schools you suggested and made contact with for us. We need more schools. If we can do something/offer something/remove a requirement that gets them to commit, let me know.
COMPASS Follow-up
This week will NOT be a report week. Let's just give me the COMPASS reports at the meeting next week. It is now time to start moving towards the structure and the framework for how these things are going to look. Let's begin a gentle push to make some decisions now at the school level. We are giving the test now, but what happens when you get the data back? How will we share? Who will we share with? We need to starting thinking Summer programs/rollout. I want to be sure you cover the following in your reports:
- 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
- Plan for sharing data with stakeholders (parent night? IGP?)
- Have you begun to project a budget/cost for program
- Issues you are encountering at any level
If you know who will need to review the request from the DOE level, please let me know. We can hopefully set up a meeting to pre-empt that request if it will help. Also, please take note of the qualifications/credentials of your instructors in case that is a sticking point.
Summer Plans
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. As of first semester, I believe Vermadel has us at 38%.
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.
I can't stress enough how much we need to beef up the social media!!! This is a great way to keep everyone informed on what we are doing. We are also working on the websites each week. We need that support folks!