Approve Agreement for Technical Services with Beatrice Palls to Provide In-service Training in Foreign Language Methodology - $6,800 (Student Services and Federal Programs Division)

An Agreement for Technical Services has been developed with Beatrice Palls to provide training in K-6 Foreign Language Methodology to 30 public and private school teachers (on a first registered basis). The teachers will receive the current stipend rate ($10.03 per hour) from Title II funds. The date is May 31 through June 9, 2006, at Northwest Elementary School. This intense college-level course meets state certification requirements, is a foundation course for all foreign language teachers in the district, and is part of an add-on foreign language endorsement required by the HOUSSE (High, Objective, Uniform, State Standard of Evaluation) Highly Qualified Teacher Requirements section of the Florida No Child Left Behind. The consultant fee covers travel, delivery of training, and materials to each participant (including textbook, binders with handouts, transparencies for teacher's use, and interactive lesson).

Goal 5 - The district will close the FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) achievement gap by a minimum of 10 percentage points as reported by No Child Left Behind.

The amount of this Technical Agreement is $6,800. The cost of teacher stipends will be $19,257.60 for a total of $26,057.60, which will come from Title II funds.

Evaluation of teachers will be conducted by Beatrice Palls. Teachers will have to meet 80% of objectives cited for the in-service component. Teachers will produce a portfolio, final exam, lesson plan and presentation showing the use of the different theories, philosophies, strategies, etc., taught in the course. Dorothy Carregal will then follow up during the 2006-07 school year with classroom visits to observe implementation of new skills and strategies learned during these two weeks. The teachers will be surveyed to evaluate the presenter.