Monday, October 31, 2016

Update: October 31st, 2016



Greeting to all Advanced Opportunities District Personnel,

I’d like to inform you of certain updates related to Advanced Opportunities.

Portal Notices:
·         SUBMISSION DEADLINE: The November 11th submission Deadline is quickly approaching.  Course providers are working diligently to ensure that all students are verified well before the November 11th deadline. Once you’ve met a 100% match in the portal and your button has turned red, please feel free to submit your data, even if it is prior to November 11th. Late submissions will not be accepted for Fall payments. Late submissions will be rolled over into the spring payment at the end of the school year. Here is a link to a submission guide, which may be helpful as you get ready to submit your data to the SDE.
·         EDIT or DELETE COURSES: To edit/delete a funding request please select “Reports” and then “Courses Awaiting SDE submission”. Use the filters to find the student and course. Click on the title of the course and make any corrections necessary. Change the status to “Update Course”. Then save changes. If you are denying a submission, please change the amount to $0.00 and change the status to “Deny”. Save changes at the bottom.
·         MATCH STATUS: If you’d like to see which providers you still need to meet a match with, you can find this information under the “Reports” tab and “College Enrollment Status Match”.  In this report you will see a breakdown of the percentages, which will indicate colleges that you may still need to work with. Also, please note that there is a link on the portal homepage to the dual credit coordinators contact list.


Other Updates:
·         ADVANCED OPPORTUNITIES CONFERENCE: We need YOUR input!!! Our team is look forward to begin planning the Advanced Opportunities Conference. We are considering changing dates and locations, but would like some feedback from the field as to what time and locale would be best for the events. If you are interested in attending the conference, please take a moment to fill out this four question survey  by the end of the week, which will assist us in our planning.
·         GEAR UP SCHOOLS: Please join me in welcoming Idaho’s new GEAR UP team: CD Breshears and Jacque Deahl. They will be our partners in College and Career Readiness efforts across the state. If you are from a GEAR UP school, please defer to these individuals as your point of contact on any questions regarding Advanced Opportunities. This will expedite our ability to make sure your questions are answered in a timely manner.

Warmly,

Tina Polishchuk

Update: October 13th, 2016



Greetings!
 
Now that the September 30th deadline is passed, I want to give folks an update on things related to Fast Forward funding.

Communicate with Course Providers:
Between now and November 10th, course providers will be verifying data in the Advanced Opportunities Portal. If there are any errors, duplicates, or mismatched data, we ask that you communicate with the course provider. Here is a contact list for dual credit providers, and overload course providers. Each course provider may have different enrollment procedures and policies internally, please make an effort to keep open lines of communication with their offices to understand exactly what is expected from students as they enroll in courses.

Edit/Delete Courses:
To edit or delete courses select the Reports tab and select Courses Awaiting SDE Submission. Use the filters to find the course and click on the Course Name. Only a few of the fields are editable. If you need to make a correction to a field that is not editable, please deny the course and re-enter it correctly.

Add/Re-enter Course Requests:
To add or re-enter course requests, select Request Funding tab at the top of the screen.  Students are no longer able to enter any funding requests until next semester, therefore, any additions must be made by school personnel. Also, if you are adding any late courses, please reach out to the course provider. Any late additions may cause disruptions in their invoicing/verification processes. It is critical that you communicate with their offices on this effort.

Future Deadlines: Attached, you will find a graphic describing the process for data in the portal. It is correlated with the following deadlines.

Advising:
As you advise students, many folks ask what courses students should be taking. The SDE recommends that students be encouraged to follow the GEM framework. I’ve attached a template for the GEM framework. To find out more about which specific courses fit into the GEM framework, please visit www.idtransfer.org and select “GenEd Courses” at the bottom of the page. Additionally, many schools are making concerted efforts to ensure have the entire framework available on site at the high school.

As always, thank you for your efforts in making this program accessible to our students. Please feel free to contact the me, your regional coordinator, or your GEARUP coordinator with any questions.

Warmly,


Tina Polishchuk