Welcome Back to Advanced Opportunities

Welcome Back to all AO Personnel!

 I hope that all of you had a relaxing and fun-filled summer.  Now that August is coming to a close, the school year is upon us! I want to apprise you of important notes and details regarding the implementation of Advanced Opportunities for the FY19 school year. Please read through all this information carefully.

 Our Support Team: Please know that there are a handful of individuals that are dedicated to supporting you in the implementation of AO throughout the year. We are available to assist you in a number of ways, including one-on-one training, parent nights, presentations, and also with Q & A.  Please join us in welcoming the newest member of our team, Noe Zepeda, who will be servicing regions 3 & 4 (i.e., Southwest Idaho). Also, note that Stephanie and Kasi’s email addresses have changed.

·         North Idaho: Stephanie Childress, (208) 502-0298 schildress@sde.idaho.gov
·         Southwest Idaho: Noe Zepeda, (208) 962-1993 nzepeda@sde.idaho.gov
·         Eastern Idaho: Kasi Beorchia (435) 414-9810 kbeorchia@sde.idaho.gov
·         AO Admin Support: Jean Hilton (208) 332-6906 jhilton@sde.idaho.gov
·         Statewide AO Coordinator: Tina Polishchuk (208) 332-6944 tpolishchuk@sde.idaho.gov
·         GEAR UP Schools: Jacque Deahl (208) 332-6946 jdeahl@sde.idaho.gov & Patty Alonzo (208) 332-6943 palaonzo@sde.idaho.gov

 

Deadlines: Below are all the critical deadlines for submitting funding requests in the Advanced Opportunities Portal. If you have any questions about this feel free to reach out.  Attached, you’ll find two documents that will help you navigate the processes in the portal 1) District User Manual and 2) AO Desk Calendar. If you did not attend our portal trainings in August we highly recommend that you print the desk calendar as it will have answers to FAQ’s and reminders of all deadlines.

 

Term	Student Access/ Data Entry Window	Verification Window (Get to 100% Match)	District Submission Deadline
Summer 2018	May 14 – June 30	July 1 – Aug 16	Aug 17, 2018
Fall 2018	Aug 27 – Sept 28	Oct 1 – Nov 1	Nov 9, 2018
Spring 2019	Jan 7 – Feb 22	Feb 25 – Apr 26	May 3, 2019 (courses) May 24, 2019 (exams)
Trimester 1	Aug 27 – Sept 28	Oct 1 – Nov 1	Nov 9, 2018
Trimester 2	Nov 19 – Jan 18	Jan 21 – Apr 26	May 3, 2019
Trimester 3	Feb 11 – Mar 29	Apr 1 – Apr 26	May 3, 2019 (courses) May 24, 2019 (exams)

Certificates of Residency: Please note that students who use Advanced Opportunities funding to pay for courses no longer need to fill out a COR.

 

Update Users:  At the beginning of each school year, its always a challenge for us to keep up with the staff turn over during the summer time. If you had turn over in your staff, please contact either your district IT administrator or our IT team (208-332-6987) to make sure those individuals are removed from the Advanced Opportunities portal.  We want to make sure that student data is only available to those individuals that are currently working with students. Additionally, our team will be reaching out to each school district manager to update our internal contact list.

 Student Data: Please do NOT send any identifiable student data to our team in an email unless the files are properly encrypted. Because all of our email correspondence is subject to public records requests, this puts student identities at risk.

 GEAR UP West/Advanced Opportunities Conference:  Our team is partnering with GEAR UP West to bring you an incredible event that will bring folks from all over the country.  Although space is limited, it’s still not too late to sign up.  Conference dates are October 14^th-16^th. You can choose to stay the whole conference to learn about Advising, statewide and national research and trends, or attend only on Tuesday for information only related to Advanced Opportunities implementation.  Click here to register for the conference.

 Advanced Opportunities Roadshow 2018: Many of you attended the spring technical roadshow. All topics that were presented in the training have been moved online in video format for you. These videos can be found on the AO webpage under the training link. Towards the bottom, you will see a section called “Advanced Opportunities Roadshow 2018”

 Year Round Training:  Our team is dedicated to ensuring that you and your colleagues are connected to state of the art training related to College and Career Readiness. Attached, you will find a PDF that list all the College and Career Readiness professional development opportunities that our team taps into.  These include both statewide and national resources. If you are aware of other training opportunities that we have not included, please feel free to let us know.

 As always, thank you for your hard work and dedication to serving Idaho students. Your commitment is greatly appreciated! I wish all of you a wonderful and blessed school year!

 Warmly,

 
Tina