Austin
Austin Independent School District does not expect to receive a net increase over the previous year with the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund because Texas is supplanting state aid with this federal amount. The district held a series of community forums to discuss possible uses of the additional stimulus dollars (Title I and IDEA) and to jointly develop ideas and priorities, with invitations sent to schools, parents, community partners, and nonprofit groups. The school system established a cross-functional team to work on how to implement the ideas and get the most out of the short-term funds. Austin Independent School District has developed a place on its Web site for ideas and has created an e-mail list of all parents and community members who submitted ideas to enhance future community outreach efforts. At present, the district plans to use ARRA funds for professional development around the instructional support of English language learners, English language development, and academies’ intensive language instruction for English language learners as part of the district’s reading and literacy program.
Dallas
Dallas Independent School District established a cross-functional stimulus funds task force to identify priority areas for the use of stimulus dollars. The task force reviewed district goals, current programs, and student performance data. It then identified four goals to drive the use of the ARRA funds: supporting struggling students at all Title I schools; improving graduation and college readiness rates; closing achievement gaps between and among student groups; and building teacher capacity to improve instruction.
The district will use Title I ARRA funds in ways that meet the district’s priorities and align with the funding template provided by the State of Texas. ARRA-supported initiatives in the district will include high school completion and dropout prevention programs; high-quality professional development; and activities aligned with Response to Intervention, Reading First (or similarly implemented reading programs); and with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)education. The district will also focus on school improvement efforts, technology upgrades, and increasing access to early childhood education.
The district will support high school completion efforts and dropout prevention programs with ARRA funds by providing intensive reading and math instruction and intervention strategies for students shown to be at risk of failure on the end-of-course assessments. Further, the district will provide professional development training and infrastructure support around these instructional strategies and also will provide supplemental training in fiscal/grant management for at-risk programs (to include the identification and coordination of funding sources). Dallas Independent School District will also implement and support programs to increase or expand family engagement, mentoring, and alternative education options for at-risk youth. Similarly, it will support the implementation of flexible scheduling, after-school academic support programs, and individualized learning environments for at-risk youth. Supporting targeted academic and social support for at-risk youth is part of the district’s strategy, including college and career counseling combined with social-emotional counseling. The district will also implement instructional strategies at the high school level that are aligned with the state’s college readiness standards to ensure that students have the knowledge and skills that they need to be successful in entry-level college courses, with a supplemental but focused approach for middle school teachers. ARRA will also support the district’s efforts to establish a high school Early Start and Over-Age Credit Recovery Program, and a dropout prevention center.
The district also plans to use ARRA Title I funding to provide high-quality, focused, and sustained professional development that is aligned with the state’s academic content standards (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills [TEKS]).
Supplemental professional-development materials purchased with ARRA funds will advance middle school teachers’ understanding of the prerequisite skills necessary for students to succeed in core content-area high school courses and help high school teachers better understand how to teach both the breadth of content and the rigor reflected in the TEKS. This knowledge includes understanding recent revisions in the TEKS and understanding the new assessment requirements for high school graduation and the ways in which these requirements are different from Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) requirements. This knowledge also includes understanding the implications of college readiness in the new assessment requirements of the educational opportunity centers. ARRA-funded professional development will provide opportunities for both middle and high school teachers to increase their content knowledge, develop greater expertise in their delivery of content, and better understand what supports each student needs to make academic progress and how to implement those supports. District teachers will also receive training on English language proficiency standards; Texas adolescent literacy academies; end-of-course assessments; college and career readiness standards; the use of diagnostics, benchmark assessments, etc., for purposes of instruction; the identification of the various categories of students who are English language learners (ELLs) and the supports available to these students; and Texas prekindergarten guidelines.
The district will also focus on providing high-quality, targeted, and sustained professional development that concentrates on age-appropriate screening and assessment measures for all students. Professional development will also assist with individualizing instruction so that students develop a strong foundation in literacy and numeracy. Thus, the district will provide training designed specifically to help teachers develop individualized instructional strategies for students identified as needing intervention, as well as training on the implementation of best practices for increasing student achievement. Working toward these goals, the district will use ARRA funds to create and execute action plans and evaluate results at district-, campus-, and grade-level meetings.
ARRA will also help the district deal with the loss of federal funding for Reading First. Dallas Independent School District will use Title I funds to implement a sustainability plan (for Reading First or similar types of research-based reading programs) on Title I campuses.
ARRA funding will support the district’s Response to Intervention program by providing research-based progress-monitoring tools, technology, and professional development around effective implementation in the classroom. Title I funds will also be used to pay the salaries of math, reading, and behavior coaches to help provide and support small-group and individualized instruction, as well as support for summer school and a math initiative, which features a comprehensive set of interactive arithmetic lessons.
Title I schools in School Improvement status under No Child Left Behind will receive contracts to assist with campus needs assessments and strategic planning, including the identification and coordination of funding sources for services to best meet the identified needs of the campus to improve academic performance and meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the education law. The district will also use stimulus money to provide Title I School Improvement campuses with resources to assist students with note-taking and test-taking strategies, study skills, and activities aligned with the College and Career Readiness Standards.
The district also plans to implement quality curriculum management systems to meet identified technology needs of Title I campuses. Schools will utilize strategies and activities to incorporate technology into the classroom, including the use of student academic progress monitoring systems that inform individualized classroom instruction and the provision of educational technology to promote higher-order thinking skills, problem solving, and creativity. As part of its technology thrust, the district will develop and use an early warning data system to determine students at risk of failure.
Dallas Independent School District will also use stimulus funds to support activities aligned with STEM education. The district plans to increase student use of technology, including robotics, and provide supplemental intensive instruction designed around algebraic readiness and science programs to help students meet the state’s 4X4 graduation requirements (i.e., four courses in both math and science during the four years of high school). ARRA funding will also be used to help the district collaborate with the state’s T-STEM Centers for access to high-quality, engaging, and rigorous content strategies for use in middle school and high school classrooms and to help the district increase the integration of Career and Technical Education Foundation courses.
Fort Worth
Fort Worth Independent School District has set up a task force that meets weekly to plan for using stimulus funds. Each district department has a representative on the task force. The group tracks grant-availability and operates a special Web site to keep the public informed about progress. The district plans to use IDEA funds to provide laptops for special education teachers. It is also using ARRA funds to develop a teacher-quality partnership and is collaborating with a local university on the project.
Houston
Houston Independent School District will not receive additional funds from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund because Texas is reducing state aid to the school system and replacing it with the ARRA amount. The district is working on plans to use other stimulus dollars for both districtwide and school-level projects. One critical component of the school system’s plan involves using Title I ARRA funding in all schools for extended instructional time for students who need more intensive instruction. The goal is to increase the number of students advancing to the next grade and staying on par with their peer groups. Individual schools will have the ability to determine specifically how this will be done and how the additional time will be used. The district expects additional extended days, Saturday programs, and/or intensive summer programming.
The district is also recommending the use of diverse service providers to offer additional instructional time. Vendors wishing to provide these services are being invited to submit proposals to the district. Following approval, a vendor fair will be held for principals and school teams to learn about options for partnering with outside entities to provide after-school programming.
Title I ARRA funds will also be used to implement the nationally recognized DUKE TIP program at every middle school. This program is designed to provide students with the opportunity to prepare for the PSAT tests beginning in seventh grade, and has proven effective in increasing SAT scores of students.
The district will offer summer school with teachers identified as high value-added teachers (those performing in the top 10 percent of the school system’s teachers on the district’s valued-added metric over two consecutive years). These teachers will provide summer instruction to students who are at risk of being held back and/or are at risk of dropping out, and will be paid 125 percent of their regular daily rate. In addition, novice or struggling teachers would be assigned to observe and work with master teachers at the traditional summer-school pay rate.
Stimulus funding will help the district ensure that all schools can provide services to support the social and emotional needs of students. Schools can elect to hire licensed counselors or social workers, or to contract with community agencies, such as Communities-in-Schools, to provide the services.
Houston Independent School District plans to use stimulus funding to expand its Literacy Leads the Way initiative to include more on-site support by intervention specialists and literacy coaches in the elementary schools. Literacy coaches already work in the secondary schools, and this expansion would allow a systemic approach across the grades. These individuals would also be responsible for working with principals to monitor/lead the intervention assistance teams and to support students identified as dyslexic.
ARRA planning in the school system also involves a new, locally designed accountability system at the elementary schools. This new system will measure the number and percentage of students staying on track for graduation by assessing a cohort of students entering first grade and following them through sixth grade. The new process will also include an indicator that will show how many students (number and percentage) are reading on grade level as they enter third grade. This new indicator will be supported with stimulus funds and will assess reading progress from grades 1 to 4.
The district is considering using stimulus funds to support the start-up costs of various choice and options programs for students. These possibilities would include two new campuses with virtual courses and flexible scheduling/hours, including night hours (open in disparate geographic areas throughout the district). Another possibility would involve optional, flexible school hours at all comprehensive district high schools. The schools would provide both virtual courses and traditional courses during the school day, afternoons, and evenings, and on Saturdays. A third possibility would involve expanding virtual courses in Spanish in all comprehensive high schools with high numbers of English language learners. In addition, the district is considering using stimulus funds to open a school for students between the ages of 18 and 26 in stand-alone campuses using virtual classes.
Houston Independent School District will utilize stimulus funds at the district level to require all kindergarten through grade 3 teachers to attend four-day literacy training during the summer and/or on Saturdays throughout the school year. The training, which has been created in partnership with the Neuhaus Education Center, is designed to strengthen teachers’ ability to teach reading effectively. In addition, the district will require all secondary mathematics and science teachers to attend three days of training to increase content knowledge and improve instructional strategies. The district will use high-performing teachers to plan and deliver the training. All teachers will be paid for attendance.
Finally, the district is determining its ability to reduce local Maintenance of Effort under IDEA. Houston Independent School District will use IDEA stimulus funds to provide schools with large percentages of special education students (higher than the district’s average of nine percent) a full-time special education specialist to support instructional practice and assist with monitoring implementation of students’ Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). The school system will either upgrade or purchase new assistive technology devices to enhance student learning and provide professional development on the effective use of these technologies. The district also expects to use IDEA stimulus funds to expand online instructional systems that provide individualized support for student learning in reading and mathematics.
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