MEMORANDUM





TO:           Tech Prep Consortium

FROM:     Nancy Gerry

DATE:     November 14, 2001

RE:          FY02R2

Welcome & Introductions
  1. We purchased site licenses for ECOS (now called Princeton Review), a comprehensive on-line guidance system, for every high school student in Ocean County and every college student at Ocean County College. We also held aTrain the Trainer Workshop at Toms River on October 5th, so all schools should have someone trained. We will be offering one more training session in the spring, date to be announced and published in the Professional Development booklet.
  2. A list of all the Professional Development Workshops required by the grant is enclosed in your packet. The Professional Development Committee reviewed the choices and approved all workshops.
  3. As you know, we have money to revise and update 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. Mary Ann Richards, Tech Prep Counselor, and I met with the whole group the end of October and reviewed the responsibilities for curriculum writing and the liaison position. Karl Kleiner from OCC will work with the accounting people to review, revise and align curriculum in grade 11. Mary Burke from OCC will work with the computer science people to review, revise, and align curriculum for grade 12. Leila Metzger from OCC will work on Marketing for grade 13, and Barbara Napolatino and Sue D'Fiore will work on Administrative Office Management in grade 14. A list of people working is in your packet.
  4. A budget is enclosed for your review.
  5. The Snow List is enclosed, please make sure your name, address and home telephone number are correct. The list is a chain. The first person calls the second person, second person calls the third person and so on.
  6. Approved and revised Tech Prep meeting dates are enclosed in your packet.
  7. We just signed a CISCO and Civil/Construction Engineering Articulation Agreement with Central Regional. They are both in your packet for your review.
  8. We have no fee waiver money this year for credit-by-exam.
  9. A chart with Tech Prep credit-by-exam is enclosed to help you know what is available in each articulated program.
  10. The Great Ocean County Tech Prep Cardboard Canoe Race will be May 24th. We had it scheduled for June, but Toms River will not allow field trips after May30th so we had to move the date back to May. There is no testing going on that date. The only draw back with the date is that it is the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. 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.
  11. We have a tentative date of March 23rd for the Robotics Contest. We are having difficulty finding a place big enough to race, but we are working on the location. We need your help for this contest as well, so please sign up to help with that contest too.
  12. We finished two short video Brush-ups before Taking the College Placement Test. One of them still needs to be corrected before we send them to you. However, all of this information is on the Web and 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., and we will eventually get the tapes to you.
  13. Three tapes you requested were mailed to you this week. Two were the Cardboard Canoe Race (long and short version) and a tape on ECOS was included as well. Use the tapes to encourage your school system to use this wonderful example of Project-based Learning for this year.
  14. We need to find a way to raise money for prizes for both contests. We have money for plaques, ribbons and small tokens, but it would be nice to give the winners a free course at the college. That seems to tie everything together for the students. Any suggestions?
  15. At our subcommittee meeting in October17th, we worked on updating and including information in your Courses of Study about Tech Prep for the school year 2002-2003. Fred Moramarco ran the subcommittee meeting and will give you an update.
  16. 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. I have no update on this, but Mary Ann is going to a state meeting on November 19th , so we may get some information at that meeting.
  17. The final report included the same data we have been reporting for years. It was a summary of all students participating 9-14. We actually have back up documentation for those numbers thanks to all of you.
  18. The Tech Prep Home Page address is: www.ocean.edu/techprep/index.htm e-mail is ngerry@ocean.edu
  19. Secretary's Report
  20. At our December 12th. subcommittee meeting at Pt. Pleasant Borough, Lee Blaustein from Brookdale will be present as an outside evaluator for our formative review.
  21. 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 at OCC is December 6th. 4-7 p.m. in the Lecture Hall at OCC..
  22. English, Mathematics, and Science people will participate in an Open House at OCC on November 29th. in the Hiering Science Building at 2:30 p.m. Janet Hubbs, English, Dr. William Rickert, Mathematics, and Dr. Edwin Martinez, Dean of Mathematics and Science are coordinating the program. Please encourage your people to attend.
  23. 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.
  24. We will probably need to modify year five of five of our grant proposal. Next year the state will not fund anyone without approved programs. We have Teaching Assistant Child Care for year five, but we don't have enough schools with approved programs. We may want to look at Television Production or CAD programs or something else. Please tell me what you think we should do. CAD is probably the best alternative since everyone has that, but how many of you have it approved?
  25. 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. 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.
  26. 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.
  27. Melanie Mackey, Acting Vice President of Academic Affairs represented and presented our Cardboard Canoe Race at the National Tech Prep Network Conference in Dallas, Texas in October. I know she was successful because we practiced the presentation for days, but we also got lots of phone calls for more information after the conference.
  28. Other