Update: April 18th, 2018

Greetings!

Below you will find updates regarding Advanced Opportunities: 

AO Portal

·         Currently, we are in the “verification window.”  Course providers are verifying enrollments in the system.  As soon as your enrollments are match at 100%, please feel free to submit your summer date to the SDE.

·         The summer data-entry window for the AO portal will be May 12 through  August 17^th. If you district would like to open the summer window sooner, you will need to submit your spring data first. At that point, please send me an email and I can open the summer window sooner.

·         FY19 dates for the portal will be sent out at the end of the month

·         In the middle of May, we will be launching the AO Portal 3.0, which will have a series of updates based on feedback from the field.  User manuals will be updated this summer, and AO portal trainings will be scheduled for August.

 

AO Technical Roadshow: We will be hosting six events around the state to go over all statute, rule, and policy changes related to Advanced Opportunities, Secondary schools, and College and Career Readiness. Exact locations will be sent out shortly. Click here to RSVP.

·         May 1st- Twin Falls

·         May 2nd- Idaho Falls

·         May 3rd- Pocatello

·         May 21st- Lewiston

·         May 22nd- Coeur d’Alene

·         May 30th- Boise

Advanced Ops Statute Changes: As many of you might already know, the legislature made some statutory changes to the AO statute for the upcoming school year.  They changes will take affect July 1^st.  Click here to read the new AO statute.

Certificates of Residency: Please keep in mind that the deadline for COR’s is coming up on May 1^st, 2018. If you live outside of a taxing district, please make sure your students get those to your county clerk (this does not apply to students of Ada, Bonneville, Canyon, Jerome, Kootenai, and Twin Falls counties).

Early Graduation Scholarships: If you have students who are graduating at least one year early, please have them log into their Advanced Opportunities account and request the scholarship.  If you are a district who enters requests on the behalf of students, you will need to have them create an account, activate it, and then  the student will be able to log in to receive the scholarship. Fund will be sent to their college of choice in August.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our team. As always, thank you for your hard work and making these opportunities possible for Idaho students.

 

Warmly,

Tina

AO Technical Roadshow

Greetings to all!

The Advanced Opportunities Support Team along with other colleagues from the SDE will be hosting an Advanced Opportunities Technical Roadshow in May of 2018.  This event will go over all technical changes and updates related to the following topics:

·         High School Graduation Requirements

·         Advanced Opportunities

·         Advanced Placement

·         College Advisors and Career Mentors

·         College Entrance Exams

·         STEM diploma

·         High School Credit for Middle School Students

·         Four Year Learning Plans

·         Dual Credit Transcription

·         College Course Transferability

At the event, guidance will be provided related to statutes and rule updates that will take effect for the 2018-2019 school year. This event is recommended for district administrators, secondary principals, secondary counselors, college advisors, career mentors, high school career advisors, registrars, and college personnel who work with high school students on a regular basis. One event will be hosted in each region of the state from 8:30am to 12:00pm on each of the following dates:

·         May 1^st- Twin Falls

·         May 2^nd- Idaho Falls

·         May 3^rd- Pocatello

·         May 21^st- Lewiston

·         May 22^nd- Coeur d’Alene

·         May 30^th- Boise

Please click here to RSVP. For any questions, feel free to contact me or others on our team.

Warmly,

Tina

Advanced Placement Fee Reduction

The College Board provides a $32 fee reduction per AP exam for students with financial need.  For each AP Exam taken with a fee reduction, the school forgoes its $9 rebate, resulting in a cost of $53 per exam.   For low-income students who qualify for the fee reduction, please charge only $53 for their AP exam in the AO portal. 

Announcing Student Readiness Symposiums

Registration for the Student Readiness Symposiums is now open.  We will be hosting four events around the state for College Advisors and Career Mentors. Areas of focus at this year’s event will include addressing the summer melt, scholarship searches, and also a tour of a CTE facilities.  Each event will only accommodate 70 people, so please register early. Click here to register.

Dates and location are as follows:

·         Boise: February 23^rd

·         Coeur d’Alene: March 2^nd

·         Pocatello: March 9^th

·         Twin Falls: March 16^th

Similar to last year, PD credit will be available once again. 

Update December 15, 2017

Dear Colleagues,

I wanted to take a few moments and give you some updates regarding Advanced Opportunities before you head out for your Christmas break. 

Fall Data has been Processed: Our office has finished processing the data for the Fall term. Please take a moment to view the “Courses Awaiting SDE submission” report for any items that have been sent back for review.  Any courses that we’ve sent back are in the status “School level received.” You can click on the course name and view comments that explain why the course or exam was sent back.

Payments: We have sent payment requests to our finance department.  Districts and colleges should see funds hit their accounts, or a check within the next week or so.  Please make sure your business office is apprised of the funds, and what they apply toward. All receipts are available in the “Billing Statements” reports in the portal. When clicking on the arrow, you will find a detailed breakdown of all payments.

Spring Request Window:  The window for entering spring funding requests will be January 8 through February 23th.  If for some reason you’d like to adjust your data entry window to open sooner, please contact me directly.

Professional Development:  Our team is constantly seeking to bring relevant and meaningful professional development opportunities to you in order to assist you in your work with students. Please take one minute to fill out this survey that will better inform our efforts this coming spring.

Symposium Events: This year our team will be hosting the Student Readiness Symposiums similar to last year. These will be day-long training events focused on best-practices around advising and College/Career Readiness. Please mark your calendars and save the dates for your region.

·         Region 3: February 23^rd

·         Region 1/2: March 2^nd

·         Region 5/6: March 9^th

·         Region 4: March 16^th

·         Region 3: March 20^th

As always, please let us know if you have any questions.  I wish all of you and your families and very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Warmly,

Tina Polishchuk

Advanced Opportunities Conference 2017

Early Bird Special is available until August 1st. Sign up today!

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 26^th.  Courses will still need to be submitted by May 5^th.  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 22^nd

o   Region 2: Moscow, Tuesday, May 23^rd

o   Region 3: Boise, Thursday, May 25^th

o   Region 4: Twin Falls, Tuesday, May 30^th

o   Region 5: Pocatello, Wednesday, May 31^st

o   Region 6: Idaho Falls, Thursday, June 1^st

·         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. 6^th.  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