Successful Implementation is Intentional Work

Successful implementation of TransACT is worth recognizing.
For you, it means that school-to-home communications promises have been met at the right cost. For employees at TransACT, it means that we kept our promises to help you succeed.

Most importantly, it means that we are both rewarded for a job-well-done by successfully implementing TransACT throughout your school system.

What does it take to be a “successful” customer? It helps to have an administrative leader that can mobilize and train your teams to use TransACT. It’s not hard; it just needs to be done. End users typically are Principals, Secretaries and ELL/ESOL resource teachers. Often this group of users will be supplemented by central office staff, transportation, food service and guidance counselors. Some of our customers have more than 500 registered users in a single district because they want everybody to have access to parental notifications on-demand.

These districts have figured out that providing standardized, legally-reviewed parent notifications in multiple languages throughout the district is a big benefit. And it can lead to fewer dollars overall spent on translations.

District teams that successfully implement TransACT have one “owner” (someone like you), a coordinator/trainer and many users. If your district has 10 schools, we like to see 25 users. We figure at least two users per building (Principal and Secretary) and a few for the central office team. Of course there is not any additional cost for extra users. Sign everybody up if you like.

Need help? We know how busy you are, so put your TransACT Customer Care team to work for you now. I am confident that a single hour (no charge) with them to establish goals, metrics and actions will produce exactly the right result you want, and allow our teams to keep their promises to you.

It’s what you paid for, let us make good on that promise.

Rick

The deadline is drawing near for states to meet the NCLB requirement for having “highly qualified teachers” (HQT) in all core academic areas and states are reporting mixed progress toward achieving the requirement. The deadline for meeting this requirement is the end of the 2005-2006 school year.

Although many states are reporting the majority of classes are being taught by teachers who meet HQT requirements, a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) notes that several limitations affect the quality and precision of state-reported data. Such limitations include the omission of reporting classes taught by special education teachers from HQT data and incorrect assumptions about which teachers meet these requirements.

The consequences for not meeting highly qualified requirements include:

• The U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) can withhold a portion or all of a state’s Title I and Title II funds if districts fail comply.
• The state is required to provide technical assistance to districts/schools in non-compliance.
• The state can direct the use of all Title II funds and 5% of Title I funds to assure that teachers become highly qualified.
• The state has the authority to recommend a state aid penalty if districts/schools fail to comply.

Recognizing there remains a lot of work for states and districts to do to meet the HQT deadline, USDOE announced three new areas of flexibility in March 2004:

1. Teachers in eligible rural districts are allowed additional time to become highly qualified,
2. States may allow science teachers to demonstrate they are highly qualified either in “broad-field categories” of science or individual fields of science, and
3. Veteran teachers who teach multi-subjects may demonstrate they are highly qualified through one process rather than the “high objective uniform state standard of evaluation” (HOUSSE) process for each subject.

Deadline Extended, If…

Even with new HQT flexibilities, the USDOE is aware that, despite best efforts, many districts cannot hire highly qualified teachers for every core academic class by the deadline. As a result, the USDOE announced that states that do not reach the 100 percent goal by the end of the 2005-2006 will not lose federal funds if they making a good faith effort to meet the deadline. States may be allowed one additional year to meet the goal if they can show evidence of:

• A definition of a highly qualified teacher that is consistent with NCLB,
• Providing parents with accurate and complete reports and appropriate notifications,
• Accurate reporting of HQT data to the USDOE, and,
• The rate of non-HQT assigned to teach poor and minority students is not higher than the rate for other students.

Parent Notification

The GAO report noted the majority of districts they visited either did not notify parents when their children were assigned to teachers who did not meet the requirements or did not make the notification entirely clear to the parents. They also found that signed attestations by the school principal regarding progress toward meeting the HQT goal were missing or not on file for viewing as required by NCLB.

As part of the IDEA Parent Notifications collection, TransACT provides a procedural safeguards notice based on the USDOE requirements. We fully expect school systems to modify the Word templates to meet their unique local and state needs.

The federal document is currently available in English and Spanish. Arabic, Hmong, Russian and Vietnamese translations will be available in March. Districts are responsible for any modifications they make and for the custom translations of these documents.
NOTE: TransACT retains copyrights to all derivatives of the copyrighted content.

Customers that subscribe to the GenEd Parent Notifications will be pleased to see a completely re-translated Russian version posted to the site. Many of the documents had been revised multiple times over the years and required a full re-translation and editing to maintain a professional level of readability.

Customizable cover letters are being added to forms in the IDEA Parent Notifications collection. These documents, similar to the cover letters in the NCLB Parent Notifications collection, provide you the opportunity to customize and personalize a brief explanation of the attached form.

The TransACT® IDEA Parent Notification collection undergoes routine updates and revisions. Users should regularly login at www.transact.com so that they are sure that they are using the most current forms.

We are pleased to announce the posting of the following NEW IDEA forms, now available:

• IDEA-B6a - Prior Written Notice - Parent Consent Not Required
• IDEA-B6b - Prior Written Notice - Parent Consent Required

TransACT Coordinator:  V. Hope Meyerhoeffer

How long have you been a TransACT subscriber?  We started subscribing to the GenEd collection in 1996.

How does your district use TransACT?  At registration, families complete a packet of information that includes health forms and free and reduced-price meal applications that we pull off of the TransACT site. We then print out forms throughout the year as they are needed. We then use the English form side-by-side with the translated form to record the information.

What have you done to help train your staff in the use of TransACT?  We have trained our ESL teachers, who serve as on-site trainers in each of our 29 schools with ESL populations. The ESL teachers can pull up forms for classroom teachers who need them. TransACT President/CEO Rick Passovoy also completed on-site training for our staff.

How would you describe TransACT to a colleague in another district?  TransACT provides a way to get information to and from parents and do so in a variety of languages.

TransACT congratulates Hope Meyerhoeffer and the staff
of the Wayne County Public School District for a job well done!

Greg Heaston
Account Implementation Manager

I like the freedom that lets me do what is best for our customers. I am given the freedom to treat each customer with the same level of focus on their individual needs. Whether it is training, technical support, implementation assistance or custom solutions, I give each district the same opportunity to be successful.

Birthplace: Columbus, Ohio

Birth month/day: February 11

How long have you been with TransACT: Since July 2005.

Educational background: BBA from the University of Cincinnati

Favorite school subject: Math (elementary), History (high school), Philosophy (college)

Favorite things to do outside of work: Sing karaoke, golf and play chess

Favorite band or music: I like music with meaning, regardless of the genre

Famous persons you’d like to have dinner with (living or not): Bill Clinton and Dave Chappelle

Favorite quote: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
- Eleanor Roosevelt