Thursday, February 9, 2017

Update: February 8th, 2017


Greetings to all of you!
 
I hope that your second semester is off to a smooth start!  This email included reminders and important notices with regards to Advanced Opportunities.
 
Portal Updates
·         Exam Submission Dates: Many of you will have students that will take exams during the month of May.  For this reason, the SDE has pushed the exam submission date to May 26th.  Courses will still need to be submitted by May 5th.  However, exams can be held after these test dates have passed.
·         Repeated Courses: Please remember that the AO statute prohibits payment for any repeated or remedial coursework.  You may find that courses were pushed back by SDE staff during the approval process last semester because they were “repeated”. If this is the case, please make sure they are removed from the list before you get ready to submit to the SDE again.
·         Webinar Posted: Visit the following link to view the webinar on Portal Updates 2.1.
·         Naming Convention: Please be sure to use the correct naming convention for all dual credit courses entered into the portal (i.e., ENGL 101 Writing Composition). Please note that if you have courses entered in another format, you will be (or have been) contacted by our team and asked to re-enter those requests.
·         Summer Dates: We are in the process of negotiating summer deadlines. We will have these to you by the end of the month.
·         New Students: If you are not finding the a specific student who may have requested an account, please make sure to check the previous years: 2015, and 2016 at the top of your screen. Additionally, you can check the box to view previously denied students if they need their account activated.
·         Disable Feature: Please be thoughtful prior to using the disable feature in the portal. The disable feature should only be used if a student had a previously active account and no longer has access to the email address with which the account was created.  When a student account is disabled they will need to recreate a brand new account. Upon verification of the EDU-ID, the new account will merge with activity from the old account.
 
Tax Forms
·         1098-T Forms: Several colleges and universities have sent out  many 1098-T tax forms to students which reflect payments that were made to their college/university accounts. Parents or students may come to you with questions.  Please note that the SDE is not in a position to provide tax guidance and recommend that they talk to their CPA. That being said, here is a link to the IRS website.  Question 19 addresses concerns that parents may have.
 
SAVE THE DATE:
·         Roadshow N’ More: The Advanced Opportunities Roadshow is tentatively scheduled for the following dates. This year will include a full day  in-depth workshop from 8:30-3:30 for administrators, counselors, and career advisors around implementation practices for AO and College/Career Readiness. Please save the date, more information will be provided in the near future. We look forward to visiting your neck of the wood and hearing your feedback on program implementation.
o   Region 1: Coeur d’Alene, Monday, May 22nd
o   Region 2: Moscow, Tuesday, May 23rd
o   Region 3: Boise, Thursday, May 25th
o   Region 4: Twin Falls, Tuesday, May 30th
o   Region 5: Pocatello, Wednesday, May 31st
o   Region 6: Idaho Falls, Thursday, June 1st
·         Parent Nights: Our team is willing to host a parent night concurrently with the roadshow, if you feel this would be beneficial for your region, please let us know and we will work with you to organize the event while we are in your region of the state.
·         Conference: The Advanced Opportunities conference is currently scheduled for September 7-8 in Boise, with pre-conferences on Sept. 6th.  We hope that all of you will be able to join us as we bring in experts from around the country for some dynamic professional development. More information will be provided soon!
 
Thank you for your continued commitment to Idaho students.  Please contact our support team if you have any questions.
 
Warmly,
Tina Polishchuk