ADE Briefs

The Federal Trade Commission is introducing Net Cetera: Chatting with Kids About Being Online. This booklet is full of practical tips to help parents help their kids navigate the online world – from dealing with social networking and cyberbullying to talking about sexting and file-sharing. The guide is at http://www.onguardonline.gov/topics/net-cetera.aspx.
Net Cetera is free: visit http://bulkorder.ftc.gov to order as many copies as you can use. Schools could send one home with every student or distribute copies at parent-teacher conferences. It’s also in the public domain: there’s no copyright. You can include sections of it in your newsletter or on your website, reprint it with your own logo (we’ll supply the specs), or co-brand it with OnGuard Online. Net Cetera is also available in Spanish at http://www.alertaenlinea.gov/topics/net-cetera.aspx.
Posted by JJT.

Students in El Dorado School District will extract DNA, learn about swine flu and create roller coaster models among myriad other exciting projects, thanks to ten grants awarded by the El Dorado Education Foundation Board of Directors under the direction of President Claiborne Deming.
For the first time, the foundation approved $42,338.17 in grants to be funded in one semester. Since 1997, 190 proposals have been awarded, for $607,143.16. Of these, currently over $400,000 in funding has been for math, science, or both.
Posted by JJT.

Congrats to middle school mathematics teacher Telisa Hadley, who was greeted with cheers when she was honored as a 2009 Milken Family Foundation National Educator during a surprise assembly at Rose City Middle School this afternoon. As part of the award, Hadley received an unrestricted financial prize of $25,000.
Arkansas Commissioner of Education Dr. Tom W. Kimbrell and Gov. Mike Beebe presented the award to Hadley along with Gary Stark of the Milken Family Foundation and North Little Rock Superintendent Ken Kirspel.
Posted by JJT.

Congratulations to Arkansas Department of Education mathematics specialist Thomas Coy, who has been selected to serve on the working group for the voluntary, state-led national common core standards initiative to develop grade-level student learning expectations in mathematics.
The Work Group for K-12 standards development is composed of individuals representing multiple stakeholders and a range of expertise and experience in assessment, curriculum design, cognitive development, early childhood, early numeracy, child development, English-language acquisition and elementary, middle, and postsecondary education.
The draft college and career-readiness standards, the first step in this initiative, were released in September and are available at www.corestandards.org.
Posted by JJT.

In further action last night at the Arkansas State Board of Education meeting, the application for Prism Education Center was denied by a board vote of 5-2. Prism was a poposed charter in Fayetteville for a maximum 650 students in grades K-8. The Fayetteville School District opposed the charter.
Today’s hearings are summarized below:
Friends Academy of Health and Environmental Sciences, Little Rock. The proposal was for a charter serving a maximum 550 students in grades 6-8. Little Rock School District opposed the charter. A motion to approve died for lack of a second. A subsequent motion to deny the application was approved.
Gillett Heritage Academy, Gillett: This was a proposal for a charter school in Gillett for a maximum 210 students in grades K-12. Dewitt and Dumas school districts opposed the charter. Motion to deny the charter was approved.
e-BLAST Academy, McNeil: This was a proposal for a charter school in the Stephens School District in McNeil that would serve a maximum of 200 students in Grades K-8. Stephens, Magnolia and Camden Fairview School Districts opposed the charter. Motion to deny the charter passed.
Posted by JJT.

Charter school applications dominated the first day of the November meeting of the Arkansas State Board of Education. XX applications were considered by the board today; the remaining XX will be brought before them when the meeting resumes Tuesday morning.
A summary of today’s actions follows:
KIPP Blytheville College Preparatory School, Blytheville: the request was made for an additional license under the same charter previously granted to the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) Acedemy in Helena-West Helena for a separate school in Blytheville beginning with fifth grade. No on appeared in opposition to the charter. The motion to grant the license was approved.
Guap Academy College Preparatory School, West Memphis: the request was for a new charter for a school serving a maximum 100-students in grades nine through 12. West Memphis School District personnel opposed the charter. Motion to deny was approved.
Little Rock Urban Collegiate Public Charter School for Young Men: the request was for a new charter in Little Rock serving a maximum 696 male students in grades K-8. Little Rock School District opposed the charter. Motion to defer to December was approved.
Dove School of Excellence, Springdale: the request was for a charter school serving a maximum 650 students in grades K-12. Springdale School District personnel opposed the charter. Motion to approve failed.

Vandy Nash of North Little Rock was named the 2010 Arkansas Teacher of the Year during an awards gala at the Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock on Friday night. Nash, a fourth-grade teacher at Indian Hills Elementary School in the North Little Rock School District, received a $15,000 cash award with the title. In addition, she will represent Arkansas in the 2010 National Teacher of the Year competition and spend the 2010-2011 school year working in-residence at the Arkansas Department of Education.

The award was presented by Governor Mike Beebe and Education Commissioner Dr. Tom W. Kimbrell during the Arkansas Teacher of the Year Awards Gala, which was televised live by KTHV. Craig O’Neill served as the emcee.

Fifteen regional finalists were selected by a committee composed of former teachers of the year and Arkansas Department of Education Office of Teacher Quality staff. Those 15 were then narrowed to four, with Nash the winner and three runners-up:
• First runner-up Andrea White, a second-grade teacher at Valley View Elementary School in Valley View School District
• Second runner-up Jeannie Martin, an English as a second language teacher at Angie Grant Elementary School in Benton School District
• Third runner-up Kathy L.Prophet, a seventh-grade science teacher at Hellstern Middle School in Springdale School District

The 11 regional finalists included:
• Lisa Morris Anderson, an eighth-grade science teacher at Nashville Junior High in Nashville School District
• Angela Brady, a sixth-grade math teacher at Walnut Ridge School in Lawrence County School District
• Lenora Bullington, a literacy facilitator at Cavanaugh Elementary School in Fort Smith School District
• Bobbie Ruth Coleman, an 11th and 12th grade English teacher at Searcy High School in Searcy School District
• R. Ellen Corley, a special education teacher at Forest Heights Elementary in Harrison School District
• Toni L. Elliott, third-grade teacher at Noble Elementary in Hamburg School District
• Shelley Forbess, a tenth- through 12th-grade physics teacher at El Dorado High School in El Dorado School District
• Lekia Jones, a sixth-grade mathematics teacher at College Hill Middle School in the Texarkana School District
• Bill Maxwell, a sixth- through 12th-grade band director at Mountain Home Junior High School in the Mountain Home School District
• Delois McGhee, and eighth-grade mathematics and Algebra I teacher at Dollarway Middle School in Dollarway School District.
• Cherilyn Minnis, a 12th-grade English teacher at West Memphis High School in West Memphis School District

Innovations, a publication of ETS, featured Beverly Williams, assistant commissioner for human resources and licensure, as the voice of a state practitioner in an article focusing on the difference between teacher quality and teaching quality. Others asked for their thoughts on this topic included National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education President James G. Cibulka, former National Teacher of the Year Kimberly Oliver Burnim and education policy guru Andrew J. Rotherham.
Williams take on the difference between the two? “[T]eacher quality is about the teacher as a person, and teaching quality is about the successful learning of the students.”
Posted by JJT.

Vandy Nash is one of the four top finalists in the 2010 Arkansas Teacher of the Year Competition. The winner will be announced Friday night at the Arkansas Teacher of the Year Awards Gala by Governor Beebe and Education Commissioner Dr. Tom W. Kimbrell. This profile by Channel 11, which will film the awards ceremony, gives a peek into why Nash is one of this year’s top contenders for the title.

Three school districts turned in applications for four conversion charter schools to the Arkansas Department of Education earlier this week.
The basic concept of public charter schools is that they exercise increased autonomy, all the while being held accountable for student perormance. A conversion charter school is one in which a school district reorganizes one of its own schools as opposed to open enrollment charters, in which a non-profit organization opens a school separate from the school district structure.
The proposed conversion charter schools are Cloverdale Aerospace Technology Conversion Charter Middle School in Little Rock School District; Harris Science and Health Elementary Charter and STAR Academy, both in Pulaski County Special School District; and Lincoln Middle Academy of Excellence in Forrest City.
The Arkansas State Board of Education will consider the charter applications in early 2010.
Posted by JJT.