April 15, 2007 ACE Board Meeting
11:00 A. M. @ Billings Crown Plaza

Present were ACE board members Al Sipes, Mark Brajcich, Dave Huether and Tim Dolphay. Also present were Jerry Scott and Gail Richardson.
Guest present were Brenda Koch, Allison Nys, Robert Barnes, Dave Mahon, Eileen Johnson, and John Ballard.

1. President Al Sipes called the meeting to order at 11:00 A.M. and had everyone introduce him or herself.

2. Dave Huether moved to approve the March 28, 2007 minutes as printed. Tim Dolphay seconded the motion which passed 4 – 0.

3. After review of the Financial report, Tim Dolphay moved to approve and Dave Huether seconded the motion which passed 4 – 0.

4. Jerry reported that the September 10, 2007 PIR day with Bea McGarvey will be held at the Billings Hotel and Convention center. Information is now available on the A.C. E. web site at mtace.org. He said Bea is willing to come back for a follow-up session on March 3, 2008. The board felt it be best to wait until after the September workshop before deciding the format for the March. Options might be to have Bea McGarvey present all day or to have her present for a half of a day rotating the group with her workshop and a choice of other workshops for the other half of the day.

5. Kathy Barnes, Jeri Heard, Molly Moore and Kay Faust attended the Wee Can Write workshop on April 5 – 6 in Portland. Upon request, the board gave permission for Jerry to set up a meeting with all of the ACE 6 trait trainers in order to map out future workshops as well as information to be placed on the ACE web site so school know what training opportunities can be done at their own sites.

6. All those who attended the ASCD convention sent reports for the board to have. Those comments were passed out to all who attended and are on file at the Ace office.

7. Kevin Connors, government / history teacher from Red Lodge, is one of 60 social studies teachers throughout the nation to be selected to attend the Street Law Supreme Court Summer Institute on June 14 – 19 in Washington D. C. Kevin requested ACE help fund the institute stating he would be willing to share the information in any manner ACE wished. Red Lodge will help pay for most of the trip. Tim Dolphay moved to help Kevin with a $500 grant. Dave Huether seconded the motion which passed 4 – 0.

8. Jerry asked the board if he should contact Nova Net as a follow-up to their presentation last week. The question as to what the board of public education plans to do for distance learning was discussed once again. Those present felt that schools would still have options to meet any certification rules the board may pass. The ACE board instructed Jerry to contact ACE members to see how many are interested in Nova Net because of the savings in the cost of training.

9. Liz Cunningham from T.E.S.T. reported that the A.C.E. technology grant would be funded for an additional year. Liz said Shepherd indicated it does not want to host the funding for 2007 - 2008. She will look for another grant school to host the funding. Schools will be invited to join the technology consortium using their title II D funds as they were for 2006 – 2007. Liz will be presenting details on the grant during lunch today. She will also send information to the schools in the near future so they can complete the consolidated plans (e-rate) with their title II D goals.

10. Mark Brajcich, Dave Huether and Jerry Scott met with Jim Staab on April 18 to visit about working strategies for ACE. As with any plan, it would be best to start with schools that have an interest in working with Jim. He needs to know where the schools are in their planning process and then they can work on where they need to go. Mark talked about the risk of having Jim work with 40 different schools because of time constraints. Al visited about the issue of time as a balancing act. He said Jim work with Columbus has been a real benefit because they now have a direction with their school improvement plan. Al said his district is way ahead on any OPI requirements such as school needs, objectives and such that are required for reporting purposes. Bob Barnes said Jim’s work with Shepherd put them way beyond waiting for CRT scores because they already were making data driven decisions for the school, staff and students. Al said that time lines can be set and if the ACE board knows about those then schools can buy in where ever they fit. Mark said the model he thought about was one where ACE makes Jim Staab’s services available. He was not sure how appropriate it would be for ACE to pay for those services completely because some schools may not choose to participate. Mark wondered where ACE might be in three years or so when perhaps over 30 schools might want to participate and time would then be a big factor. Al said perhaps Ace could offer Jim as a resource to schools, such as we not do with our six trait writing trainers, leaving it up to the schools on when and how to use the services. Dave Huether wondered if ACE could use Jim in the same manner as we now use Gail Richardson as a resource. Dave also said he felt funding Jim’s services would be a better use of money than sponsoring participates to the national ASCD conference as we have for the past three years. Dave said the conferences were a wonderful experience but perhaps this is the direction ACE might need to go. Al reminded those present that training needs to be on a long-term basis, it must be meaningful and sustaining, and it must also be an extension of the consolidated application. Jim Staab’s services has helped Columbus to not only meet these goals, but to also make writing of the school improvement plan very easy because the plan is already in place from the community level to the board to the school and to the students and staff. He said it took them less than 15 minutes to do the effectiveness report because the groundwork was already set. Brenda Koch said she and Stephanie Long plan to use Jim in a cooperative manner. She would like ACE to offer some type on initial workshop for administrators where Jim could introduce his services. Bob Barnes said that this would be a good plan. He also said that Jim has other resources other than himself that would help with the time requirements. John Ballard said that Bridger plans to contract with Jim because he just does not have the time or expertise to do the work by himself. John felt this type of service might be the future direction ACE needs to go. Mark mentioned that he does not want to see ACE schools compete among themselves to perhaps ACE could provide the initial training and schools could go from there. He said that this could help fill the void the state has left schools with. Al agreed stating that services such as Al McMilian’s data mapping workshop is one example that he felt OPI should provide for all Montana schools. Eileen Johnson mentioned the effectiveness report and that no teacher is really in communication with the new e-rate model where one still has to set goals. Mark suggested that ACE look at having Jim do an administrator’s workshop in June as well as for the August 15 ACE date in order to get the information out. Various June dates and locations were discussed. Jerry was directed to contact Jim Staab in order to set up the workshops and to get the information out to ACE member schools.

11. Gail Richardson reported that there are 21 trainers from the Indian Education for All grant. She invited everyone to the final presentation starting at 9:00 A.M. on Saturday, May 5 at MSU-B. There will be over $11,000 worth of resource books for each school plus these 21 trainers will be available to present in ACE schools starting May 7th. Each trainer has four power points that have been developed through the grant. Three of them have been selected to present at the May 6 – 8 OPI workshop in Helena and their materials will be available on the OPI IEA site. Gail also reported that she attended the IEA meeting on April 5 and 6 and was very impressed with the work being done. She was one of a very few white people to attend. Evaluations for work being done through the grant have been very good. Gail also reported that the science review committee would meet once again during the afternoon of May 3rd. She was short on high school participants and will put out another e-mail request. Some discussion on when to offer physical science and earth science, whether or not the university system accepts physical science as a laboratory credit, and the questions asked on the pilot science section of the CRT exam. Gail, Jerry and others have all been trying to get answers from OPI and other sources with very little luck so far. OPI did say that schools have total control over what courses are offered and at what grade level. OPI felt that although chemistry and physics are usually offered at grades 11 and 12, the questions on the science section of the CRT should align with the science standards fro grades K – 10 and such information should be offered students as an on going basis for those grades. Mark Brajcich said the rub is that Physical Science is not recognized as a lab course. His teachers felt there were more chemistry and physics questions on the CRT than earth science questions. The group is sure that more discussion will take place on this topic.

12. The A.C.E. board presented Bob Barnes with a clock in appreciation for his many years of service on the board. Bob thanked the board and said his continues to be a true believer in the work ACE does. Bob said one only has to look at the growth in members to see that ACE is doing great work. He said he will miss being a part of the consortium.

13. The next board meeting was set for 9:00 A.M. on May 30 at Billings Hotel and Convention Center. Al adjourned the meeting at 12:00.