TAKS & SDAA MATERIALS

DEADLINE FOR ORDERING TAKS AND SDAA MATERIALS for spring 2004 is Sunday, November 9, 2003. School districts and charter schools have until Sunday, November 9, 2003 to submit their enrollment forms for TAKS and SDAA to Pearson Educational Measurement (PEM). If PEM does not receive an enrollment form from a charter by the deadline, the charter will not receive any SDAA materials and will only receive TAKS materials based on last school year’s enrollment form. All charters that do not submit enrollment forms will have to wait until the spring to place their order for testing materials using PEM’s short order shipment process. This process should only be used for small orders. Any large orders placed at this time may have to be processed from another warehouse and are not guaranteed to arrive by the time of testing. For questions please call PEM at 1-800-252-9186 or the Student Assessment Division at 512-463-9536.

CHARTER SCHOOL CHILD COUNT Charter schools were mailed a packet on October 16, 2003, containing detailed information for submitting special education child counts. The child count will be used to determine eligibility for additional 2003-2004 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part B (IDEA-B) allocations. These funds may be available to charter schools that provide special ed services to eligible students with disabilities based on current full and individual evaluations and individualized education programs (IEPs) and have experienced a significant expansion of enrollment based on an event unlikely to occur on a regular basis. The child count should be reported in the Significantly Expanded Charter School Child Count screens on the automated 2003-2004 Web Standard Application System (WEB SAS) for Special Ed Programs. The reporting system will be available on the web from November 3 - 24, 2003 and any child count information must be reported through the WEB SAS system during this period. This count is not for the newly opened charter schools who reported a count of students earlier in October 2003. For assistance, call your ESC special ed contact or Debbie Conaway at (512) 463-9362.

GIRLS AND BOYS MAGNET ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOL’S debate team cordially invites you to a debate competition on March 12-13, 2004 @ 2:00 p.m. The Debate and Public Speaking Invitational, (D.A.P.S.), is a platform created for students to sharpen their skills within the speech and debate curriculum. Unlike the University Interscholastic League, D.A.P.S. is focused on charter schools. D.A.P.S. gives charter schools an opportunity for positive exposure to debate competition under official competition guidelines and structure. Interested judges please contact Crystal Walter at 713-270-5994 at Girls and Boys or email ms_crystalwalter@hotmail.com.