It is hard to believe the new school year is here. Many school districts have already started!!! The summer has flown by! The beginning of the school year is hectic for principals and Federal Program Directors. I know I have to try and walk a delicate tightrope in getting out the information and reminders of
Last month I shared a few lessons learned from a monitoring visit. In that blog, I discussed procedures and documentation that could prevent a monitoring finding on indicator H-1. This month, I want to continue that discussion since there has been a change in the procurement thresholds. During this past legislative session, the Mississippi Senate
The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) is finishing the FY22 monitoring on FY21 documentation. After spending time with districts going through monitoring and working with them as they receive their reports, I would like to share some feedback that would better help the rest of us as we prepare for future monitoring visits from MDE.
As we move into the FY23 school year planning season, we focus on the teams that help us plan for the schoolwide plan and the Parent and Family Engagement Plan. One thing we need to remember is that we need two separate teams at the school level since the agendas for the meetings are different.
Are federal program procedure manuals essential? As much as I hate to say it, the answer is yes. The procedure manual for federal programs is addressed at conferences and during every monitoring visit. The next question is, what does the procedure manual include? The manual should consist of the procedures undertaken by the federal programs
It’s January, and if you are like so many other Federal Program Directors and me, I’m sure you are feeling overwhelmed. We have FY22 and ESSER II reallocations, equitable service diligent search, comprehensive needs assessment surveys, and now FY22 schoolwide plans to be completed within the next month or so. Overwhelming???? Yes!!! So how are
Welcome to Federal Programs where there is always something new! 😉 The MDE introduced maintenance of equity (MOEquity) to us this month. MOEquity is a provision brought to us by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP Act). The State departments and LEAs must show MOEquity as a condition of receiving ARP ESSER funds.
I learned today that the supplement not supplant (SNS) provision no longer applies to Title I district-level budgeted expenditures. Federal program directors were initially told SNS applied to Title I schools, not district-level costs, since LEAs had to provide a methodology for funding schools. Maybe I missed it along the way, but I did not
Many of us are now in the process of determining if our schools are comparable. In Mississippi, we use a comparability workbook provided by MDE to complete the process. Even though MDE hosted a helpful technical assistance, questions often arise once one starts on the project. Due to Covid, this is another year for which
