SLT Biennial Survey for Members of SLTs - Give honest feedback

Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council Biennial SLT Survey deadline extended until next Wednesday! The deadline for completing the Biennial SLT survey was extended until Wednesday, December 23rd. If you are a member of your School Leadership Team and didn't have a chance to complete the survey, please take a moment to fill it out -- and let other members of your team know about the extension as well!. We are also asking that all Presidents' Council presidents pass this email along to their memberships. As a reminder, the Biennial SLT Survey takes place every other year. Responses are completely confidential. Although the survey asks for your school, this is a check to ensure you have the correct district and is not required. The final report includes only district level results and is used by your District Leadership Teams to help them understand how SLTs are functioning in your districts and to help them better target their training. So please complete the survey honestly. If you are a member of your SLT and have not received a link -- either from FACE or from your school -- you should contact your school principal, your parent coordinator, or your district Parent Leadership Coordinator (formerly DFA). If you are a member of your high school SLT, please contact your principal, your parent coordinator, or your superintendent's Parent Leadership Coordinator. If you have any problems completing the survey, please let FACE know! Thanks for helping to improve our schools!

DOE information regarding current Comprehensive Educational Plans (2015-2016)

Please note that SLTs should be working on creating the CEPs for the 2016-2017 school year by doing needs assessments and setting yearly goals and action plans. In the Spring, the budgets should be aligned with the CEPs. Regards, James Calantjis Address Remaining Feedback and Prepare Your School/Comprehensive Educational Plan (S/CEP) for Posting on Your School’s Website All schools / Deadline: October 30; Event: November 20 As noted in the October 20 edition of Principals’ Weekly, if you have not already done so, you should review and address any remaining reviewer feedback for your School/Comprehensive Educational Plan (S/CEP) by October 30 so that your superintendent can approve your final plan. For Struggling or Persistently Struggling schools that are in receivership, note that this includes Community Engagement Team recommendations and feedback from your public hearing, where applicable. In order to address reviewer feedback, you should update your plan using the online document editor in the iPlan portal. Once you have updated your plan, you should prepare it for posting on your school’s website following these steps (click here for additional guidance): § Click “save” to save your plan so that members of your school community who you have provisioned as designees can view updates. § Click “create new version” to back up the plan in the iPlan portal. § Click “update for review” so that your updated plan can be viewed by your superintendent. Please note that the original deadline for your superintendent to approve your final S/CEP has been extended to November 13 (from October 30); you will receive an email from iPlan support once your final plan has been approved. Note that your final S/CEP will be combined with your school’s Title III application (if applicable), Language Allocation Policy (LAP), and Language Translation and Interpretation Form (LTI) before it is posted on your school’s public website beginning on November 20 (extended from November 13). For more information on provisioning designee(s) at your school via the iPlan portal, click here. For technical assistance with iPlan, email cep-iplansupport@infusion.com. For other questions, contact the School/District Improvement Liaison (SDIL) for your district. Go back to the top Ensure Teacher Leaders are Staffed in Gal

SLT End of Year Principal Evaluation

SLT Chancellor's Regulation A-655 mandates that SLTs complete a principal evaluation form concerning the extent of shared decision making during the school year in the creation of the CEP and alignment of the budget. I am hearing that the DOE is neglecting this requirement from SLTs. The evaluation form can also be found in the A-655 Regulation. The Superintendent is sent the evaluations when completed my members. SLTs should make sure thay print out the forms and have members honestly complete them to provide a measure of accountability concerning the functioning of their teams.

SLT Law up for Renewal

School Leadership Team Laws (2590-h and 2590r) are up for renewal June 30th 2015. I would bet the DOE will try to persuade the State Legislature to take away SLT decision making on the CEP by giving the principal final approval. They tried to do that in 2010 by revising Chancellor's Regulation A-655 and were prevented to do so by a Commissioner's Appeal (Pollicino). Now is the time to advocate that SLTs be restored the powers they had from 1998, to develop the budget, also through shared decision making.We should also lobby for consistent training by the DOE as well as a strong grievance process.Contact Cathy Nolan ( nolanc@assembly.state.ny.us) in support of SLTs. She is the Education Chairperson. The victory in the Open Meetings Law case will be meaningless if the decision making powers of SLT's are further weakened by a rewriting of the legislation. Sincerely, James Calantjis sltsupport.blogspot.com

Court Case Affirms SLTs Subject to Open Meetings Law

The decision in the case of Thomas v.DOE came out today. It affirms that SLTs are public bodies and must adhere to the NYS Open Meetings Law. The DOE had asserted that members of the public could not attend SLT meetings. The decision also made important statements about SLT responsibilities. "The role of an SLT in formulating its school's CEP is one of decision maker" (p.9). "If it is fulfilling its statutory role, a schools SLT is not a mere advisor to the principal" (p.9). " In fulfilling this role, the SLT acts in conjunction with and not subordinate to, the schools principal"(p.9). It is shameful that parents and teachers need to go to court to force the DOE to adhere to the law. Make sure parents, teachers and the principal are made aware of this important decision. The links below will access the court case. http://go.shr.lc/1I0USSY or www.scribd.com/doc/262875757/Thomas-v-DOE-Decision-and-Judgment

CEP Update -Principals' Weekly

CEP Quality Assurance and S/CEP Progress Monitoring All schools / Deadline: February 27 Please note the updates below regarding the quality assurance process (for Comprehensive Educational Plans only) and progress monitoring (for all schools): Revised Process for Quality Assurance Feedback for CEPs Only: This week, your network leader or network CEP point will email you a CEP Quality Assurance (QA) feedback report. You should work with your School Leadership Team (SLT) to incorporate the feedback into your school’s CEP; your superintendent will receive a copy of this report as well. As a first step, you should download your CEP from the iPlan Portal and, as noted in the January 6 edition of Principals’ Weekly, review whether the NYCDOE made any updates to your plan. You should make revisions to this version of the plan only; do not use any prior versions that you may have saved. The deadline for uploading your revised final plan to the iPlan portal is February 27. Guidance for SCEP schools: Note that schools that completed SCEPs received QA feedback and were asked to update their SCEPs in December. If your school’s SCEP has not been fully updated with that guidance or needs further refining, you should incorporate relevant revisions to the current version of your SCEP in the iPlan Portal by February 27. Process for Reviewing Progress: As noted in the January 13 edition of Principals’ Weekly, all schools except School Improvement Grant (SIG) and School Innovation Fund (SIF) schools should use this 2014-15 S/CEP Mid-Point Review of School Progress document to guide their SLT in a review of their schools’ progress towards meeting annual goals. This document is intended as a guide only; you should not upload it to iPlan. Note that: § If your school completed the 2014-15 S/CEP, you should not complete Part 6b – Progress Monitoring for any of your goals. You should use the 2014-15 S/CEP Mid-Point Review of School Progress document noted above instead and incorporate any necessary updates directly into the S/CEP action plan for each of your goal/s. § If you are the principal of a SIG or SIF school and your school only completed the Title I Appendix, you are not required to use the Mid-Point Review of School Progress document. For more information about the process for your school, click here for SIG schools and here for SIF schools. Your network is available to support you in determining if your school met benchmarks and made appropriate progress towards meeting your annual goals. If you, your SLT, or your network determine that your school has not made sufficient progress toward meeting a goal, you, your SLT, and your network should discuss and identify resources and strategies to support your school in meeting that goal by the end of the school year. You must update the action plan(s) in your S/CEP to reflect the strategies that you and your SLT agree upon before uploading your final S/CEP to the iPlan Portal. As noted above, the deadline for uploading your revised final plan to the iPlan portal is February 27. By March 5, the NYCDOE will combine each school’s S/CEP with its Language Allocation Policy (LAP), Language Translation and Interpretation (LTI) Plan, and Title III plan (if applicable) and post it on your school’s NYCDOE website. For questions, contact your network leader.

School/Comprehensive Educational Plans (S/CEP): Quality Assurance and Monitoring Progress All schools / Deadline: February 27 Please review the updates below regarding the School Comprehensive Educational Plan (S/CEP) process: Revised Process for Reviewing Progress: You should use this 2014-15 S/CEP Mid-Point Review of School Progress document to guide your School Leadership Team (SLT) in a review of your school’s progress towards meeting your annual goals. Note that: As first noted in the January 6 edition of Principal’s Weekly, you should first download your school’s S/CEP from the iPlan Portal and review it to determine whether the NYCDOE made any updates to your plan. If your school completed the 2014–15 S/CEP, you should not complete Part 6b – Progress Monitoring. Leave Part 6b blank and use the 2014-15 S/CEP Mid-Point Review of School Progress document instead. If your school is a School Improvement Grant (SIG) or School Innovation Fund (SIF) school, you are not required to use the Mid-Point Review of School Progress document; however, you may find it useful to complete the document as you engage in performance management progress reporting. For more information about the process, click here if you are a SIG school or here if your school is a SIF school. During this period, you should work with your SLT to determine if your school reached benchmarks towards meeting the annual goals. If, when reviewing a particular benchmark, you and your SLT determine that your school has not made sufficient progress, you should reach out to your network CEP point and work with your SLT to identify resources and strategies to support your school in meeting the goal by the end of the year. You must then edit each action plan in your S/CEP to reflect the newly-agreed upon strategies before uploading your final S/CEP in the iPlan Portal. Revised Process for Quality Assurance Feedback: If your school completed a CEP, your superintendent and network leader will receive CEP Quality Assurance (QA) feedback about your school’s CEP on January 27. Your network will share the CEP QA feedback with you so that you can work with your SLT to incorporate the feedback. If your school completed an SCEP, you and your SLT should revisit the SCEP QA feedback that you received from your network back in December and use this time to make any additional revisions that were not made in December. The deadline for uploading your revised final plan to the iPlan portal is February 27. By March 5, the NYCDOE will combine your school’s S/CEP with its Language Allocation Policy (LAP), Language Translation and Interpretation (LTI) Plan, and Title III plan (if applicable) and post it on your school’s NYCDOE website. For questions, contact your network CEP point.

Principals' Weekly SLT CEP Update -Jan. 2015

School/Comprehensive Educational Plans (S/CEP): Quality Assurance and Monitoring Progress All schools / Deadline: February 27 Please note the following updates regarding the School Comprehensive Educational Plan (S/CEP) process: Quality Assurance Feedback: In December, the NYCDOE reviewed and provided quality assurance (QA) feedback on SCEPs for Priority and Focus schools to your superintendent, cluster, and network so that your network could communicate the feedback to you and so that you and your School Leadership Team (SLT) could make revisions before the plan was submitted to SED on December 19. If your school’s accountability status is Good Standing, Reward, Local Assistance Plan, or if you are the principal of a new school and your SLT completed a CEP, the NYCDOE will review and provide quality assurance feedback to your superintendent, cluster, and network in January. Your network will share QA feedback with you by January 30. You should work with your SLT to incorporate the feedback into your plan and make revisions by February 27. You should download your S/CEP as soon as possible from the iPlan Portal and review the plan for possible updates made by the NYCDOE on your behalf. Check to determine if your school’s plan was revised as indicated below: 2013–14 CEP Covers: If your SLT used a version of the 2013–14 CEP template that was different from the one distributed via iPlan, revisions were made to your plan to update the logo and plan title on the cover. 2013–14 CEPs for Title I Schoolwide Program Schools (SWP): If your school is a Schoolwide Program School that is conceptually consolidating funds, required information was added to your CEP to reflect your school’s funding amounts. 2014–15 S/CEPs for Renewal Schools: If your school is a Renewal school, language was inserted in the overview section to describe the implementation of specific school improvement strategies for your school. Monitoring S/CEP Progress: During the month of February, your SLT should review your school’s progress towards meeting each annual goal as described below: If your school used the 2014–15 S/CEP template, as indicated in Part 6 of Section 5 for each of the action plans, your school must complete Part 6b. Your SLT should complete the following steps: Assess your school’s progress towards meeting your annual goals mid-way through the school year (i.e. in February). Complete Part 6b by: If your school met the mid-point benchmark for each goal in the timeframe specified, place an “X” in the appropriate box. If the mid-point benchmark(s) was not met, place an “X” in the appropriate box and describe any revisions made to the action plan to achieve the goal. Reach out to your network CEP point and work with your SLT to identify best practices and make necessary revisions to actions and strategies in order to achieve each annual goal. By February 27, complete the “Part 6: Progress Monitoring” section of your S/CEP and submit the revised plan via the iPlan Portal. If your school used the 2013–14 CEP template for the 2014–15 CEP, your SLT should use the Progress Monitoring chart to review your school’s progress towards meeting your annual goals. A blank Progress Monitoring chart will be shared in next week’s Principals’ Weekly. Refer to the same guidance for completing assessing progress in the 2014 –15 S/CEPs, listed above, when completing the chart. If your school completed the 2014–15 SCEP Title I Appendix for School Improvement Grant (SIG) Cohort 4/5 or the School Innovation Fund (SIF) Schools plan, your SLT should engage in your school’s customized review process during your school’s performance management progress reporting time period. For additional information on the customized review process, click here for School Improvement Grant schools and here for School Innovation Fund guidelines for SIF schools. By March 5, the NYCDOE will combine your school’s S/CEP with your Language Allocation Policy (LAP), Language Translation and Interpretation (LTI) Plan, and Title III plan (if applicable) and post the revised S/CEP on your school’s NYCDOE website. For questions, contact your network CEP point.