The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has announced the availability of the 2017-2018 Refugee School Impact Grant (RSIG). The RSIG grant is a competitive grant. Request for Applications will be announced through this PENN*LINK and posted on the Department Refugee Program website http://www.education.pa.gov/K-12/Refugee%20Education/Pages/default.aspx#tab-1. The Invitation to Apply (ITA) refugee application for the 2017-18 RSIG grant should be created and submitted via U.S. Mail or hand delivered.
The Refugee School Impact Grant (RSIG) is a competitive federal grant. The primary goal of Pennsylvania’s Refugee Education Program is to assist recently arrived refugee students and their families in adjusting to their school and community in a culturally and linguistically comfortable assimilated manner through the funding of the Refugee School Impact Grant (RSIG).Applicants must do the following:
Demonstrate creative and supportive activities to remove barriers for refugee students that will result in optimum progress in academic and social development.
Implement a holistic view of refugee students and their families with consideration of their past experiences/living conditions and current change of environment.
Focus services on new arrivals who are making initial adjustments and those who have been in the country for one year or less.
Strive for a culturally competent transition that is comfortable for all served refugee students and their families. Thus, this guiding transition will enable the refugees to move forward and adapt to a new and different cultural and linguistic environment.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) requires program funds to be used to:
Provide before/afterschool, summer, evening, and/or weekend programs;
Attend one state consultation and quarterly regional collaborative meetings; and
Serve school-age refugee students (5-18 years of age)and their parents who have lived in the United States for one year or less.
Refugee students who have been in the country less than three years at the beginning of the school year, and have academic and social adjustment needs are eligible for services funded by the RSIG. The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement recognizes that in some states, the age limit for high school education is older than 18 and, as such, may allow those eligible refugee students who are full-time high school students to be eligible for services under this announcement.
Due Date
Applications must be received by 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 8, 2017. No extensions will be granted. Emailed and faxed applications will not be accepted.
Period of Availability: Jan. 2, 2018 – Sept. 30, 2018
Amount of Funding Available
Grant awards will not exceed $70,546. Applicants will apply for funding for the Jan. 2, 2018-Sept. 30, 2018 grant term.
Funding amounts may be lower than the stated possible maximum, and will be dependent on the following:
The range and extent of services to students and their families as described in the complete proposed application; and
The proposed number ofnewly arrived refugee students making major initial adjustments and those that continue to face persistent challenges in school.
Funding Authorization
Section 412 (c) (1) (A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) (8 U.S.C. §1522 (c) (1) (A)), as amended, includes the use of funds to support local school systems that are impacted by significant numbers of newly arrived refugee children.
Eligibility
Eligible applicants must be an entity that operates in one of the seven counties in Pennsylvania where over 93 percent of refugees have resettled over the past three years: Allegheny, Dauphin, Erie, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lehigh, and Philadelphia. Applicants may be:
Local education agencies (LEA) including public school districts and intermediate units;
Submission Process
Paper application: One signed original application plus two copies must be received by PDE by
3:30 p.m. on Dec. 8, 2017:
Application package mailing address:
Pennsylvania Department of Education
Attn: Pamela M. Kolega, Refugee School Impact Grant Program Officer
333 Market Street, 5th Floor
Harrisburg, PA 17126-0333
Note: No extensions will be granted
Please contact Pamela M. Kolega at pkolega@pa.gov or at 717-265-8964 with any questions related to the Refugee School Impact Grant (RSIG) program.
By JAMIE MARTINES of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
As darkness faded just after 7 a.m. recently, sleepy high school students across Allegheny and Westmoreland counties stood at bus stops or steered vehicles to school.
Others already were inside on the way to breakfast or study halls, while others were beginning their first academic classes of the day.
Districts in and around Pittsburgh, including some whose first bell rings at 7 a.m., are evaluating daily schedules as research and day-to-day experience make it increasingly clear that later start times could benefit students’ mental health and academic success.
“What we’re worried about is when you really start to look at the stress, it leads to things like depression, it leads to things like suicide, it leads to risk-taking behaviors,” said Robert Scherrer, superintendent in the North Allegheny School District. “And some of those are tied directly to sleep, in some cases, but they’re also mental health concerns.”
Governor Tom Wolf and the Pennsylvania Department of Education proposed Computer Science for All standards for schools in the State.
During a State Board Education meeting, the Education Department highlighted the significance of making computer science available for all students.
In a statement, Gov. Wolf underlined the reality that the economy is constantly changing. He said over the next decade, seven in ten new jobs in Pennsylvania will require workers to use computers and new technologies.
He also emphasized, “Businesses are growing in Pennsylvania and we know they need skilled workers. We must begin to prepare students now by establishing standards for computer science education in Pennsylvania schools.”
The governor wants students in the State to have the skills they need for the emerging high-demand jobs. According to him, students armed with computer science skills will support middle class families and attract new businesses.
POTTSTOWN >> People objecting to Pennsylvania’s status as the state with the widest gap between funding for rich and poor school districts have argued that a zip code all-too-often determines the quality of a student’s education.
Apparently the color of a student’s skin matters even more.
New research has found that the less white a district’s students are, the more unfair the funding gap in state basic education dollars.
The discovery was made by two separate fair funding advocacy groups as they began applying Pennsylvania’s new “fair funding formula” to the finances of the state’s 500 school districts.
Because the state is only putting 6 percent of its total education funding through the formula, researchers at the Education Law Center and POWER (Philadelphia Organized to Witness Empower and Rebuild) wanted to see what funding would look like for poorer districts if all the state’s education funding were distributed using the formula.
As expected, they found that applying the formula to all state funding would significantly change the education dynamic in Pennsylvania for poorer districts, boosting state aid and, consequently, opportunity for students who generally begin school further down the learning curve than their wealthier peers.
But they also found that while poverty is certainly a factor statewide in determining how much per-student aid a school district gets, it turns out to be less of a predictor than race…
Pennsylvania teens and young adults with disabilities now have access to a free app designed to help them find jobs, manage their needs and get on track to living independently.
Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration and the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania announced the app’s rollout Wednesday afternoon in Downtown Pittsburgh.
“This new app prepares students for their future in either post-secondary education or employment (by) offering them access to information, education and training resources, and eventually success in a job that pays,” said David DeNotaris, executive director for the state Department of Labor & Industry’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Nearly six in 10 of students with disabilities can’t find jobs after high school or give up looking, according to the Campaign for What Works, a statewide coalition that advocates for youths with special needs.
York County is seeing more students who don’t speak English as a native language, but schools are finding fewer educators certified to teach them.
The number of students who are learning the English language has been growing, mostly in the York City School District but also in some suburban districts, at a smaller scale.
At the same time, there are fewer teachers obtaining the English as a second language, or ESL, certification, needed to provide additional services to those students. It’s one area of shortage the state is seeing as fewer people show interest in becoming educators.
“The need for (ESL) certified teachers is really … important, not only for urban school districts, but I think suburban districts are starting to see that as well,” said Debbie Hioutis, coordinator of special programs in the York City School District.
What’s offered for English learners
Students for whom English is not their native language are called English language learners, or ELL students. Schools are required to provide services to help those students achieve proficiency in the English language as well as meet traditional academic standards.
Those services might look different depending on the students’ level of proficiency in English.
On a recent day at Jackson K-8 School in York, ELL teachers Mary Lynn Hoffman and Lynne Lenker worked with students, who had been pulled from their regular classrooms, on their English. Older students practiced prefixes. Younger students worked on more basic words.
The teachers also work in the students’ classrooms, offering additional help for the English learners as they focus on the content their classmates are learning.
York City School District has far more ELL students than other local districts — about 26 percent this year, according to the district. Hanover has the next highest population, at about 7.5 percent, according to data from the state.
And while the population is low in most other districts around the county, several, particularly those around the city, said the group is growing…
HARRISBURG, Pa. – The administration in Washington, D. C., may redirect billions of dollars of federal funding to charter and private schools, and that has public education advocates concerned.
Donald Trump’s transition leader for education, Gerard Robinson, said under the Trump presidency, federal education priorities will focus on entrepreneurship and private-school options.
According to Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters of Pennsylvania, that would be bad news for the state’s public schools.
“It means that our local school districts will see a big cut in federal funding, and in order to make up for this cut, they’re going to be forced to raise taxes on the local level or cut programs and services,” she explained.
Republicans in Congress have said proposed regulations on the distribution of federal education funding are too restrictive.
Spending priorities are not the only changes on the way. Robinson also indicated that the Trump administration could significantly limit the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights. Spicka said that means students who experience discrimination may have no remedy.
“If a school district doesn’t enroll any minority students in gifted or AP programs, that would continue,” she said. “If a school district suspended students with disabilities or minorities at a higher rate, that would just go unchecked.”
On the state level, Republicans have gained additional seats in both the House and Senate, which Spicka said could mean another round of difficult budget negotiations in Harrisburg.
Education Voters is one of 50 organizations that have formed the Campaign for Fair Education Funding. Spicka said their message to state lawmakers is simple.
“We need adequate funding for schools, we need equitable funding for schools, and all of our children need an opportunity to learn,” added Spicka.
Is preschool worth it? Policymakers, parents, researchers and us, at NPR Ed, have spent a lot of time thinking about this question.
We know that most pre-kindergarten programs do a good job of improving ‘ specific skills like phonics and counting, as well as broader social and emotional behaviors, by the time students enter kindergarten. Just this week, a study looking at more than 20,000 students in a state-funded preschool program in Virginia found that kids made large improvements in their alphabet recognition skills.
So the next big question to follow is, of course, Do these benefits last?
New research out of North Carolina says yes, they do. The study found that early childhood programs in that state resulted in higher test scores, a lower chance of being held back in a grade, and a fewer number of children with special education placements. Those gains lasted up through the fifth grade.
The research, published this week in the journal Child Development, studied nearly 1 million North Carolina students who attended state-funded early childhood programs between 1995 and 2010, and followed them through fifth grade.
They concluded that the benefits from these programs grew or held steady over those five years. And when the researchers broke the students down into subgroups by race and income — they found that all of those groups showed gains that held over time.
“Pre-kindergarten and early education programs are incredibly important,” says Kenneth Dodge, the lead author on the study and the director of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy. “Especially for parents, for business leaders — because of the workforce development aspect — and for policy makers who are spending the money on it.”
This new research confirms what researchers recently found in Tulsa, Okla. – one of the most highly regarded preschool programs in the country. In that study, children who attended Head Start had higher test scores on state math tests up through eighth grade.
The big difference between the long-term findings in North Carolina and Tulsa and the fade out in Tennessee, researchers say, is the quality of the preschool program.
Having a high-quality program is key, says Dodge. “The long-term impact,” he says, “depends entirely on quality and how well elementary schools build on the foundations set in pre-K.”
Experts cite several key elements in “high-quality” preschool: small class sizes, student-directed learning and lots of open-ended play. And researchers have warned that outcomes are short-lived when those elements are not present.
“I think that the question is turning away from whether we should do pre-kindergarten and instead to how should we do pre-kindergarten,” says Dodge.
While President Obama made universal, high-quality preschool a priority, it’s unclear at this early stage whether that focus will continue in the Trump administration. Conversations about broad changes may continue to happen more at the state and local level.
Most states have some version of pre-K — 42 states plus the District of Columbia had state-funded programs in the 2014-2015 school year, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research, based at Rutgers University.
“I don’t think we can anticipate that the federal government is going to roll out a single universal preschool program,” says Dodge. “The reality is that preschool is becoming a state and local and community initiative.”
Dodge says that’s why research looking at these state programs – which often vary in size, quality and funding – is so important.
With just a handful of weeks left in this presidential administration, the U.S. Department of Education released a final rule Monday that could have a major impact on how districts spend their federal special education money.
The department’s regulation creates a standard approach that states must use in determining if their districts are over-enrolling minority students in special education compared to their peers of other races. If the disparities are large enough, districts are required to use 15 percent of their federal allotment under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act on “coordinated, early intervening services” aimed at addressing the issue.
The new rule also requires states to use a standard approach to determine whether minority special education students are in segregated settings more than peers of other races, or if they face more suspensions and expulsions than their peers. Disparities in those areas would also trigger the requirement to use federal money to fix the problem. Though the 15 percent set-aside is for what the law calls “early intervening” services, districts could use that money for students from age 3 through 12th grade, the regulations state.
The requirement will go into effect no later than the 2018-19 school year…
THE MORNING CALL — The standardized tests that Pennsylvania students take every year aren’t going away, but they will count less under a new accountability system the state is developing.
On Wednesday, the state Department of Education outlined indicators it is recommending for use in the Future Ready PA Index, which would replace the School Performance Profile scores. The new system is expected to be in place in fall 2018.
When Gov. Tom Wolf took office, he tasked the Department of Education with coming up with a more holistic approach to measuring school proficiency and growth. In December, the state announced plans to replace the SPP with Future Ready PA Index.
The SPP scores heavily depend on the results of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment and Keystone exams. Students in grades three through eight take the PSSAs, while high school students take the Keystones in biology, literature and algebra at the end of each course.
But in talking with stakeholders across Pennsylvania, the state heard that growth-measure scores are more meaningful in determining a school’s success than just pure achievement scores, Stem said.
Read the full story and watch a video interview here:
Is preschool worth it? Policymakers, parents, researchers and us, at NPR Ed, have spent a lot of time thinking about this question.
