Category: Newsroom Articles

Get to know the Maine DOE Team: Meet Rob Susi

Maine DOE Team member Rob Susi is being highlighted this week as part of the Get to know the Maine DOE Team Campaign. Learn a little more about Rob in this brief question and answer.

What are your roles with DOE?

I am the School Safety and Security Coordinator for the Maine School Safety Center, a division within the Department of Education.  I am responsible for supervising the Maine School Safety Center under Director Jonathan Shapiro.  I am also responsible for the Grants to States for School Emergency Management Grant Program, and the School Resource Officer Liaison.  I am the primary contact for the Department for safety and security issues, site assessments, and critical response planning.  We are also entering into a new and exciting opportunity for online advancement and professional development of school safety and security with our partners at the Maine Community College System.

What do you like best about your job?

I love working with our team (Melissa Condon, Staci Warren, Cristina Stade and Dr. Karen Barnes are incredible!!!), our Office and School and Student Support team, and being a small part of the overall vision for the Maine DOE.  I get to work with our Federal, State, County, and Local partners including the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, Maine Emergency Management Agency, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Corrections, United States Secret Service, United States Attorney General’s Office, Department of Homeland Security, the Maine School Resource Officer’s Association, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness Maine to name a few.  But mostly I love working with the local schools, helping with their emergency planning and overall safety so that each student in Maine is in the safest environment possible.  Working with local partners to keep our local schools as safe as possible, providing free assistance, so that students can be safe.

How or why did you decide on this career?

I am a retired police officer who had the best job, I got to be an School Resource Officer (SRO) in a preK-12 setting.  Those kids made such an impact on my life!  I love working with kids and I see this job as an opportunity to impact way more than just my local school, and to be a resource to those schools who need it.  Director Jonathan Shapiro has a focused and excellent plan for the future of the Maine School Safety Center and I am very excited to see the great work we have already done, and what is to come!

What do you like to do outside of work for fun?

I look forward to time with my family.  I love worshipping and serving my God.  I love coaching and miss it very much.  I also enjoy golf, my pool, outside games, board games, card games, and video games.

Quarter 1 Data Collections Webinar on September 30th

The Maine Department of Education Data Team is holding a Quarter 1 Data Collections Webinar Thursday September 30th at 10am.

We will be discussing how to locate, access and validate the quarter 1 reports. This year we will be foregoing quarter 1 attendance and truancy collections due to changes to attendance reporting. New for 2021-2022 we are collecting student daily attendance which effects how we report the data back to the end user. The new attendance and truancy quarterly reports should be ready for quarter 2 reporting. In the meantime, it is extremely important that users still record attendance and truancy locally so that the data is accurate when these reports become available. This webinar will therefore focus on the student behavior and bullying data collections for quarter 1.

Please follow the “Join Live” link at the time of the training to join us. Thank you.

Join Live

If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding this webinar please contact the MEDMS Helpdesk.

October EPS Student Reports Webinar on October 12th

The Maine Department of Education Data Team is holding an October EPS Student Reports Webinar Tuesday October 12 at 10am.

We will be discussing how to locate, access and validate the three October EPS student reports in NEO. These reports include the October 1st Student Enrollment Count, the CTE October Student Count report and the Special Education Child Count Detail Report (EF S 05 Part 1).

Please follow the “Join Live” link at the time of the training to join us. Thank you!

Join Live

If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding this webinar please contact the MEDMS Helpdesk.

Dropout Reporting Webinar on October 7th

The Maine Department of Education Data Team is holding a Dropout Reporting Webinar Thursday October 7th at 11am.

We will be discussing how to locate, access and validate the new dropout certification report. Please note that the dropout certification report has changed from previous years. Users will no longer have functionality to change exit codes of students. Instead we are only asking users to verify that the report is correct, and accurate. The webinar will address how to manage incorrect data. Please follow the “Join Live” link at the time of the training to join us. Thank you!

Join Live

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this webinar please contact the MEDMS Helpdesk.

Restraint and Seclusion Data Reporting Deadline Extended to 10/15

To accommodate school administrative units that have not yet been able to file their restraint and seclusion data yet this fall, the Maine Department of Education has reopened the Restraint and Seclusion Reporting in NEO until October 15, 2021.

In accordance with Chapter 33: Rule Governing Physical Restraint and Seclusion, “Each covered entity shall submit to the Department of Education an annual report of the incidence of physical restraint and seclusion.”

Detailed instructions on how to report restraint and seclusion data can be found here: RAS Year End Reporting

For further information or assistance with reporting this data, please contact Maine DOE Data Help Desk:

 

 

Reminders and Info Regarding ARP Funding for Homeless Children and Youth

Thank you for your patience as the Maine Department of Education has worked out the details for the $2.6 million awarded to Maine under the American Rescue Plan Act’s Homeless Children and Youth (ARP-HCY) program. Here are is some important follow up information and reminders about ARP-HCY I and II finding:
  • ARP-HCY I: School Administrative Units (SAUs) who were awarded funding will now see these allocations in Maine DOE’s GEMS System.
  • ARP-HCY II: To receive funds, the brief form to complete is now open HERE.
    • Remember to coordinate with other SAUs if you will be applying as a consortium.
    • Please complete this form prior to October 15, 2021.

For more information:

For further information, questions, and support, contact Amelia Lyons, McKinney-Vento (MV) Homeless Education Specialist, amelia.lyons@maine.gov or (207) 557-1787.

NEW: School and/or district McKinney-Vento liaisons can sign up for the MV listserv here!

FREE Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing (LiPS) & Seeing Stars Workshops/Materials Available for 400 Maine Special Educators

The Maine Department of Education Office of Special Services is pleased to announce that Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing (LiPS) and Seeing Stars workshops and materials are being offered free of charge for up to 400 Maine special educators across the state.

Training will be held online from 8:30 am – 4:30am each day and materials will be shipped directly to participants’ school addresses. For additional information about these programs please go to https://lindamoodbell.com/workshops.

Registration links and information about each of these programs is below.

If you have any questions please contact Anne-Marie Adamson at anne-marie.adamson@maine.gov or Tracy Whitlock at tracy.w.whitlock@maine.gov.

October Workshop Dates

Click on dates to register (registration due September 30th)
LiPS

3 day training

50 educators per workshop

 October 18-20

October 27-29

 
Seeing Stars

2 day training

40 educators per workshop

 October 21-22

October 25-26

 

 

November Workshop Dates

Click on dates to register (registration due October 15th)
LiPS

3 day training

50 educators per workshop

 November 1-3

November 10-12

 
Seeing Stars

2 day training

40 educators per workshop

 November 4-5

November 8-9

November 15-16

 

Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing (LiPS)

Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing (LiPS) develops phoneme awareness. Students learn to recognize how their mouths produce the sounds of language. This kinesthetic feedback enables reading, spelling, and speech. The three-day LiPS workshop focuses on helping students develop phoneme awareness. Through a series of steps, LiPS students learn to recognize how their mouths produce the sounds of language. This kinesthetic feedback enables them to verify sounds within words and to become self-correcting in reading, spelling, and speech. All steps of the program are introduced, practiced, and modeled.

Educators in the training will learn instructional approaches for phoneme awareness, pronunciation, word attack, and spelling.

Seeing Stars

Seeing Stars program develops symbol imagery: the ability to visualize sounds and letters in words for both phonological and orthographic processing. Students move through a series of steps from single consonants/vowels to multisyllabic and contextual reading to develop the imagery-language connection for competency in written language. The two-day Seeing Stars workshop focuses on helping students develop symbol imagery for written language. Through a series of steps, students learn to visualize sounds and letters in words, thereby improving phonological and orthographic processing in both receptive and expressive written language. All steps of the program are introduced, practiced, and modeled.

Educators in the training will learn instructional approaches for phonics/phoneme awareness, orthographic awareness, reading fluency, word attack, word recognition and spelling.

Free Webinar on Data Reporting for Maine Superintendents

The Maine Department of Education Data Team is holding a Data Reporting Webinar for Superintendents on Tuesday, October 5th at 10am.

We will be discussing state required data certifications, focusing primarily on Fall data collections and related procedures for validating and clearing up any issues on the certification reports. Please follow the “Join Live” link at the time of the training to join us. Thank you. Join Live

If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding this webinar please contact the MEDMS Helpdesk at MEDMS.Helpdesk@Maine.gov or (207) 624-6896.

FREE TRAINING: Behavioral Threat Assessment

What is school-based behavioral threat assessment? 

  • Violence prevention strategy recommended by the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Secret Service, and FBI.
  • Multidisciplinary team approach to identify behaviors of concern, assess the level of risk, and provide appropriate interventions.

Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG TRAINING):

  • Consists of 2 levels of training.
  • Level 1: 8 eLearning modules, taking approximately 6 hours, to be completed at your convenience asynchronously online. Training window opens on October 4, 2021.
  • Level 2: 4-hour Synchronous training to work through practice cases applying the methodology learned in the Level 1 training. October 19th via Zoom from 9:00-1:00.

Who should attend?

  • School Resource Officers
  • School Administrators
  • Law Enforcement Responding to Schools
  • School Mental Health Providers/Social Workers/Psychologists
  • School Safety Teams
  • Juvenile Community Corrections Officers

How to register?

  • Contact Karen Barnes, Threat Assessment/Mental Health Officer at the Maine School Safety Center at karen.a.barnes@maine.gov for more information or to be added to the training roster.
  • Additional training dates TBA.

MaineCare Seed Adjustments to be Made, Review Q4’21 Reports Requested by October 15, 2021

The recovery of Q4’21 MaineCare Seed will occur in the October 2021 subsidy payment. The Maine DOE is asking School Administrative Units (SAUs) to review their reports by October 15, 2021 to ensure accurate adjustments to subsidy. SAU staff must review, and submit disputes, student by student claims on both the public and private MaineCare reports for Q4’21 by October 15, 2021.

 To access the MaineCare Seed reports, please follow the instructions below.

  1. Log into NEO using the link below

https://neo.maine.gov/DOE/neo/Dashboard

  1. Click on the Student Data tab
  2. Click on the Student Report tab
  3. Select MaineCare in the Reporting Area drop-down
  4. Choose the quarterly Seed report and the report type (private/public)
  5. Click view report button
  6. Once the report appears on the screen, choose the export button.

You may export the reports to Excel but, please be aware that there may be multiple worksheet tabs within the workbook. Save the file to your computer.

To dispute a claim: If you disagree that a particular student or time period should not be on the report, please send an email with the following information for each State Student ID to stephanie.clark@maine.gov.

  • State Student ID
  • The reason that you disagree
  • Identify the type of report: public or private
  • Quarter in which the claims are located
  • Service provided dates (From and To)
  • Total amount of Seed being disputed

Summer services:  Students must be enrolled for the time period they are receiving educational services. This means that students that are receiving extended school year services in district or extended school year services in an out of district placement must have a primary enrollment for that time period in order for the MDOE to have the most accurate enrollment data to determine SAU responsibility for MaineCare Seed.

If you have difficulty logging into NEO: Anyone who currently has Special Education Director permissions to the Special Education module, will automatically have permissions to access MaineCare reports.

As in the past, if a new staff member needs permission to access this module, a request from the Superintendent to the Maine DOE helpdesk will be necessary. The helpdesk contact information is medms.helpdesk@maine.gov or 207-624-6896.

Please contact stephanie.clark@maine.gov for more information or technical assistance related to MaineCare Seed.