DC&R Financial and Compliance Forms incorrectly shown as overdue

The Data Collection and Reporting (DC&R) System went live earlier this year as a replacement for the Missing Reports system the Department previously used to inform school systems, and the public, when reports are coming due, or had not been received. During the transition to DC&R, historical information for the financial reports was used to determine if reports were received. These reports include actual expenditures, actual revenue, actual balance sheet, budget expenditure, budget revenue, EF-S-07, EF-S-214, and audits. Unfortunately, as Missing Reports did not include some of the reports, reports that are currently showing as not received, have in fact been received by the Department.

The School Finance and Compliance Team is working to update DC&R to correctly display which reports have not been received. All current forms are being checked in manually until an automated process is established. Please contact Maine DOE School Finance and Compliance Coordinator Tyler Backus at tyler.backus@maine.gov with any questions.

Maine kids in need of education “surrogate” parents

Augusta – The Maine Department of Education (DOE) is seeking volunteers to serve as an education “surrogate” parent to a child or children with disabilities who have no available natural parents and/or guardians, including children in the custody of the state.

An educational surrogate parent is appointed to act independently on behalf of a student with disabilities and to safeguard the student’s rights in the special education process. Examples include permission for evaluation and placement, meetings to discuss the child’s programming, release of information, and request for educational hearing.

“Being a surrogate parent to children from many different backgrounds is sometimes challenging but always rewarding. These children, and too many more like them, need to know that someone cares about them and is watching over their educational needs and progress,” said Peter Quimby, Education Surrogate from Thorndike.

As part of the State’s Education Surrogate Parent program, Maine DOE matches children up with a volunteer surrogate parent who acts to ensure the child is provided with equal educational opportunities.

“The time commitment is as much or as minimal as the volunteer wants it to be. Some are only able to attend the annual IEP (educational programing) meeting either in person or by phone, and others are very involved by not only attending meetings, but also visiting the student and staying in regular contact,” said Commissioner Robert Hasson. “It’s a really great program, but we always need more volunteers.”

The voluntary position may sometimes require travel, but travel expenses are reimbursed by the State of Maine.

Find out more on the Maine DOE Surrogate Parent Program webpage or contact Staci Fowler at (207) 624-6670 or Stacia.Fowler@maine.gov for more information.

Maine students and educators gather at UMaine for annual MLTI Student Conference

MLTI Student Conference.PNG One thousand Maine students and hundreds of Maine educators gathered at the University of Maine at Orono last Friday for the annual Maine Department of Education (DOE) Maine Learning Through Technology Initiative (MLTI) Student Conference.

The event is an annual one day technology conference designed specifically for students who participate in the Maine DOE’s statewide technology program for students.

Students attend the event to partake in several blocks of workshops, including sessions on virtual reality, music, artificial intelligence, creating videos, 3D printing, app development, drones, storytelling, info graphics, and much more! See a full list of this year’s workshops.

At the end of the conference students took part in one “uber” session where all attendees worked together with the featured the Maine band The Ballroom Thieves, who played live music that incorporated various learning elements which engaged audience participation with devices.

More information about the 2017 MLTI Student Conference

2017 Maine Curriculum Leader of the Year announced

The Maine Curriculum Leaders’ Association recently selected Becky Brown, Director of Curriculum, Assessment and Instruction in South Portland as Maine’s 2017 Curriculum Leader of the Year. Nominated by her superintendent Ken Kunin, Brown is described as “a forward thinking, reflective district and state leader in the move to proficiency-based learning.

To read more about Maine’s Curriculum Leader of the Year, click here or visit the Maine Curriculum Leaders’ Association website at mainecla.org.

Initial Synergy upload information

The Maine Department of Education (DOE) has published initial code sets and data file layouts with definitions for the new state level student information system for the 2017-18 school year. These documents can be found at: http://maine.gov/doe/data/student/Synergy_upload.html

The change in code sets is in preparation for future interoperability implementations. Please continue to check back to this site frequently, as we will be adding sample files and additional documents for Career and Technical Education (CTE), Behavior, Truancy, and Proficiency-Based Education data sets.

In addition to the new code sets and uploads, Maine DOE has also changed school and district ids. More information regarding this and a list of codes for the 2016-17 schools can be found at: https://mainedoenews.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/changes-to-school-and-district-ids-for-2017-18-school-year/

In late June, an updated list for 2017-18, including codes for new schools and districts may will be located at: http://maine.gov/doe/data/infrastructure/index.html

For questions and code-set crosswalks to legacy codes, please contact the Department’s Helpdesk Manager Shannon Bartash at shannon.bartash@maine.gov or 624-6799 or Data Manager Charlotte Ellis at charlotte.ellis@maine.gov 624-6696.

Nominations being accepted for 2017 MAHPERD Teachers of the Year

Nominations are being accepted for the 2017 Maine Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (MAHPERD) Teachers of the Year awards.

Maine educators in the following categories are eligible for consideration: Elementary Physical Education Teacher, Middle Level Physical Education Teacher, Secondary Physical Education Teacher, Adapted Physical Education Teacher, Health Education Teacher, Recreation Teacher/Leader, and Dance Teacher. There are many deserving teachers throughout the State of Maine and MAHPERD would like to be able to recognize more of those individuals. Click here for more information regarding eligibility, nomination criteria and to access the application.

Nominations are due by June 30 and completed applications are due by August 21. For more information contact Kristen Allen at kallen@rsu10.org before June 30.

Report of Adult Education (EF-M-39A) – opens June 1st, due by July 15, 2017

Starting June 1, the EF-M-39 Report of Adult Education will be submitted online through the NEO Student Data Module. The report is a resident-based aggregate count of students aged 16 to 20 who live within the boundaries of a school administrative unit (SAU), are no longer enrolled in regular education classes, and are taking academic courses through a Maine Adult Education program, but not necessarily through the SAU in which they reside.

New this year, the Department is requesting that units report the number of students, the number of courses and credits taken; student names are no longer required.

Who Needs to Report:

All public SAUs, excluding public charter schools, must complete the report, even if there are no pupils to report. Please note that the individual SAU member entities of AOSs and school unions must report separately. SAUs whose students attend a regional Adult Education programs must report the number of resident students who attend the regional Adult Education programs.

EF-M-39A: Opens on June 1, 2017
Due by July 15, 2017
Data reporting period: January 1 – June 30, 2017

To Complete the Form: Go to https://neo.maine.gov/DOE/neo/Accounts/

Once logged in to the NEO system navigate to Student Data, if you do not have NEO credentials please have your Superintendent submit a NEO Access Request Form to the Maine DOE Data HelpDesk.

Enter the total number of students (between the ages of 16-20) enrolled in adult education
Enter the total number of courses
Enter the total number of credits

The Data Collection and Reporting (DC&R) Calendar lists all reports due to Maine DOE.

The accuracy, completeness, and timeliness of the data sent for this report has a direct correlation to the subsidy that your SAU may receive.

Questions: Call the MEDMS Helpdesk at (207) 624-6896 or email mailto:medms.helpdesk@maine.gov.

Join the Read to Ride Summer Reading Challenge

If you are like many teachers and parents at this time of year, you are celebrating the growth students have made as learners but wondering if that growth will be maintained over the summer months. Keeping young minds stimulated during summer vacation is so important to maintaining learning gains and one of the best ways for students to keep their minds active is through regular reading.

The Read to Ride Summer Reading Challenge provides any opportunity to motivate students to read this summer. The Maine Department of Education is collaborating with the Freemasons of Maine to sponsor this contest for students in grades PK-8. The Maine Freemasons have generously donated 48 bikes with helmets as prizes for the Read to Ride Summer Reading Challenge.

Any school serving students in grades PK-8 may register by June 16, 2017 to participate. Students who read (or are read to if they are not yet reading) at least 500 minutes during summer vacation will be eligible for their school level drawing. Participating schools will document which students have completed the challenge and hold a drawing to select two students (one boy and one girl) to enter into the state level drawing to be held on September 22, 2017. Schools are encouraged participate and to coordinate this opportunity with any other summer reading challenges/programs they offer. Details about the Read to Ride Summer Reading Challenge and about how to register your school can be found at: http://www.maine.gov/doe/literacy-for-me/summer-literacy.html.

Questions may be directed to Maine DOE’s Literacy Specialist Lee Anne Larsen at leeann.larsen@maine.gov.

Webinar on ESEA equitable share participation of Maine’s SAUs and non-public schools

The Maine DOE will offer a WebEx session June 8, 2017 from 10 – 11 a.m. providing guidance to school administrative units (SAUs) and non-public schools in the delivery and agreement of equitable services under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

The ESSA includes separate provisions governing equitable services for eligible private school students, teachers and other educational personnel, and families under Title I and programs covered under Title VIII, Part F, Subpart 1; as well as the Uniform Provisions Subpart 1—Private Schools: Equitable Services for Private School Students, Teachers, and Other Educational Personnel. Many of those requirements remain unchanged from requirements under the ESEA as amended by No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The ESSA, however, made a number of significant changes. Some of those changes are common to the equitable services requirements under both Title I and Title VIII; others are different.

The webinar will be conducted by Maine DOE’s Title I Consultant and Title II Coordinator, Jackie Godbout and Charles Lomonte, respectively. If you have questions prior to the event, please contact Charles Lomonte at 624-6723 or Charles.lomonte@maine.gov or Jackie Godbout at 624-6712 or Jackie.godbout@maine.gov.

Topics covered during the webinar include:

Consultation requirements between SAU and non-public schools
Deriving the proportionate share calculation
Allocation of funds
Eligibility
Types of equitable services
Evaluation of assessments

To participate in the webinar, please click here. The conference phone number is 1-877-455-0244, followed by conference code: 8223978943.

The Maine DOE offers ESEA equitable services training for those Maine SAUs and non-public school leaders who must consult about participating in non-public school equitable share resources.

Maine DOE issues reminder to complete survey on the identification and exit criteria for English learners

This notice is a reminder asking everyone in the education community to take a few minutes to complete a survey on how to identify English learners and when to exit English learners from service. Take the Survey Now

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, states are required to establish a uniform method of identifying and reclassifying English learners. Although Maine currently has these uniform procedures, it has been more than a decade since Maine has made any amendments to its Home Language Survey, and it was in 2013 that Maine underwent its latest data study to review English learners’ performance on academic assessments and their correlating WIDA ACCESS for ELLs scores. With the administration of the new ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 and changes in academic assessments, the Maine Department of Education is taking this opportunity to elicit public input, along with data, to determine the best methods to ensure a valid and reliable identification procedure as well as fair and appropriate exit criteria. To begin the process, here is a brief survey to help guide the Department. Take the Survey Now

In addition, please feel free to reach out directly to Maine DOE’s ESL Consultant April Perkins at april.perkins@maine.gov or 441-9043 to share additional thoughts, comments and suggestions not captured by the survey.

For more information about educational or English language acquisition services for English learners to ESL/Bilingual Programs, contact Maine DOE’s Director of ESL/Bilingual Programs Nancy Mullins at nancy.mullins@maine.gov or 624-6788.