A Recap of the State Board Of Education's
March 2007 Work Session

State BOE Learns About $5.6 Million Quality Teaching/Leadership Proposal

The Governor’s Congress on School Leadership and Commission on Quality Teaching presented a joint report to the state Board of Education, delineating a $5.6 million quality teaching and leadership proposal. The suggestions are part of Gov. Bob Riley’s proposed 2008 budget.

At the board’s K-12 work session Thursday, the state Department of Education’s John Bell, who coordinates the work of the school leadership congress, said Alabama’s universities are already redesigning their education administration programs based on the recommendations the panel has made for strengthening administrator preparation requirements and training. He said the congress would also like the state to fund $50,000 per university to support partnerships with K-12 and $250 for each school leader — including superintendents, principals, assistant principals and central office instructional staff — to use for professional development training.

The commission says the Alabama Quality Teaching Standards recently adopted by the board require all universities to redesign their teacher preparation programs. It would take about $400,000 to fund each pilot university redesign program, and the state would need two to four pilot programs, said the SDE’s Dr. Tony Thacker, who coordinates the work of the commission. The teacher preparation program redesigns would also require K-12/university partnerships, which would cost an estimated $200,000 to support.

The commission is also recommending a statewide mentoring program for new teachers. Research shows half of new teachers in this country are likely to quit within their first five years. To address this issue, Thacker said the commission wants $100,000 each for 11 regional mentor coordinators at the in-service centers and $500,000 for the development of a statewide program to train mentors to help new teachers. In addition, the governor’s budget proposes $4 million for five days of pre-service training for all new teachers entering the mentoring program.

In other business, the board listened to a special education advisory panel’s suggested revisions to Alabama’s special education services code. The revisions fall in step with federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act regulations that became effective Oct. 13, 2006. Public opinion on the suggested changes will be heard at a series of hearings in April, and the board is likely to vote on the matter in June. The public hearings will be from 4 to 6:30 p.m. April 4 in Loxley, April 10 in Russellville, April 11 in Talladega and April 18 in Montgomery. For details, call 334/242-8114.

SDE’s Pupil Transportation Director Joe Lightsey formally presented the Governor’s School Bus Seatbelt Study Group’s two recommendations to the state board. The panel was formed after a school bus plunged over an interstate rail in Huntsville Nov. 20, killing four high school students and injuring others. There were no seatbelts on the bus.

The two-fold recommendation presses for guidance from the federal level and asks for a statewide pilot study.

The governor’s panel hopes state leaders can speed up the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s school bus safety recommendations. Provisions of those recommendations are expected in 2008, but another five years could go by before the NHTSA safety study is complete. The administration’s last comprehensive school bus safety review was done in 1977 and updated in 2002.

Panel members also recommended a $1.4 million, three-year pilot project testing shoulder-lap seatbelts on 10 school buses. The project would be designed by a state university and would last through 2010. The first-year appropriation the Legislature would be asked to make to the SDE is $750,000.

Lightsey said the school bus is the safest mode of transportation for schoolchildren. Only 4/10 of 1 percent of Alabama accidents have involved school buses, and children riding buses are 231 times less likely to be involved in an accident than riding in any other vehicle.

Also on Thursday, Dr. Karen Starks, assistant professor at the University of Alabama School of Social Work, told the board how valuable it is to have master’s level social work students become highly qualified school counselors with the sensitivity to recognize the oft-hidden signs of child abuse, child neglect and bullying.

In an effort to more quickly return school accountability data to schools and the public, the board will likely move its scheduled Aug. 9 K-12 meeting to Monday, Aug. 6. The board’s next regular K-12 meeting will be April 12.

—Denise L. Berkhalter