December 12, 2009 ACE Board Meeting
9:00 A. M. @ Billings Hotel and Convention Center

Present were A.C.E. board members Al Sipes, Tim Dolphay, Josh Middleton, Brenda Koch, Les Cabot, Mark Brajcich, and Andy Begger.
Guests present were Terry Grant, Bill Feyereisen, Andrea Fischer, Jennifer Hickok, Luke Enemy Hunter, and Victoria Falls Down.

1. President Al Sipes called the meeting to order at 9:05 A.M. with introductions of all present.

2. Correspondence: A.C.E. received an email from Jared Delaney, the 7 - 12 principal from Park City, thanking A.C.E. for holding the principal meeting on November 10.

3. Tim Dolphay moved to approve the November 18, 2009 minutes. Les Cabot seconded the motion which carried 7 - 0.

4. Financial Report: All of the membership dues have now been received. A list of members and their dues was distributed. Two members still owe for their September 14 PIR day registrations and have been billed the second time. Andy Begger moved to approve the financial report. Tim Dolphay seconded the motion which carried 7 - 0.

5. Gail Richardson’s curriculum review report: A.C.E. has now completed reviews for the entire curriculum that the state has done. Gail contacted T.J. Eyer who said workplace competencies would not be done until next year. Thus the scheduled A.C.E. curriculum reviews for workplace competencies will be postponed. Gail will continue to monitor the OPI web site and will schedule reviews when rubrics are completed by the state. She passed out the latest A.C.E. formatted science curriculum and reviewed what the committee had done. Gail has also had conversations with OPI on why the 10th grade is used in the CRT exam. Another lively discussion on the matter followed.

6. Luke Enemy Hunter reviewed the A.C.E. application for the latest Indian Education for All grant that he has been working on. He surveyed 17 areas schools for the grant application. If accepted, the grant money would be for 18 months and be in addition of any IEA funds schools received. The focus of the grant is on the seven essential skills for IEA. The grant would allow A.C.E. to find out what schools are doing and what they still need. The grant would then build on the individual schools’ needs. The maximum amounts of the grants are $25,000 and OPI will be reading them in January.

7. Jerry attended the November SMART board meeting and reported that Peggy Azure is the new director. At that meeting the Montana content standards and performance indicator implementation grant was discussed with level 1training to be completed by the end of this school year. The SMART IEA grant has now certified 2,290 individuals that have completed the level 1training. The PRISIM grant was also discussed and Jerry will attend the next cohort meeting. A schedule of training offered by CSPD region III was distributed and can be found at their web site. SMART has also received a technology grant and will start to interview for a director for the grant. Jerry reported that he emphasized that schools that are not listed as high poverty or high needs still should be allowed to participate the grant activities.

8. Other activities: ACE emailed a set of MT Content Standards at a Glance that included IEA, mailed all ACE member schools Christmas cards and worked with Deani Kirkness to update the mtace.org web site.

9. ACE Training opportunities can be found on mtace.org web site and include 6 + 1 training (which is going very well at this time), how to interpret and use MAP testing data workshop to be held on February 4th in the Laurel Middle School computer Lab. in two sessions: Grades 2 - 5 from 8:30 - 11:30 and grades 6 - 10 1:00 - 4:00. The instructors will be Andria Fischer and Linda Filplua. An introduction to Dibles training will be set up after the first of the year.

10. Thus far only one application for the ASCD annual conference in San Antonio March 6 - 8, 2010 has been received. More applications are expected before the December 18 deadline. Final plans and registration will be done in January.

11. A tentative schedule for the March 1, 2010 ACE PIR Day was reviewed. Final plans and registration will be completed by early February.

12. Andrea Fischer is reported on plans for the September 13, 2010 ACE PIR Day. She has contacted Jay McTighe who does have September 13 open to come to Billings and present. His cost would be $5,000 plus expenses. Mark Brajcich moved to hire Jay McTighe for the September 13, 2010 A.C.E. PIR day. Brenda Koch seconded the motion which passed 7 - 0. Jerry will work with Andrea on finalizing a contract. The board also directed Jerry to look into having the PIR day at Faith Chapel that day.


13. As indicated in the email from Jared Delaney, the ACE principal meeting in November went over very well. The principals would like to meet again before the end of the school year. They also felt that grade level and / or subject area meetings would be beneficial for their teachers. The board agreed and A.C.E. should continue to schedule such meetings.


14. Jerry reported that he will be attending the OPI combined assessment and 2010 MontCAS test administration training conference on January 28 and 29, 2010 in Helena. He invited others to car pool if they plan to go.


15. Next ACE board meeting was set for 9:00 A.M on January 27 at the Billings Hotel and Convention Center. The meeting was adjourned at 10:30 A.M.