President’s Message
It is time for spring cleaning and at the NYSAFCSE board meeting this month we are going to engage in some spring revival and organization. Just as you clean out your closet to see what you want to keep and what it may be time to recycle, reuse or re-purpose we are going to do the same at the board meeting. Before I pass the gavel on to our president elect, Chris Bunn I think it is important to leave her a “clean and organized closet” so to speak. At the May board meeting we will be signing commitment letters, and reviewing our job descriptions to see if we have been meeting our responsibilities. Chris and I will be reviewing the committees to see if it is time to re-purpose or create new positions in order to continue our mission and vision. We will be finalizing and voting on a five year strategic action plan. Our board functions in a very efficient manner but as with all organizations there is always room for improvement.
One area that we need to concentrate on is filling vacant positions on the board. As our numbers as a profession continue to decline (for various reasons) so does our volunteer base. We must remember that “Many hands make light work”. As you are reflecting on your APPR domain 4, consider giving some time to your professional organization either at the state or local level. In this issue of the eNews we have a help wanted section with listings of the various positions needed at the state board level to continue to run our organization from a position of strength. You
may also consider a local position that would then allow someone at your local level to move
into a state position. It may be time to step out of
your comfort zone and step into a leadership position. When you fill a position everyone benefits— NYSAFCSE, you and most importantly the students of New York. While I am most concerned about the vacant positions at the moment, we will post an updated list of all the positions in June. If there is one you would be interested in serving on just let me know as the person currently serving may wish to serve in a different position, step down or may need some help. We prefer to have you shadow for a year before stepping into a position if at all possible.
One of my long held beliefs is that I have my career as a result of the hard work of ALL of the NYSAFCSE board members that have served previously. Many FACS teachers before me put in copious amounts of time and effort so that I could do what I love (and get paid for it). Isn’t it time that you give back to the organization that supports you in all that you do?
In light of this month’s message I would like to leave you with a story that I read to my chef’s workshop classes as we talk about group work in the kitchen:
This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.
Enjoy the rest of your school year and please consider joining the NYSAFCSE board!
Constance Costley, NYSAFCSE President
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CALL TO ACTION
In your March Monday memo you were issued a call to action to reach out to businesses to gather support for FACS and CTE education through a letter writing campaign. If you have already participated in this effort I THANK YOU!!
If you are a procrastinator (like me) or it just hasn’t hit the top of your to do list yet there is still time. Originally, we thought that the Regents would be discussing CTE education at the April meeting but fortunately we were not on the agenda. This gives us more time to write more letters. More letters means more support for our programs. In times when money is tough it is important to let the business community know what we are doing in FACS/CTE education. If anyone has a letter that they have personally sent to the Regents and would be willing to share it as a sample I would love to be able to post it on the website. I am also hoping to hear from you about any successes you had in getting businesses to write letters. It would be great to share any successes on our website.
Please keep writing!
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SAVE THE DATE!
Unified FCS Conference
Albany, Holiday Inn
October 17-18, 2014
Look for registration materials soon
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Teaching is the Core
What Can We Learn from this Grant Opportunity?
As reported in the March issue of our eNews Capsule, the Board of Regents Work Group on the Implementation of the Common Core released a report entitled, “The Path Forward: Common Core Learning Standards, Assessments, and Teacher & Principal Evaluation in New York State”. Two sections of this report focused on adjustments to assessments, both state and local.
This week NYSED responded to the report with the release of a Request for Proposals (RFP) grant opportunity called “Teaching is the Core”. A total of $16,700,000 of Race to the Top dollars will be available to fund projects in the 2014-15 school year. According to Commissioner King’s News and Notes, “The purpose of this RFP is to encourage eligible applicants to review their current assessment systems and create a resulting action plan that may facilitate the elimination, replacement, or improvement of assessments that are deemed insufficiently helpful to student learning. In addition to these activities, applicants are expected to develop and incorporate professional development activities that will serve to improve the use of assessment, as well as assessment data, in schools”.
Family and Consumer Sciences leaders may wish to review pages 8-12 of the RFP, which detail the four activities in the scope of work for this grant:
1. Assessment Review: Review district-wide locally-selected assessments to make a recommendation to keep the assessments, eliminate the assessments, modify existing assessments and/or identify or create high-quality assessments that may be used for APPR and/or other formative/instructional purposes.
2. Action Plan Development: Create and publicly post a description of the action plan to implement the results of the assessment review, including the actions that will be taken to modify or augment, eliminate, or replace assessments that are not working.
3. Action Plan Implementation: Groups of educators should be convened to carry out each aspect of the action plan. Each assessment will likely have a different set of educators; participants should be based on content area, grade level, and expertise in writing or identifying assessment items that meet the criteria detailed below for assessment review. Also, implement an engagement program for parents and share the locally developed assessments, strategies, and resources with other grant recipients.
4. Professional Development: Develop and implement a professional development plan to assist educators in understanding the characteristics of high-quality assessments and how to use assessments effectively to inform instruction.
As you can see, the four activity areas of this grant encourage school districts to take a close look at the assessments they have selected to satisfy the requirements of the Regents Reform Agenda. Many local assessment decisions have created philosophical, instructional, and logistical challenges that have burdened school systems and promoted adversarial relationships between districts and their communities. This grant details steps schools should take in order to evaluate the appropriateness and usefulness of the assessments they have chosen. It incentivizes districts to amend these decisions to make assessments a more beneficial aspect of their educational systems.
Most school districts will join consortia in order to apply for these funds; some districts may not choose to do so. Regardless, the scope of work could serve as a guide for assessment review decisions, even in those districts that choose not to participate in the grant opportunity. FACS professionals can serve as catalysts for assessment review in their districts by promoting consideration of the “Teaching is the Core” grant in their schools. The RFP is available at http://usny.nysed.gov/rttt/rfp/sa-17/ .
Regents Update
There was no CTE item before the Board of Regents in March or in April. We expect an item which revisits the “multiple pathways to graduation” concept to be before the board in May. The May meeting is scheduled for May 19-20, 2014.
As always, I’ll keep you posted!
Dawn B. Scagnelli
CTE FACS Associate
NYSED
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/cte/facse/
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Ask a Pro
There wasn't a letter this month but I would like to respond to something I overheard recently. The comment was, "It would be a lot of work contacting the Regents the way we were asked to."
The question is not "Who has the time?" but rather, "Why wouldn't you make the time?" There are not a lot of states that have a mandate for Family & Consumer Sciences. New York is one and the reason we do is that the efforts of NYSAFCSE made it happen. Not just the board members, but all members working together to write letters, create displays, visit legislators, prepare press releases and market our programs.
When a fiscal crisis occurred about ten years ago and there was talk of cutting back and eliminating mandates to let districts save money, NYSAFCSE took action again and we ended up with the Board of Regents reaffirming the importance of FACS and we kept our mandate for Home & Career Skills.
Now, there are changes in the offing again. We can either take the time to educate/remind people of our connection to CTE and the importance of what we teach, or we could find ourselves in the position of some other states wondering what happened to our programs and why don't people see the value of what we teach.
They won't see what we don't bother to tell them. We are all in this together for the good of our students and our profession. It's too important not to find the time to do. There is still time to take action. Decisions are never made quickly and the more we get our message out, the stronger we'll be!
Ask a Pro appears monthly. If you'd like information, suggestions or advice from a seasoned FACS veteran, just email If you'd like an answer sooner than next month's issue, just ask. NYSAFCSE is there for YOU!
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The eNews Capsule is edited by Ann Coleman and distributed by Barbara Mikler-Crandon. It is sent monthly to our paid membership. Interested teachers can join NYSAFCSE by contacting Kim DeHart,