On December 17, 2021, Governor Wolf signed into law Act 91 of 2021 (Act 91) to assist schools with addressing the state substitute teacher shortage. Act 91 enables schools to employ annuitants, day-to-day substitutes, educators with inactive certification, graduates of educator preparation programs, and a subset of those serving as student teachers to be employed as substitutes. The law also creates a new permit that schools can use to hire classroom monitors.

Section 1218 of the Public School Code (24 P.S. §12-1218) enables the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) to issue classroom monitor permits for eligible individuals to deliver preplanned student assignments in a local education agency (LEA). Monitors may not plan or create lessons or grade work. To qualify, for a classroom monitor permit, an individual must meet the following criteria:

• Be at least 25 years old;
• Have completed at least 60 semester hours or equivalent courses at an accredited college or university in this commonwealth, or have at least three years of school entity experience as a paraprofessional and be currently employed in a school;
• Meet background check and clearance requirements under the School Code and Child Protection Service Law; and
• Complete classroom management training developed by an intermediate unit (IU) and approved by PDE in accordance with 24 P.S. §12-1218.

An IU interested in offering a classroom management course for classroom monitors must complete the attached application and submit it to PDE at RA-PDE-Evaluation@pa.gov. Once the course is reviewed and approved, PDE will notify the IU by email, and the IU may offer the course. All course approvals will be valid through June 30, 2023.

ACCESS testing may not be conducted remotely, so districts must wait until school is in session face-to-face in order to begin or continue testing, and they must adjust their testing schedules accordingly. The Department is monitoring the situation closely. Should it become necessary, the testing window may be extended to ensure that all districts are afforded the opportunity to administer the ACCESS test to all of their ELs in 2022. The testing window is NOT being extended at this time.

Read this email for information on coding.

If you have questions, contact a member of the EL team at PDE – Bob Measel (romeasel@pa.gov) or Julia Hutton (juhutton@pa.gov).

There are updates to the Chapter 4 reporting that reflect that changes to Act 82 in Act 13. These changes are primarily reflective in nature, but there are also some questions to consider in planning for the future.

Please take a look at these changes by viewing the slides here.

Act 13 Rating Tools

The Pennsylvania Department of Education is pleased to announce the following webinar opportunities. Please review the flyer to see several training and office hour opportunities.

PVAAS Updates Slide Presentation

• Update to the login page: will now have the roster verification dates and roster verification will be completed THIS SPRING!

• Revisiting Roster Verification Webinar

• Links for the PVAAS Powershots will be on this page.

• There are companion guides for some of the videos.

• There is a slide on the Teacher: 3-Year Composites.

On December 1st, the recommendations and standards revisions produced in response to the stakeholder feedback were presented to the State Board of Education. The document compiling the revisions can be reviewed HERE.

To assist LEAs with Act 158 implementation (beginning with the class of 2023), PDE is offering trainings during the months of Sept., Nov., & Dec. Prior to participating in office hours, please review the Act 158 Toolkit and associated resources on the SAS website. Click on this link for more information on training dates/times. Training topics include:

• Act 158 Overview
• Resources
• Implementation
• Tracking and Reporting

Here is a link to access all of the recorded sessions. Office hours are offered in November and December, and in these office hours specific student scenarios will be reviewed and discussed in depth. Here is a list of other topics and a format for how the office hours will operate.

The survey is housed in the Future Ready Comprehensive Planning Portal system and is available on November 15.

The Act 35 reporting deadline in the Future Ready Comprehensive Planning Portal (FRCPP) has been extended to Monday, January 17.

Here is a link to a reporting guide for Act 35.

Our curriculum department created this choice board of Accelerated Learning topics for you to use FREE in your schools if you'd like. Each topic consists of 2 hours of professional learning for teachers and/or principals.

*This choice board meets all Accelerated Learning topics

Our fall asynchronous training sessions ended on December 1st. We are opening the winter window of asynchronous training from January 7th through April 30th.

The Achievement Mindset

When we think about reaching and teaching students in poverty, what are the greatest factors in their success? Where does individual teacher expectations of their students' success fall in the ranking of factors? Through this four hour training, teachers will assess their understanding of how poverty impacts student learning and learn how to set gutsy goals for ALL of the students in their classroom. Participants will also learn key strategies for how to set micro-goals for their students and how to ultimately help students self-manage these goals on the path to reaching high expectations.

Google Training: Google Basics and Bootcamp

Google Basics Part One

Part 1 of this bootcamp teaches participants the basics of using Google Drive, Docs, Slides, and Forms. Participants will listen to instructional videos, complete a skills challenge for each Google Application, and also reflect on each skills challenge. By the end of part 1, participants will have a Google Doc, Google Slide, and Google Form ready to use in their classroom. This section of the bootcamp takes a full day to complete, or seven hours.

Google Basics Part Two

In Part 2, you will learn how to operate the tools and features in Google Sheets to create spreadsheets, sort and analyze data collection, and consider how to use this application in your classroom. Learners will also create a Google Site and navigate the features in a Site. The Gmail/Calendar portion of the learning experience will expose participants to organizational features in these applications to enhance workflow and collaboration. An introduction to Google Meet and some practical suggestions for successful synchronous lessons and meetings are included in this training, followed and concluded by a useful section on creating channels, playlists, and using YouTube in a classroom. This section of the bootcamp takes a full day to complete, or seven hours.

Google Classroom

Part 3 of this bootcamp concludes with learning on Google Classroom and how to set up a classroom, create and assign interactive assignments, differentiate assignments, and more. This section of the bootcamp takes a half day to complete, or four hours total.

*Accelerated Learning Categories: Equitable Practices, Class-Wide Supports, SEL

This information was shared at the ACT WorkKeys session at ARIN on December 17th, 2021 by presenter Rick Harris. The main powerpoint he presented from is linked here:

Overview of ACT's Career Readiness Solutions PowerPoint

Three Skills Document

Other Information Shared:

• Job Profile Database: http://jobprofiles.act.org/
• Student Activity: https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/pdfs/WorkKeys-Using-the-Occupational-Profile-Database.pdf
• Public Tableau Dashboard: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/act2044/viz/CareerReadinessBenchmarks/CareerReadiness
• Free Online Practice Tests (Instructions and Links) : https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/pdfs/ACTWK-Online-Practice-Test-Instructions.pdf
• ACT Work Ready Communities: https://workreadycommunities.org/

ARIN IU 28 is offering a training for new school directors in January 2021. The training is designed for two evenings of interactive learning and participation. The next sessions are slated for January 26th and 27th. Interested attendees can choose from the options listed below:

Here are the agendas for each evening of the training:

• Agenda Session 1
• Agenda Session 2

We are also approved now to offer an advanced school director training. This training will take place on February 23rd at the ARIN office from 5:30pm-8:30pm.

Please contact Danielle Patterson (dpatterson@iu28.org) for registration information.

Building Blocks: Early Numeracy

Participants will look at what early numeracy is, why it is important, and what they can do to increase early numeracy skills in their students. There will be a focus on number identification, subitizing skills, and the progression of learning that takes place at the primary level. Supplemental activities will be shared to help enhance the current curriculum being used in the classroom.

February 2, 2022 from 8:30am-3:00pm

Building Blocks: Number Sense

Participants will look at ways to introduce problem solving to their students, building consistency across grade levels, and improving their students' problem solving skills. Various activities and strategies will be shared that promote number sense and ways to help students develop number sense so they can check for logical answers when solving problems. These skills are important for students to acquire, and continue to use, in order to be successful as they progress through different levels of their mathematical education.

March 1, 2022 from 8:30am-3:00pm

This three day series is not designed to train on analyzing data from specific assessments: it is a learning experience designed to dig into the why and how of data analysis and how to support overall assessment literacy in efforts to use data productively in our schools. We will look at data on a systematic level, from developing and using assessment maps to creating data teams, and we will also look at data at the classroom level, from having productive data team meetings to creating an action plan with identified strategies to inform and adjust instruction.

Please click here for more information.

This training is recommended for all teachers, however, districts are encouraged to send co-teaching partners. This training will focus on the different models of co-teaching, the pros and cons associated with each model, and it will also help teachers to determine the best model to use in their classrooms. We will look at ways to best utilize all professionals (teachers and support staff) in a classroom in order to actively engage learners and meet the needs of every student.

Please click here for more information.

These sessions are designed to provide deeper learning for participants involved in the new teacher induction series. They can also be accessed by ANY teacher as well.

New Teacher Requirements

This session would be additional focus on the TIMS website, requirements for level two certification, and teacher evaluations.

Meeting Special Education Needs in My Room, Including Gifted Students

Additional information geared toward general education teachers with full inclusion within their classroom. We will look at what they are required to do legally, but also how they can meet the needs of their learning support students along with the students who are learning at a much higher level. Explore ways to make sure all students are showing growth, writing and understanding an IEP and GIEP, etc.

Visible Learning and Accelerated Learning

This training will look at best practices to help all students learn and succeed in your classroom. There will be additional information on differences between accelerated learning and remediated learning, instructional practices that hold all students to high expectations, and making sure we are exposing students to core content at grade level.

Universal Design for Learning

This training will take a deeper dive into Universal Design for Learning, how to incorporate it into your classroom daily without burning yourself out, and creating a learning environment that impacts all learners. There will also be some focus on Webb's Depth of Knowledge, and making sure that educators are getting higher level questions and activities into their lessons.

We are in the process of designing an asynchronous training library of learning for the paraprofessionals in our region. The anticipated launch date of this training is August 01, 2022. In efforts to design the most interesting and desired learning for our paraprofessionals, please help us by distributing this survey to the paraprofessionals in your schools. THANK YOU!