The Maine Department of Education’s Office of Special Services will be hosting a training webinar to assist Local Education Agencies in new and important procedural and timeline changes regarding the 2016-2017 IDEA Local Entitlement electronic application process.
Continue reading “Annual Local Entitlement application training webinar”
Twenty student artists will have an audience of more than 70,000 students and educators for their artwork starting this fall.
More than 125 Maine students submitted images to be considered for the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) Screensaver Challenge. An independent panel of three judges used a rubric to score each image and select the winners.
Continue reading “Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) Screensaver Challenge”
February 22-26 was National FFA Week, which made for an impressive week for a national student leader visiting Maine. Formerly known as “Future Farmers of America,” FFA is the leadership training organization for secondary and middle school students enrolled in courses related to agriculture and natural resources, as well as fostering the networking and community outreach efforts of post-secondary students in these areas.
Continue reading “National FFA Vice President discovers Maine agriculture”
The following Priority Notice was sent March 17
With much focus recently on the Maine Education Assessment Math & ELA/Literacy eMPowerME test starting next week, we must be reminded that next month we have our required MEA Science for grades 5, 8 and third year high school.
The same as previous years, this assessment is from Measured Progress and is a paper-pencil test. The test window is two weeks and runs from April 25 – May 6.
If there are any requests for LARGE PRINT versions of this assessment, now is the time to notify Assessment Coordinator Nancy Godfrey at nancy.godfrey@maine.gov or call 624-6775.
The 2016 USDA Equipment Assistance Grant process has begun. This year Maine has $89,380 in assistance funds to distribute. This is the fifth year the grants have been made available and as in past years, the funds will be distributed through a competitive grant process. The application form and related documents can be found here.
The school year 2017 Paid Lunch Equity (PLE) tool has been released by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and can be downloaded from the Child Nutrition website here.
Continue reading “School Nutrition Programs Paid Lunch Equity (PLE) tool now available”
Pine tree state native Anna Kendrick is making use of the internet to raise funds for 31 schools in Maine. The Pitch Perfect star and Academy Award-nominee has joined in the Best School Day philanthropy project recognizing her home state. You can read more about her efforts aimed to help schools in Portland, Norway, Buxton, and Milo.
Advocating for changing the age limit from 18 to 23 for obtaining a fishing license was the topic of discussion last month when five students from Deer Isle-Stonington High School (DISHS) provided testimony in support of LD 1503 to the legislature Committee on Marine Resources. Each student’s testimony articulated the positive impact the bill’s proposed changes would have on their learning and their future careers. Many of the student testimonies pointed to the difficulty of meeting the 1000 hours and 200 days of fishing required for earning a license in the student apprentice program while simultaneously attending to their studies and earning a high school diploma.
Continue reading “Students advocate for learning…the marine studies way”
The following Priority Notice was sent on March 17
The FY 2017 (2016-17 school year) State subsidy printouts, known as ED 279s, are now available here on our website: http://www.maine.gov/doe/eps/.
These printouts are based on PL 2015, Chapter 389 which provides an additional appropriation of $15 million dollars to General Purpose Aid for Local Schools for FY 2017.
The printouts also reflect corrections for data quality issues identified after the January 29 publication of the printouts, as well as adjustments for Adult Education course counts and debt service adjustments for those school units which were impacted by recent debt refinancing.
We hope the publication of the ED 279s is informative to your local budget preparations.
If you have any questions as you review these printouts, contact our School Finance team via email: tyler.backus@maine.gov, paula.b.gravelle@maine.gov or joanne.allen@maine.gov.
The following Priority Notice was sent on March 15
Following the initial publication of the preliminary FY 2017 (2016-17 school year) state subsidy printouts (ED 279) on January 29, 2016, data quality issues were detected. During the time in which the Department has been working to correct these issues, the Legislature passed, and the Governor signed, PL 2015, Chapter 389 which provides an additional appropriation of $15 million dollars to General Purpose Aid for Local Schools for FY 2017.
In order to provide school administrative units with timely information needed for budgeting purposes, the Department has produced several spreadsheets which illustrate the changes to each school administrative unit’s subsidy allocation, beginning with the preliminary ED 279 published on January 29, to the impact of the additional $15 million appropriation enacted this week. The following spreadsheets are available here:
In addition to corrections for the identified data quality issues, amounts in the spreadsheet include adjustments for Adult Education course counts, replacing the estimated counts originally used with actual counts, as reported on the EFM 39 reports. Also included are debt service adjustments for those school units which were impacted by recent debt refinancing.
Work is continuing to correct systemic issues which impact the actual ED 279 report. As soon as those issues are corrected and the detailed reports posted, school units will be notified. In the meantime, these spreadsheets will assist school units in moving forward with their FY 2017 budget work.
Please direct questions regarding these printouts to the School Finance team via email: tyler.backus@maine.gov, paula.b.gravelle@maine.gov or joanne.allen@maine.gov.
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