PRIORITY NOTICE: GI Bill benefits available for high school students

The Maine Department of Education, the Military Interstate Children’s Compact Commission (MIC3), and the Maine State Approving Agency for Veterans Education sponsor the following message:

Some of your high school students may be eligible for thousands of dollars of GI Bill benefits while attending high school.

Maine has nearly 130,000 veterans, many of whom have service-related disability ratings from the Veterans Administration or have suffered a service-related death.

If a veteran has a 100% Permanent and Total service-related disability rating, or is deceased as a result of military service, their spouse and children may qualify for Dependents Educational Assistance. This is also known as Chapter 35 of the GI Bill.

Many are aware that this benefit can be used for colleges, trade schools, adult education programs, and apprenticeship programs. However, many are unaware that an eligible child can use these same benefits while attending high school, once the child reaches the age of 18.

The Chapter 35 benefit currently pays more than $1,000 per month (full time rate). The benefit is non-taxable. Additionally, up to five months of benefits can be used while in high school without being charged against the basic 45 months of full-time eligibility. This benefit often provides an amazing “nest egg” to cover day to day household costs or additional costs associated with obtaining a post-secondary education.

The real challenge is identifying these people and putting them in contact with an agency to assist them through the paperwork. The Maine State Approving Agency for Veterans Education can assist eligible family members and school officials with completing the necessary paperwork. But they need help in identifying those who are eligible. There is no “magic list” identifying eligible veterans and their family members. That’s where our school partners can help.

If you become aware that a high school student may qualify for this benefit, worth over $50,000, please have them contact Robert Haley of The Maine State Approving Agency for Veterans Education at 207-582-2100 or via email at Robert.haley@maine.edu.

PRIORITY NOTICE: Certification office closed 10/16 – 10/27 to work on new online system

As a reminder, the Maine Department of Education’s new online certification system, Maine Certification Information System (MCIS), is scheduled for a soft release to staff and educators at pilot schools, and will be available to administrators, and local support system chair people statewide on Monday, October 30th. MCIS is targeted to be available to all educators and the general public by mid-November.

MCIS will completely replace the Maine DOE’s current paper certification application system. Highlights include a simple account creation process, electronic notifications about actionable items for both educators and administrators, and the ability to pay fees online.

To help with the transition, the certification office will be closed to educators from 10/16/2017 – 10/27/2017. The office will re-open on Monday, October 30^th with MCIS fully operational for all staff at pilot schools, and to administrators, and local support system chair people statewide.

As a reminder, once MCIS is in place, educators and administrators will need to create an account in order to use the system. The Maine DOE’s Certification team will be sending out individual notices to the email addresses that are on file in the NEO staff system to initiate this process. Additional training and guidance will be forthcoming.

For more information contact Ángel Martínez Loredo at 207-624-6603 or email cert.doe@maine.gov.

Over 800 Maine students complete Read to Ride Summer Reading Challenge

Bike Winners — Makayla Harding (state level winner)
Charlie Bernard (school level winner).

Preventing summer reading slide is a goal of many Maine educators. Students can lose months of learning gains if their brains do not remain active. During the summer of 2017, the Maine Department of Education partnered with the Freemasons of Maine to sponsor the Read to Ride Summer Reading Challenge. Over 800 students in over 60 schools across Maine completed the challenge of reading at least 500 minutes during summer vacation—that is 400,000 minutes of reading! The Freemasons graciously donated 48 bikes and helmets which were awarded to state level contest winners.

Read to Ride
Principal, Kyle Rhoads
Bike Winner, Chase Gagnon

School principals noted that the Read to Ride Challenge was motivating and helped accomplish the goal of keeping students actively engaged in learning throughout the summer months. Schools were also able to coordinate this opportunity with other summer literacy initiatives going on in their schools and in public libraries. For additional information, contact Lee Anne Larsen, Literacy Specialist at leeann.larsen@maine.gov.

Maine DOE legislative summary available

Maine DOE has prepared a summary of major laws related to education enacted by the First Regular Session of the 128th Maine Legislature. This information may prove helpful to educators when planning for the 2017-8 school year.

For each relevant bill, the summary lists the provisions, effective date, action required by the bill and primary contact person at the Department, the State Board of Education, the Maine Charter School Commission and/or other organizations.

A law indicated as an “emergency” is a law that was passed by a two-thirds vote of the Maine Legislature; emergency legislation can take effect immediately upon the Governor’s signature. For non-emergency laws passed during the First Regular Session, the general effective date is November 1, 2017 unless otherwise noted.

The summary can be found at www.maine.gov/doe/rule/index.html.

Please contact Debra Plowman, Director of Policy, at debra.plowman@maine.gov with questions.

PRIORITY NOTICE: Reporting 2017-18 Student Information – Due Date October 31, 2017

TO: Private School Administrators
FROM: Dr. Robert G. Hasson, Jr., Maine Education Commissioner
DATE: October 10, 2017
SUBJECT: Reporting 2017-18 Student Information – Due Date October 31, 2017

The Synergy State edition is online for school year 2017-18 updates. The updated 2017-18 student information will be utilized to meet State and federal reporting requirements (Graduates, Dropouts, AYP, etc.) as well as the calculation of State subsidy for 2017-18 for Maine’s public school administrative units.

All private schools with publicly funded students must report all “publicly funded students” in the State of Maine’s Synergy State System. The private schools that receive publicly funded students must report these students in the Synergy State Education system in order for the public school administrative units to receive a subsidy count for these students in their future State subsidy. The State subsidy to a public school unit is often the source of funding that a school administrative unit uses to pay the tuition for these students to attend the private schools.

Student Enrollment Reporting – Due Date October 31, 2017:

October 1, 2017 Student Count – all publicly funded students should be enrolled in Synergy State Edition by October 31, 2017 so that the resident public school administrative units may review the data and verify the October 1st student count.

For private schools enrolling “ALL” students in the Synergy System, please fax (1-866-219-8344) or mail the completed Signature Page of the October 1st Enrollment Report (EF-M-13) indicating that all students have been enrolled in the State Education system. There will be no need to complete the remainder of the EF-M-13.
For private schools enrolling only publicly funded students in the State Education system, please complete the October 1st Enrollment Report (EF-M-13 – Sections 2 and 3 only) and email the Excel spreadsheet form to the Department at GPA.DOE@maine.gov. In addition, please fax the completed Signature Page to 1-866-219-8344.
For private schools that have no publicly funded students, please complete the October 1st Enrollment Report (EF-M-13 – Sections 2 and 3) for the non-publicly funded students and email the Excel spreadsheet form to the Department at GPA.DOE@maine.gov. In addition, please fax the completed Signature Page to 1-866-219-8344.

The EF-M-13 Form can be downloaded from the Department of Education’s website at:
http://www.maine.gov/education/forms/misteam/enrollment/october/octprv.htm

60% Publicly Funded Private Schools

These 11 private schools must complete both the EF-M-13 and the EPS October Enrollment Certifications.

If you have any questions regarding the Synergy State Edition please contact the MEDMS Help Desk at (207) 624-6896 or e-mail medms.helpdesk@maine.gov.

If you have any general student questions, please contact Travis Wood at (207) 624-6742 or e-mail travis.wood@maine.gov.

PRIORITY NOTICE: Urgent message regarding uploading student enrollment data

The Maine Department of Education is working quickly to resolve reported issues that School Administrative Units (SAU) are experiencing in uploading and validating October 1 student enrollment counts in the Synergy State Edition Student System. The Department understands your frustration and concern, and we apologize for any inconvenience these issues have caused. Please be advised that Department staff members are on hand to work with SAUs to ensure the data is as accurate as possible as the October 31^st deadline approaches.

The upload period has been extended from October 16 to October 23, however, due to a very strict timeline for receiving the data to use for subsidy calculations, the Department is unable to offer time extensions to certify your October 1 enrollment. Therefore, changes to data will automatically refresh the EPS reports up until October 23rd, after that point in time, any changes will require a manual refresh. Enrollment certification reports cannot be submitted until October 24th, but are still due by October 31st.

A significant number of SAUs have not uploaded any student enrollment and program data into the new Synergy student information system. Please upload your data right away so that we are able to help ensure the data is correct before the deadline for correcting data has passed. Special Education data that was loaded prior to 1PM, Friday, October 6, 2017 will need to be re-uploaded due to technical issues with this data. We apologize for this extra work.

Please refer to the quick reference guide for uploading student enrollment counts to Synergy. If you have further questions, if you are not sure how to upload or enter your data, or if you need access to Synergy or NEO, please contact the helpdesk at medms.helpdesk@maine.gov or at 624-6896.

Synergy technical issues resolved

The Department has resolved a technical issue with the upload functionality for special education data in the Synergy State Edition Student System.

To solve this issue, it was necessary to delete all special education data that had been uploaded prior to 1:00pm on Friday, October 6, 2017. If you have uploaded your special education data prior to this date/time, it will be necessary for you to upload the data again.

In addition, another system error, pre-population of prior services and an exit date, has been corrected.

If you have already uploaded special education data and need to re-upload as a result of this technical issue, please be sure you are uploading new special education student information and changes to existing special education students rather than starting new. If you re-upload data exactly as it has been uploaded previously, you will receive an error message.

Note: Please see a recent priority notice that relates to Synergy uploads.

For further information and questions, please contact the Data Help Desk at 207-624-6896 or medms.helpdesk@maine.gov.

PRIORITY NOTICE: Maine DOE’s path forward with respect to Chapter 134 (Regulations for Awarding a High School Diploma)

After careful review of all oral and written comments received by the Maine DOE regarding proposed rule Chapter 134, Regulations for Awarding a High School Diploma, the Maine DOE has made the decision to withdraw the current proposed rule and restart the rulemaking process after a brief pause for conceptual conversations. The conceptual conversations will provide an opportunity to explore areas needing greater clarity in the current proposed rule Chapter 134. The Maine DOE remains committed to the proficiency-based diploma law (20-A MRS 4722-A) and remains committed to drafting a proposed rule that supports the implementation of a diploma based on evidence of proficiency.

The Department intends to start a new rulemaking process for proposed rule Chapter 134 once the following steps have been taken:

1.) During the month of October, Maine DOE’s Proficiency-based Education (PBE) Specialist will reach out to professional organizations to invite representatives from each of their stakeholder groups (superintendents, principals, curriculum leaders, special education directors, teachers, parents, and school board members) to engage in small (approximately 15 participants), role-alike, conceptual discussions regarding equitable access to a high school diploma and student readiness for entering career and college opportunities after high school. A randomly selected high school from each superintendent region will be contacted to engage in small (approximately 15 participants) conceptual conversations with students. These conceptual discussions will be facilitated by the Maine DOE PBE Specialist and guided by the following discussion prompts. (The Commissioner and other Maine DOE members may join the conversations as their schedules allow.):

a.) To what degree do you agree or disagree with this statement and why: The knowledge, required skills, and qualifications required for entrance into post-secondary opportunities in industry, trade, business, and higher education vary.

What do you see is needed to prepare students for their post-secondary next step?

b.) To what degree do you agree or disagree with this statement and why: The transcript and diploma are inseparable companion documents that together articulate a student’s readiness for the postsecondary next step she or he has chosen.

What do you see is needed to clearly articulate a student’s readiness for the postsecondary next step she or he has chosen?

c.) To what degree do you agree or disagree with this statement and why: The high school transcript must clearly communicate the student’s proficiency across the grade span progressions (preschool-grade 2; grades 3-5; grades 6-8; grades 9-12) thus providing a clear, accurate communication of what the student has achieved and what the diploma based on proficiency represents for each student.

What do you see is needed to clearly articulate what a student has learned?

d.) To what degree do you agree or disagree with this statement and why: Every student needs a personal learning plan and a small team whose primary goal is to understand the student’s aspirations, strengths, challenges, contexts of his or her life. The team works collaboratively with the student and others to provide the student access to learning experiences that support her or him so that she or he may learn as close to full potential as humanly possible. The focus on the team is always on the student developing competencies that will support her or his aspirations and development of efficacy towards these aspirations as well as the student’s ability to reach the highest grade span proficiency level possible while eligible to attend our public schools.

What do you see is needed to increase the probability that a student will graduate ready for his or her postsecondary next step?

e.) To what degree do you agree or disagree with this statement and why: Statewide agreement regarding what proficiency means or looks like in each grade span progressions (preschool-grade 2; grades 3-5; grades 6-8; grades 9-12) is necessary to support student opportunity to learn and demonstrate proficiency.

What do you see is needed to support opportunity to learn and demonstrate proficiency across the state?

f.) Would you be willing to share a final thought as a result today’s conversation

2.) Taking into consideration the insights gained from the upcoming conceptual discussions and the September public comments, the Maine DOE staff will write a new proposed rule Chapter 134 and begin again the Maine Administrative Procedures Act (A.P.A.) routine technical rule process pursuant to 5 MRS §8052 (public notice of filing, public hearing, open public comment period).The Maine DOE is working diligently to honor the integrity and vision for the high school diploma and transcript articulated in Maine education statute 20-A MRS §4722-A as well as the routine technical rulemaking pursuant to section §4722-A subsection 7. Maine DOE believes public input is a critically important.

It is clear from the oral and written comments submitted on proposed rule Chapter 134 that there is commitment in Maine to provide opportunity for all students to learn as much as they can the entire time the students are eligible to attend our public schools. It is also clear that the diploma has great social meaning and currency in our society. Clearly evident in the comments is that equity sits at the heart of the debate regarding what constitutes sufficient evidence for proficiency. We have provided links below to both the oral and written comments received by the September 8^thdeadline.

Recorded public hearing and the written comments received by September 8, 2017 for proposed rule Chapter 134 submitted by September 8, 2017.

For more information on proposed rule Chapter 134 and the diploma based on proficiency, contact Maine Department of Education Proficiency-Based Education Specialist, Diana Doiron at diana.doiron@maine.gov

National Board Certified Teacher Scholarship Funds available

State law, 20-A MRSA Section 13013-A subsection 5 & 6; as amended by PL 2012 c. 702, established the National Board Certification Scholarship Fund to encourage teachers to apply to and enroll in the certification program offered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, or its successor organization.

A school administrative unit or a publicly supported secondary school or CTE region, may request scholarship funds on behalf of its teachers who meet the requirements.

In fiscal year 2017-18, Maine DOE will allocate $75,000 to the scholarship fund and shall award an amount equal to the cost of the certification program, less any other funds received by the applicant, on a first-come first-served basis to teachers accepted into the certification program.

For more information and eligibility requirements please go to http://www.maine.gov/doe/national-board/scholarship.

If you have questions please contact Maine DOE’s Kelly Colby at kelly.colby@maine.gov or by phone at 624-6793.

National Board Certified Teacher Salary Supplement Request due November 10

Superintendents of a school administrative unit or the director of a publicly-supported secondary school or CTE region, with eligible staff who have attained National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Certification prior to July 1, 2017, must submit to the Maine DOE the list of those eligible to receive the salary supplement for the 2017-18 school year by November 10, 2017.

In order to qualify for the salary supplement, eligible staff must be currently employed by a Maine public school, or by a publicly-supported secondary school or CTE region in Maine. Eligible position titles include classroom teacher, special education teacher, literacy specialist, long-term substitute teacher, library media specialist, guidance counselor, teacher leaders, and principals with certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, or its successor organization.

The amount of the salary supplement for fiscal year 2017-18 is $3,000.00, unless proration is necessary. The submission form and further information is available at http://www.maine.gov/doe/national-board/supplement.

If you have questions please contact Maine DOE’s Kelly Colby at kelly.colby@maine.gov or by phone at 624-6793; Paula Gravelle at paula.b.gravelle@maine.gov or by phone at 624-6792.