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Aloha HE'E Members and Participants,
As many of you are aware, the Hawaii State Department of Education (HIDOE) is applying for ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) Flexibility in Fall 2012. As of July 24, 2012, the U.S. Department of Education has approved waiver applications from 33 states. The U.S. Department of Education offered each State educational agency this voluntary opportunity to request flexibility regarding specific requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 in exchange for rigorous and comprehensive State-developed plans designed to improve educational outcomes for all students, close achievement gaps, increase equity, and improve the quality of instruction. The draft application, public survey to provide comment on the draft application and ESEA Flex summary are posted on HIDOE's website.
HIDOE is hosting a series of Listening Sessions about ESEA Flexibility for school administrators, teachers and community.
August 10:
Aiea Elementary Library 8:30-10:00am
Annex B of McKinley Community School Maui Campus 1:30-3:00pm
August 13:
Pu'uhale Elementary School Art Room 8:30-10:00am
Windward District Conference Room 1 3:00-4:30pm
August 16:
Kapolei Golf Course 8:30-10:00am
Hilo State Building 1:30-3:00pm
August 20:
Kauai location TBA 3:00-4:00pm
HE'E's presentation of Hawaii's Growth Model can also be seen on Olelo and will also be available on Olelo's video on demand. Please check HE'E's (www.heecoalition.org) website for link to video on demand.
8/8/2012 10:30 AM FOCUS 49
8/9/2012 2:30 PM FOCUS 49
8/10/2012 6:00 PM VIEW 54
8/11/2012 10:30 PM VIEW 54
HE'E staff has made comments to the ESEA Flex application draft based on our review of the presentation materials and our meeting with HIDOE staff regarding the application; these comments are here. They are not the comments of the Coalition as a whole.
Overall, the staff supports the ESEA Flex application. We focused most of our comments on Principle 2: Differentiated Recognition, Accountability and Support. We like that the application incorporates growth as a measure of success as well as some readiness indicators that HE'E supported in the DOE Strategic Plan. It also moves away from the HSA as a sole indicator and looks at a relevant test like the ACT as a measure. Further, it no longer uses "Failing" as a label for schools. It establishes clearer definitions of our populations so there will be better data and tries to avoid double or triple counting of students which can adversely effect school results. Finally, it uses the Academic and Financial Plan (AFP or AcFin) of each school to clearly articulate interventions and strategies to achieve growth and student success.
Our comments also focus on including more family-school partnership opportunities within the AFP and intervention strategies, adding more examples throughout the application to demonstrate and explain how the system will be different if the application is accepted. We also recommend additional readiness indicators at the elementary and middle school levels, changing "Reward" Schools to "Recognition" Schools. We request that families have a stronger role in determining intervention strategies and that role must go beyond "informing" parents and families about school efforts. We also requested that the application include a better overview of the roles and responsibilities within the DOE (state, complex and school level) and an organizational chart.
We very much welcome your feedback on our comments as we will be sending them to the DOE. Please contact us if you would like to talk more about the ESEA Flexibility application and send your comments to cheri@heecoalition.org.
We will be asked to write a letter of support so we need to get a sense of members' view towards the application. This request will come in the next few weeks; hence, we would like to prepare our response accordingly.
The deadline for public comment on the application is Friday August 17, 2012. Therefore, we would like your comments regarding ESEA Flex and HE'E staff comments by Tuesday August 14, 2012. We appreciate the quick turnaround on this matter.
Please contact us if you should have any questions.
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