Program supervisor gives tips on how to prepare winning proposal

By Editor Ken Harvey

Many local school officials have failed in the initial preparation of their annual iGrant application, and grant applications will be returned this year with a letter telling local officials essentially to start over, according to Sharon Huck, the Migrant Program Supervisor.

Many of the applications were clearly done in a hurry, without the kind of analysis, prioritizing, planning and goal-setting the application is intended to promote, Huck says.

Many of the applicants obviously used cut-and-paste techniques from previous applications.

“If it is a cut and paste from last year, with no changes – and some people didn’t even change the dates – we probably won’t accept it,” Huck says.

In some cases the responses are no longer appropriate or even make sense.

For example, says Huck, the application requires a needs assessment be conducted and a specific plan designed to address the greatest needs. The needs should not continue to be the same year-after-year if the grant process recommended is used effectively.

The application has a section for the district’s professional development plans relating to migrant education, but some districts repeat the same plans year after year.

“Shouldn’t you be moving on to something else?” asks Huck.

Some applications said staff was to be sent to the Promising Practices Conference in October. Problem is, the conference is not planned for this year.

 “We really haven’t changed the application a lot since last year,” Huck says, “but I’ve been disappointed at how far off the applications are.”

The program supervisor says it appears that some applicants have failed to review the instructions, which give more precise information at what is really needed.

The application requires a description of how a district is to address the supplemental  needs of migrant students, many of whom are English language learners.

If a district is using the pullout model, officials need to provide the newest assessment data, Huck explains.

On the other hand, if a district is using the in-class model, “that means you have someone going into the regular classroom to work with individuals or small groups to provide additional assistance,” Huck explains.

The state official also notes that state Basic Education funds can be spent on students who do not speak English. Not all funding to help migrant students must come from federal “categorical funds,” Huck says.

“There is nothing that says if students need to improve reading that they can’t be taught in a language other than English,” she says.

“If you do pull students out, we want to know how you’re doing it. I recommend looking at the Title I guidelines for paraeducators,” Huck says, noting that the “pulled-out” students have to remain in the proximity of the teacher so she can oversee the process.

While Title I Part C funding requires details on how a district is spending supplemental funding for migrant students, the state doesn’t expect all students to be served under that funding. Of the state’s 46,000 English language learners – only 10,000-15,000 are typically reported as served in this program, Huck says. Transitional bilingual, Basic Education and other funding should be accessible for all students, including migrant students.

If a district has Title I Part A Schoolwide in a building, they need to describe how they are going to raise the achievement of all, and that specifies migrant students in elementary school, middle school and high school.

For the end of year reports, according to Huck, respondents are frequently cutting and pasting the same response for each grade level, which is usually not appropriate.

Elsewhere, the end of year reports are to set goals for attendance of migrant students. If they miss their last year’s goal, the district needs to provide some explanation, Huck says.

The grants supervisor explains that “evaluation” in this case refers to evaluating how well the district is achieving its attendance goals. Some respondents misunderstand the question and discuss student results on the statewide WASL exam or on other tests.

ALLOCATION TABLE UNDERGOING CHANGE

How migrant funds are to be allocated by MEP to local districts is being revised, according to Huck. Attendance, included in the previous allocation table, did not seem to create change, so MEP is eliminating attendance – and so far finds that it doesn’t make much difference.

“We didn’t find a big connection,” Huck says. The state’s comprehensive needs assessment nearing completion may suggest new items that should be included on the allocation table, she adds.

But Huck also notes that the allocation is the maximum for which a district can apply. The district articulates the needs of the students, and then they can apply for what they need up to the full amount, but just “hiring a new teacher” is not enough, for example.

The program supervisor explains that students are no longer considered migrant if they have not changed districts with a “qualifying move” within three years. Under certain circumstances the district can continue migrant services to such students for one more year – but it has to be a continuation of services – not new services.

“If the student is not getting services at the time he ends eligibility, you can’t start then,” Huck says. “He is no longer migrant. You need to ask, ‘Why is it a migrant problem?’”

She explains that continuing migrant services cannot be provided unless those services are unavailable under other resources -- and unless the needs of priority students are already being met.

 “This says you have been providing services that should not be broken,” Huck says.

“This is a problem we’re seeing all the way down to kinder,” says Dr. Alfonso Anaya, the state migrant education director. “Are they in fact getting services, and are all the current priority migrant students getting services first.”

Huck notes the needs of migrant students also should be addressed with other funding sources, such as the state’s Basic Education funding.

While Section 1304(d) gives funding priority to migrant students, even the educational programs for most migrant students should be funded through state Basic Education, then state and local funds, and only after that with Title III and Title I A and C funding, says Huck. ]

The Supplemental Services Report is the opportunity for districts to explain what programs a district funded out of the migrant funds.

“If you are putting things in that don’t match your data page (in the application), they won’t be funded,” Huck says. “The report needs to match the application.”

The migrant official explains that spending plans can be adjusted online during the school year.

“You can change this. You can change it multiple times. You just unlock it, change it, we approve it and it’s in the system,” Huck says.

“If you are changing programs, and you do a needs assessment, you need to do a revision, but do it within 60 days of the change,” she adds. Even a phone call can document the change enough to qualify ongoing funding. A change not documented within 60 days will have to be paid for by the local district.

Lee Campos, director of the Migrant Student Data and Recruitment (MSDR) Office, says it only takes about three minutes to print out a copy of a district’s Supplemental Services Report from the MSDR web-based information system. So district officials can make sure the report meshes with any changes made in a district’s programs.

The bottom line, according to Huck, is that the application process for supplemental migrant funds is not intended to be simple. It is intended to force the district to consider carefully what it is doing to serve the special needs of students confronted with the numerous obstacles that correlate with a migrant lifestyle – language barriers, lost credits from moving from school to school, lack of good housing and family support, poverty, the need to work to supplement the family’s income, etc.

 For those applicants who just use the cut and paste approach or who don’t address the questions required by the application, the entire application may be sent back with few comments, accompanied by a letter encouraging district officials to reconsider and resubmit their work, Huck says.

Before deciding to send some of the applications back to be redone, Huck had been spending hours making pages of notes to help districts in their application revision.

“I have done some that required three pages of small notes detailing what they failed to do,” she explains. “If OSPI only has to write four or five notes, that’s fine. We’ll make some notes and send them back,” but Huck no longer plans to make wholesale changes on behalf of local agencies.