ICOE secures teacher training grant
A $50,000 training grant was awarded to Imperial County Office of Education earlier this week by the Orange County Department of Education to adopt a model program that supports student’s scholastic needs.
The funds are part of a total package of $3.225 million provided by the state Department of Education and led by OCDE in partnership with Butte County Office of Education and the SWIFT Center at University of Kansas.
ICOE is just one of the 105 schools, districts and county offices that received sub-grants to partake in the California Scale-Up MTSS statewide initiative.
MTSS stands for MultiTiered System of Support.
“MTSS reorganizes the school system to help meet the needs of all students academically, behaviorally and socially,” said Jeanette Montaño, ICOE senior director of Curriculum and Instruction. “It’s designed to meet the needs of students academically, so if there are behavioral issues, we can ask ourselves ‘Do we have systems to address it?’ Or, if there’s an academic issue we can look to see what we have in place to target academic needs.”
The CDE defines MTSS as a framework that focuses on Common Core State Standards that includes core instruction, differentiated (set apart) learning, student-centered learning and individualized student needs. Systems of support include assistance for English learners, special education, American-Indian students, as well as gifted programs.
MTSS guides educators to initiate action plans, track progress and make improvements in areas such as boosting attendance, preventing dropouts, lower discipline rates, enrich school environments and raise curriculum achievement.
In 2016, the state awarded OCDE a seed of $10 million to try to ramp up MTSS statewide on the heels of a task force report that identified a need for a unified model.
An additional $20 million was later earmarked for local school districts to adopt the MTSS model.
Then in February, OCDE encouraged school districts to apply for the first round of sub-grants. Applicants were asked to specify how they would invest funds to promote MTSS in order to provide core support for all students, as well as supplemental assistance for some and targeted intervention for students struggling with the greatest need.
The $50,000 awarded to ICOE will be disbursed between Heber Elementary School and Meadows Union School Districts over three years, noted Montaño. Part of it is used to send teams of teachers and administrators, four each from Heber and Meadows and two from ICOE for a series of training, August, October, January and March, to regional trainings in San Diego.
After their return, they train the staff at Heber and Meadows.
In addition to the grant, ICOE receives technical assistance from OCDE, BCOE and the SWIFT Center throughout implementation of MTSS.
Also the program includes reviewing effective strategies, instructional practices and materials in place as well as defining Imperial County’s needs and plotting the next course of action.
The CDE’s vision aims to have every student in the state have access to a comprehensive education in an impartial yet personalized learning environment assisted by MTSS, or in other words, a systematic, continuous improvement model of education in which data based problem solving is practiced across all levels of the educational system. A second round of bids opens in late summer and a third round in winter of 2018.
“I think MTSS is something we need in in every district,” said Montaño. “But it will take two to four years to establish a strong MTSS. We’re looking forward to applying for a second or even a third round of grants.”