New CT Legislation; Public Act No. 05-245 Sec. 39

Public Act No. 05-245 Sec. 39. (NEW) (Effective July 1, 2005) The Department of Education may establish, within available appropriations, a pilot program for the use of technology in providing computer assisted writing, instruction and testing, in the ninth and tenth grades in the public schools, including the regional vocational-technical schools. The Commissioner of Education for purposes of the program may award grants to local and regional boards of education and regional vocational-technical schools for demonstration projects. Boards of education and vocational-technical schools seeking to participate in the pilot program shall apply to the department at such time and in such form as the commissioner prescribes. The commissioner shall select a diverse group of participants based on the population, geographic location and economic characteristics of the school district or school. Local and regional board of educations and regional vocational-technical schools awarded grants under the program may use grant funds for expenses for computer hardware, computer software, professional development, technical consulting assistance and other related activities.

EETT Progress Reports

It's that time again. Every six months all EETT Local Competitive and Blue Chip School grantees are required to submit progress reports.

To locate the directions and forms that you need, select the SDE Educational Technology web page and then scroll down to Latest Documents. Here you will find the appropriate progress and final report forms for your grants. Your efforts to submit the reports on time will be greatly appreciated. Progress reports are due on or before June 30th and final reports are due no later than July 29th.

We are fortunate in that EETT has been placed back into the Federal 2006 budget (although at a substantially reduced rate). SDE is hopeful that the evidence that will be provided by our evaluator’s summary of EETT activities, will encourage Congress to increase the level of level of proposed EETT funding.

Draft version of Technology Plan Template is Available

As you are aware, LEA three year technology plans must be updated by the end of June 2006. Each plan is required to adhere to specific guidelines for compliance to both NCLB and E-Rate. When you have developed a draft of your plan, you may submit it to your local RESC for review. RESCs will begin accepting and reviewing drafts in the late fall of 2005. In order to give RESC personnel time to review drafts and offer suggestions to LEAs, RESCS must receive plans no later than April 10, 2006.

The new tech plan template will be submitted to SDE's forms review during July and should be available for distribution during the last week of July. If you would like a draft copy of the template, please send an e-mail request to Art Skerker.

EETT '05 - '07 Local Competitive Update

READING AND SCORING: Forty people volunteered or were volunteered by their colleagues as readers. Eighteen of the readers represented the RESCs. Additional readers came from CEMA, CECA, CAPSS, CAS, CABE and the classroom. Each application was read by at least six readers. On June 7, 2005, all of the readers came together @ CREC to discuss, score and comment on the proposals. By the end of the day, the scores and comments were entered into a database.

IF THE EETT SCORING HAS BEEN COMPLETED, WHY IS SDE NOT INFORMING THE WINNERS? SDE expects to have $1,000,000 available to award to the highest scoring proposals. Unfortunately, until we receive our official award letter from the Department of Education, we will not know exactly how much money is available for dispersal and the number of projects that can be funded.

WHEN WILL THE LEAs THAT SUBMITTED EETT PROPOSALS BE NOTIFIED? We project that within three to four business days of SDE's receipt of its award letter (in 2004 it did not arrive until August), an e-mail will be sent out with a spreadsheet identifying the awardees. The offical award letters will follow within two weeks.