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 11^th submission Deadline is quickly approaching.  Course providers are working diligently to ensure that all students are verified well before the November 11^th 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 11^th. 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 30^th 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 10^th, 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

Data Flow for Advanced Ops Portal

Below is a diagram that demonstrates the workflow of the Advanced Opportunities Portal

Update: September 22nd

Greetings!

I’d like to welcome all of you to the new school year. Now that most of you have had a moment to settle down and settle in, I’d like to give you an update on all things related to Advanced Opportunities. Many of you are experiencing significant growth in program participation due to the increased funding. Please know that our support team is available to assist in any way we can.

FY17 Deadlines:

Here are the following deadlines for the upcoming school year.  Submission dates are early than last year based on feedback from the field.

Term	Student Access/ Data Entry Window		Verification/ Data Clean-Up Window		Submission
Fall	Aug 15th	Sep 30th	Oct 1st	Nov 10th	Nov 11th
Spring	Jan 11th	Feb 24th	Feb 25th	May 4th	May 5th
Trimester 1	Aug 15th	Sep 30th	Oct 1st	Nov 10th	Nov 11th
Trimester 2	Nov 9th	Dec 23rd	Dec 24th	May 4th	May 5th
Trimester 3	Feb 1st	Mar 31st	Apr 1st	May 4th	May 5th

Entering “OTHER” Courses:

All naming conventions in the portal must describe the course accurately.  Not doing so may result in denied funding requests by the SDE. If you are entering a College “OTHER” course, please enter it in the portal in the following format: “ENG 101 English Composition”.  This will allow both students and college personnel to identify the course appropriately.

Student Data/Information & Questions:

Do not sent student identifiable information in correspondence with the SDE. Please note that all correspondence with our office is subject to public records requests and may put this information at risk. Please avoid using names or EDU-ID numbers. Instead, we encourage you to please pick up the phone and call our support team.

BYU-Courses:

BYU Independent Study is now in the portal. Please note that these are different from BYU-Idaho or BYU-Utah.  Any courses from BYU-Idaho or BYU-Utah should still be entered as “Other” in the Advanced Opportunities portal.

Sample Documents & Policies:

We are collecting sample documents, letters, learning plans and policies to share with other school districts. These are getting posted to the Advanced Opportunities website and our blog. You can visit our site for ideas, or send in your document if you feel it may be helpful for other schools.

AmeriCorp Volunteers:

The Department of Labor has AmeriCorp vista’s and volunteers available to assist school districts in their efforts with College and Career Readiness Advising. This is a great opportunity for all district across that state to have additional personnel to assist with these efforts at a very low-cost. For more information, please contact Sara Scudder at (208) 334-3705 ext. 3246.

Useful Documents:

Attached, you will find several documents that you may find helpful. This includes the most recent graduation requirements, a GEM framework or courses that should be a focus, and a generic six-year learning plan that you can use to advise students

Thank You for Your Patience:

Due to the extensive growth in Advanced Opportunities and newly hired Career Advisors across the state, our team is experiencing a large volume of inquiries. As a result, you may have noticed that our response time is not as quick as normal. Most inquiries are addressed within 72 hours, however we encourage you to visit our site for information if you do not get a response immediately.  In the “Training” tab at the bottom of the webpage, you will find all the pertinent information about the portal and other program questions.  Additionally, here is a link to the Advanced Opportunities Portal District Manual. We are glad to assist as needed, please be patient with us as we attempt to respond to all questions coming in.

As always, thank you for all that you are doing for Idaho students. We appreciate and support your efforts tremendously.

Warmly,

Tina Polishchuk