To:

Members, Board of Education

From:

Maurice O. Green, Superintendent
Barbara Zwadyk, Chief Officer of  Curriculum and Organizational Development
Kelly K. Hales, Executive Director of Federal and Special Programs
Erik D. Naglee, Director of Title I

Date:

November 4, 2011

RE:

Supplemental Educational Services (SES) for 2011-12

Supplemental Educational Services (SES) are tutoring services offered outside of the regular school day to help students improve reading and mathematics skills as required by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal law. Title I schools must offer Supplemental Educational Services after not making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in the same subject for two or more years. For the fifth year, our district is participating in a pilot program which allows schools to offer SES after not making AYP for two years in a row.

Only students who are approved for free or reduced-priced lunch are eligible to participate in SES under the current NCLB law. SES providers are approved by the State Board of Education and school districts must contract with these approved providers. Once a parent selects a provider, a contract is established between the school district and the selected provider. SES providers are paid directly by the school district from Title I funds set aside specifically for Public School Choice Transportation and SES.

At the time of initial placement, 65 companies are providing services to 3,160 students.  Services start the week of November 14, 2011.

GCS ALL*STARS was approved by the NC State Board of Education to be an SES provider for Guilford County for the 2011-12 school year. Representatives from GCS ALL*STARS attended all of the SES school fairs and the tutor job fair.  Following Human Resources procedures, 115 potential tutors (99 are current GCS teachers, 16 are retired GCS teachers or principals) have attended 10 hours of mandatory training in using the web-based resources to tutor our students in reading and math. Additional training and support will be provided by the GCS ALL*STARS site lead tutors, program monitors and program coordinator. Tutors will be using Houghton Mifflin Destination Reading and Math, iLearn Math and SkillsPointer as their instructional resources.   Students receive thirty-three hours of instruction which includes working on prescribed tutorials and activities with computer-based instruction and working in small groups or individually with the tutor-based goals outlined in each student’s learning plan. Learning plans are written based on students’ Personal Education Plans created by the classroom teacher and pre-assessments in math and reading. It is our goal that every GCS ALL*STARS student receive high quality instruction each tutoring session based on the individual student’s needs. Parents are invited to the school site to review the learning plans and to preview the web based instructional materials their students will be using. The program resources are available via internet so they are available to students from school, home, and the public library. The GCS ALL*STARS program coordinator is available to support parents in using the resources with their children after the tutorial sessions have concluded through May.

RECOMMENDATION: Staff recommends approval of contracts as listed below for the state approved providers of Supplemental Educational Services (SES) during the 2011-12 school year.

Attachment(s):

SES Providers