Available
Assistance
•
Federal Legislation
Title
I of “No
Child Left Behind” provides federal assistance
to school districts to help fund high quality, challenging
instructional programs for children in schools that have
highest concentrations of poverty.
•
Program Description
Title I is a federal program
that provides opportunities for the children served to
acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to meet challenging
state content standards. Resources are distributed to
schools where needs are the greatest, in amounts sufficient
to make a difference in the improvement of instruction.
Title I coordinates services with other educational services,
and to the extent feasible, with health and social services
programs. Title I provides greater decision making authority
and flexibility within the schools and for teachers. However,
greater responsibility for student performance in the
exchange made for this flexibility.
•
School Selection
Title I schools within the
district are selected based on information obtained from
the March, 135th Day Attendance Count, and the percentage
of students who are on free and reduced lunch. A poverty
index for the district is determined and the schools are
ranked from highest to lowest poverty. Any school falling
within 2% of the district percent of poverty is designated
as Title I as per board policy.Schoolwide: A school which
serves an attendance area which is not less than 40% poverty
may qualify to be Schoolwide. Schoolwide programs may
use funds or services in combination with other Federal,
State, and local funds it receives, to upgrade the entire
educational program within the school. Schoolwide programs
are eligible to use funds to support systemic reform and
instructional improvement. All students attending school
at a Schoolwide Title I site may use materials and/or
be serviced by personnel funded through Title I.Targeted
Assistance: A school which serves an attendance area whish
is less than 40% poverty may qualify to be Targeted Assistance.
Schools identified for Targeted Assistance must utilize
standardized test data and teacher judgment to identify
students for participation in the Targeted Assistance
program, and only those students identified through the
student selection process as needing assistance may use
materials and/or be serviced by personnel funded through
Title I.Targeted Assistance schools must implement a scientifically-based
instructional program to assist the identified students.
•
Allocation of Funds
The amount of funds allocated
to each Title I school is based on a per poverty student
enrollment allocation. The district Title I allocation
is, in turn, allocated to schools based on the number
of poverty students in each Title I school as determined
by the previous March free/reduced lunch report from School
Food Service. Allocation may change from year to year,
depending on a change in the number of students receiving
free or reduced lunch within each school and/or a change
in the district’s allocation.
•
Planning Committee
A school-level planning
team must be assembled in each Title I school to give
input on the use of all Title I expenditures. The required
planning team representatives must include, but are not
limited to: 1-principal, 2-teachers, 2-additional staff
members, 2-parents, 1-student services worker, 1-district
administrator, 1-technical assistance provider, 2-community
members, and, if the school is a high school, 1-student.
The planning team should meet regularly throughout the
year to discuss the implementation of the current plan
and to decide on changes or additions to the plan for
the next school year. The planning team should be given
an agenda and sign-in attendance sheet for documentation
purposes. The Title I committee chairperson will need
to take notes in order to keep track of adjustments that
need to be made to the plan.
•
Needs Assessment
The law requires that in
each Title I school, a comprehensive needs assessment
should be conducted in order to identify the needs of
the students. The plan developed at each school must reflect
needs identified by the needs assessment and programs
designed to meet these needs. The needs assessment should:
1.) discuss discrepancies between what exists and what
students need in order to achieve, 2.) describe present
conditions and areas of weakness, 3.) provide a reason
for areas where the greatest need exists, 4.) contain
at least 3 years of test data, 5.) use additional data
received from attendance reports, teacher surveys, parent
surveys, etc. A needs assessment will not only identify
areas that need to be addressed by the Title I plan, but
will act as a basis for building a priorities list on
which subsequent plans can be based.
• Research-Based
Instruction
Once the areas of greatest
need have been determined, research-based strategies must
be selected to address them. The South Carolina Curriculum
Standards should be used as a basis for deciding which
instructional strategies should be selected. Each activity
included within the Title I plan must have a documented
hard copy of the research supporting the use of that strategy.
Only the best and most effective research-based instruction
should be included to address the needs of the students
within the Title I school.
• Parent Involvement
Parent involvement is a
critical portion of the Title I plan. Every Title I school
is expected to include a certain percentage of the total
allocation toward improving parent involvement within
the school. Each school must also develop a parent involvement
policy, outlining expectations and opportunities for including
parents in the education of their children. Parents must
be included on the planning committee and should be notified
of all activities implemented through Title I. Parents
must also be offered the opportunity to give feedback
on the plan.
• Documentation
Documentation is a necessary
but often time-consuming part of implementing the Title
I plan. Office of Federal Programs' staff works with the
school staff on a routine basis to design a system to
most effectively document efforts. Regularly occurring
monitoring visits by independent and/or SDE auditors ensure
the school followed all legal requirements for planning
and implementing the written plan. Activities listed within
the Title I plan must have written documentation to show
that the strategies are implemented as defined in the
school plan. While documentation can be cumbersome, it
can be quite beneficial to future planning. Documentation
can show the progress of instructional strategies and
whether or not they were successfully implemented supporting
adjustments made in subsequent plans. The agenda, sign-in
sheet and minutes from the planning team meeting need
to be sent to the Office of Federal Programs for documentation
purposes.
• Evaluation
of Adequate Progress
Following the implementation
of a Title I plan the State Department of Education will
determine whether a school made adequate academic progress
from the prior year based on the school’s most recent
PACT test results. The second year a school does not make
adequate progress a school is designated as being in School
Improvement, resulting in the development and implementation
of a school improvement plan and the offering of school
choice. The school must make adequate progress for two
consecutive years to lose the designation as In School
Improvement.
• Supplemental Educational Services
Supplemental educational
services are additional academic instruction designed
to increase the academic achievement of students in low-performing
Title I schools through after-school tutoring programs.
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• Monitoring
of Highly Qualified Paraprofessionals
The No Child Left Behind
Act requires that all instructional teacher aides at Title
I schools meet one of the following three requirements:
Associates Degree from an accredited college,
Or, 60 hours toward a Bachelors Degree at an accredited
college,
Or, score of 456 or higher on the ETS ParaPro Test.
The Office of Federal Programs monitors newly hired teacher
aides to ensure that one of these requirements are met.
• Available
Assistance
All Title I schools are
assigned an Instructional Program Support (IPS) Coordinator,
Office of Federal Programs, to assist in the writing and
implementation of the Title I plan. Regular site visits
are made by the IPS Coordinators to ensure that the plan
is being successfully implemented and documented by the
school. The IPS Coordinators assist the principals through
written and oral feedback on activities funded through
Title I. Extensive training on the writing, implementation,
and documentation of the Title I plan is provided, by
the Office of Federal Programs, for the Title I Facilitators
and Principals at each school. Training and ongoing staff
development, funded through Title I, is also provided.
IPS Coordinators as well as the Director of Federal Programs
are always available to answer any questions that a principal
may have about the Title I program.
