Summary of Changes Relating to Pennsylvania Department of Education Supplemental Educational Services Non-Regulatory Guidance Issued June 13, 2005
II. B. Overview of State Responsibilities
PDE must develop, implement, and publicly report on standards and techniques for monitoring providers. (B1) PDE must maintain a list of providers by school district. (B1) PDE should encourage LEAs to make registrations widely available to parents. PDE might want to consider posting the registration form on PDE website. (B2) PDE is encouraged to develop a uniform contract to ensure that LEAs use fair and equitable contracts and do not limit providers’ abilities to promote their programs. (B2) PDE guidance may also cover procedures for allowing providers to operate their programs in school buildings. (B2) PDE may consider developing policy with regard to providers’ use of financial incentives or other gifts. Policy must apply equally to all and not bar standard marketing practices. (B3) PDE might want to allow providers to offer nominal incentives to parents or students to attend information sessions and provider fairs, for regular student attendance, or for student academic achievement. On the other hand, an SEA might want to prohibit providers from giving any financial incentive or gift to a student or parent for enrolling in a specific program or to switch enrollment to another program. Additionally, PDE might want to prohibit providers from offering incentives to schools for signing up students for their programs. (B3) PDE should watch for LEA practices that give preferential treatment to certain providers due, for instance, to their long-standing relationship with the SD, or give preferential treatment to LEA’s own program. ie, allowing some providers access to school facilities free-of-charge, while charging rent to others, or an LEA advertising its program to parents, but not allowing other providers to advertise in the same way. (B3) PDE is allowed to set a pay range (B3) for fees taking into consideration: (B4) o Pupil/Tutor Ratio o Variation in per-pupil allocations among LEAs in PA o Number of instructional hours o Qualifications of tutoring staff o Cost of materials and equipment o Rent charged to the agency o LEA policies concerning attendance o Variation in cost of doing business in specific LEA
II. C. State Level Operations
PDE may not discriminate on basis of religion. (C9)
Rural districts are encouraged to work with providers using technology. Such providers may provide students with computers. (C10) PDE is encouraged to consider using preliminary AYP data in order to provide early warning to LEA Providers that have not met AYP should they need to make arrangements for students being tutored. (C11) Approved LEA providers identified must end services no later than the start of the next semester. (C12) LEA may not refuse to permit a State approved provider to serve because the LEA disagrees with the provider’s program design. (C16) See G3. PDE may require each franchise to apply separately or choose to accept one application to cover all franchises in a large provider with multiple franchise operations. (C23)
II. D. Monitoring Requirements
PDE has the responsibility, through the approval and monitoring processes, to ensure that high-quality services are delivered. ( D1) PDE must develop a system for gathering information about the effectiveness of providers on an annual or periodic basis. (D2) Examples: o Academic gains o Program reflects the design as proposed in application. o Student enrollment and daily attendance. o Parent and student satisfaction. o How often the provider reports student progress to teachers and parents. PDE is responsible for monitoring and should request assistance from LEAs only in collecting data, not in evaluating effectiveness of providers, especially when the LEA is also a provider. (Conflict of interest.) (D2) PDE may require the LEA to submit to PDE the parental notification letter and periodic updates on number of students in the program. PDE, as part of its auditing and on-site and desk monitoring will determine whether the LEA is fulfilling this responsibility. (D5) PDE is responsible for ensuring LEA met all demand for the 20% and LEA must be able to document that it has fully met all demand before reallocating funding through: (D6) o Notification of all parents. o Adequately publicized options in understandable formats and multiple forums. o Reasonable period of time to investigate options and submit registration. Non-compliance could mean withholding funding or repayment of misspent funds. (D7)
III. E. LEA Responsibilities
LEA must notify parents, help parents choose provider, determine which students should receive services if not all students can be served, enter into an agreement, assist PDE in identifying potential providers, protect privacy of students. New Guidance removed: “Provide the information the SEA
needs to monitor the quality and effectiveness of the services offered by providers.” (E1) New listing of multiple avenues for informing parents: (E2) o Newspapers, internet, notices mailed, radio, TV, notices at theaters, malls, churches, etc. Notice to parents must contain: (E2) o Providers within the LEA or geographical area and should also identify those that are distance providers. o Describe services, qualifications, and evidence of effectiveness. o Describe procedures and timelines that parents must follow. o Be easily understandable. o If the LEA anticipates not having enough funds should describe how it will set priorities to determine which students do receive services. See F3 LEA should not restrict the distribution of enrollment forms (including photocopying forms) by non-LEA individuals. LEAs should ensure that they have an open, adequate, and reasonable process for parents to submit application forms. (E2) Guidance includes a sample parent notification letter.
III. F. Identifying eligible students
An LEA should not assume, before it contacts parents, that it will have limited resources for SES. Rather the LEA should notify all eligible families of their children’s eligibility. (F3) Possibilities of ensuring provider information is made available to parents: (F8) Two additions to the Guidance: o Include a parental consent line on the SES application, so parents can provide consent to share information with providers. o Leave information about each provider at eligible schools for parents to review when they visit the school. Many providers have brochures and promotional materials that can be left at school sites for parents to read.
III. G. Arranging for SES
LEA may not impose requirements that providers offer a certain number of hours or employ only state-certified teachers or set teacher-student ratios. (G3) LEA may impose reasonable administrative and operational requirements through agreements. ie. background checks, liability insurance, fees for use of school facilities, and the issuance of whether payments will be based in part on student attendance. (G4) LEA is strongly encouraged to notify parents at the beginning of the school year about SES. (G7) LEAs are encouraged to allow providers in the school building, either free of charge or for a reasonable fee. LEAs should ensure that the use of the school building by providers is on the same basis and terms as are available to other
groups that seek access to the school building. However, if many providers are approved, or if other after-school programs are housed in the LEA’s schools, it may not be possible to have all providers use school buildings. Therefore, an LEA should select providers to operate on-site in a manner that is fair, transparent, and objective. Whatever the system an LEA uses, it should strive to provide parents with as diverse and large a group of on-site providers as possible, including faith-based and community providers. (G15) III. H. Role of Parents
Addition of websites:
o http://www.tutors4kids.org/families/infoforfamilies.asp o http://www.pirc-info.net/
III. I. Information to Parents
LEAs must provide annual notification in an understandable (ie. using “free” instead of “Supplemental Educational Services” and at an appropriate educational level for all parents.) and uniform format and in as many languages as practicable about: o Availability of SES o Providers in the geographical area o Description of services, qualifications, and demonstrated effectiveness o How students become eligible for services, that services are free o Where and when to return completed application o When and how SD will notify parents about enrollment dates and start dates o Whom to contact in the LEA with questions (I1)
Either in the letter or an accompanying publication include: o Grade levels and subject areas each provider will serve o Where and when each provider will offer its program o How many sessions each provider will offer o How long each session will last o Tutor-pupil ratio o If provider offers off-site transportation (I1) Back-to-School nights should offer information to parents. (I )1 LEA should consider having staff or volunteers on hand to help parents understand and complete the enrollment process. (I2) The LEAs authority to terminate an agreement is limited to services provided to an individual student and should not cover all students served by a provider. (I5) See G3
IV. Provider Responsibilities
Resources available to help potential providers become state-approved and help current providers strengthen the quality of their programs: (J4) o Workshops and technical assistance o http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/list/fbci/suppserv-workshops.html. o http://www.tutors4kids.org/documents/SESProvidersToolkit_002.pdf
V. Funding Issues
LEA must be able to fully document that it has met the demands for services and consider whether it has: o Appropriately notified all eligible parents o Adequately publicized the options o Offered parents a reasonable period of time to investigate options and submit requests. (K4) o LEA may use School Improvement funds (K5) Other Federal programs used to pay for SES: o Titles IIA, IID, IV, V o Administrative Funds under Title I Part A o IDEA (added) May use solely for students with disabilities May count toward its obligation to spend an amount equivalent to 20% of Title I (K6) Per Pupil (K1)4 o Estimates of max per pupil online: o http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/titlei/fy04/index.html allocation. o LEAs may incur additional per-pupil expenses related to the administration of SES