MEMORANDUM
TO: Tech
Prep Consortium
FROM: Nancy Gerry
DATE: January 16, 2002
RE: FY02R3
1. The School Relations Professional Development booklet of workshops is enclosed in your packet. All Tech Prep Workshops for the remainder of the year are listed in that booklet as specified by the grant and approved by the Tech Prep Professional Development Committee.
2. The Tech Prep Outside Evaluation Formative Report is enclosed in your packet. Lee Blaustein, Brookdale Community College was present at our December 12th meeting and conducted the evaluation on the 12th and 13th.
3. At each Tech Prep meeting, we will discuss Critical Issues for Tech Prep. Evaluation and Student Enrollment were handled at the December meeting. Two new forms were developed by subcommittee members on each of these areas and are in your packet for your review and approval. The first form is a new Tech Prep Enrollment Form; the second form is for Tech Prep Evaluation. Walter Hrycenko, Brick has agreed to pilot the Evaluation Forms after your approval.
4. As you know, we have people from your schools revising and updating curriculum in Accounting in grade 11, Computer Science in grade 12, Marketing in grade 13, and Administrative Office Management in grade 14. We have a stipend of $1000 for 14 business teachers to participate in curriculum revisions and to act as liaisons to your schools by providing information about Tech Prep through newsletters, listserves, and meetings in your districts. So far, we have more than 14 people so we have split the stipend for curriculum work and liaisons. Some people are working in both capacities. Samples of Newsletters distributed are in your packet. The front of the January-February Tech Prep Newsletter that our Counselor/Curriculum Liaison sends to the schools to be customized on the back for your school is enclosed in your packet. Tech Prep Free Workshops are listed in the newsletter as well.
5. A budget is enclosed for your review.
6. The Snow List is enclosed. All corrections have been made.
7. The RFC for year five of five for Tech Prep is scheduled to be released January 22nd. The state office has told me that letters have gone to school districts about occupational approval. In some cases they have requested more information. If you hear from them and have courses occupationally approved, please notify my office. The state does not have this record on its Web site yet. We need the information to request a program modification for year five so we have approved programs in every district.
8. A
chart with Tech Prep Credit-By-Exam is enclosed to help you know what is
available in each articulated program.
9. The
Great Ocean County Tech Prep Cardboard Canoe Race will be on May 24th. From
8:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Lunch will be
included. There is a sign up sheet for
you to help with the race. Please sign
up and plan to come, we need all the help we can get.
10. On
May 18th and 19th, the weekend before the Cardboard Canoe
Race, we are planning to put some of last year’s canoes in the mall on display. There is a sheet to sign up for that as
well. We need someone to schedule and
coordinate times students and teachers would be there to answer questions.
11. March
22nd has been set for the Robotics Contest from 8:00 to noon. We will start in Conference Rooms A and B at
8:00 a.m. and move to the gym at 9:00 for the actual race and assembly of
project of the day. There is a sign up
sheet to help with that contest, please sign up for that morning, we need your help.
12. We
finished short video Brush-ups before Taking the College Placement Test. The English version is available for you
today. We need you to send us a
schedule of when you will run this on your TV stations. It will be run on OCC Channel 19 (which has been changed to Channel 98), schedule
to be announced. At a later date
the video will be run on the Web in the digitized version. All of this information is currently on the
Web under Tech Prep. Workshops will be
held on the college campus for juniors and seniors on April 24th and
May1st. for mathematics, May 8th and 15th for Reading,
Writing, and Sentence Sense from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. Pleas take one tape per school district.
13. We
are going to ask the OCC Foundation to allow us to do a presentation to their
Board to see if they would sponsor a free course for all the students on the
Overall Winning Team for the Great Ocean County Tech Prep Cardboard Canoe Race.
We have money for plaques, ribbons and small tokens, and Unique Food
Management, the OCC Catering Service, will provide lunch.
14. There is a new state Enrollment system FY02. The state will send you a disk to do an extension of the VEDS report for Tech Prep. We will need to continue filling out Enrollment Forms on students until the state has the new system running and your agreement on what data you are willing to provide. We will need your cooperation in getting students to fill out the enrollment forms.
15. The Tech Prep Home Page address is: www.ocean.edu/techprep/index.htm e-mail is ngerry@ocean.edu
16. Secretary's Report
17. We have 15 algebra teachers participating in an Eisenhower Higher Education grant called Algebra Reform. The launch of that project took place on November 3rd at Middlesex. The first local workshop was held at OCC in December. The next local workshops at OCC are: January 17th, January 24th , February 21st, March 21st, and April 25th. The summer dates are June 27th and August 20th and 21st at Middlesex.
18. The state is still offering a one time only automatic approval of occupational programs. If you have programs that are not approved and you have three courses leading towards a career, send us your program guide outlining which approvals you are seeking and I will forward the information to the state. I must caution you that you may be required to provide the state with data collection on these approved programs. The good news is that you will be eligible for more Perkins Funds and you will have more programs approved for Tech Prep.
19. The Ocean County College Board of Trustees passed the Discounted Tuition rate of $24 per credit for high school juniors and seniors plus fees at its November 5th meeting. This is actually called a Trustee's Scholarship. Students will still have to be recommended and have the signature of their high school guidance counselor or principal for the program. They can attend on the college campus or at Off Campus sites at this rate. The special green OCC high school student application form will need to be completed. There is a Jump Start Flyer in your packet advertising this new program. If you want special courses offered in your school districts and have a qualified instructor, OCC will either hire someone from your district or send an instructor from the college. You will need a minimum of twelve students to run a course at your site. The rate will be the same, but it will be done with a Memorandum of Understanding and some fees may not apply. There is a meeting on January 24th from 2:00 to 3:00 in the OCC College Center to plan and discuss what courses you would like offered in your school districts. Your superintendents received a notice.
20. We are finishing our pilot program for college credit while in high school. C++ is being offered at Southern and Jackson, Integrated Office at Pinelands, and Cisco with Central and OCVTS. All of theses courses will run all year in the high school giving the students a longer learning continuum, and the grades will be awarded in June.
21. At each Tech Prep meeting we will be discussing Critical Issues for Tech Prep. Today at 9:00 a.m. we will have a presentation on Task Stream by Risa Sackman to show you how this online system helps teachers develop lessons that address content standards, searches data bases for resources, provides opportunities for mentoring new teachers, and much more. You will need to fill out an evaluation form of this Critical Issue before you leave. The Office of School Relations will offer a Task Stream Workshop on February 12th, which includes a subscription to Task Stream.
22. Other