Office of
Catholic Schools
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Dates at a Glance (articles below or *in previous edition*):
Mark Your Calendar
September 24, 2020 - All Schools Mass for grades 3-12 at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help.
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Thank you so much everyone for your leadership and perseverance during this uncertain time. From what we hear, you and your teachers are doing an amazing job helping students stay engaged and helping parents facilitate learning at home in positive ways. We also know that there are some awesome best practices that have happened in a very short amount of time. Please share some of the best practices your teachers have used. We would like to share them as we finish this year and think about the uncertainty of next fall. Feel free to offer what didn’t work as we learn from each other.
Best Practices Document
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From the Superintendent of Catholic Schools
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Parish School
Status Meeting
Dear Pastor and Principal,
The Office of Catholic Schools is requesting a 1 hour meeting with
Parish
School personnel to have a status check-in on the current financial status of your school. We are requesting this meeting so that our team can validate the information that we have on your school, gather any missing data, and to make sure that we can share the data and analysis that we have regarding your schools with you. This will be your opportunity to make sure to ask questions and for the Office of Catholic School Team to make sure we are all on the same page, so that there are no surprises in the Fall.
We are requesting that for this meeting the following individuals attend:
- Pastor/Pastoral Leader
- Principal
- Either a Trustee or Parish Finance Council Member
- School business manager
- If you have a separate designated CHOICE person
The Agenda for the meeting will be as follows:
- Opening Prayer
- Review of Financial Scorecard - Parish/School
- Enrollment Update to planned budget
- Financial Aid Plan/Gap
- Technology Plan/Gap
- School Re-opening Plan for the Fall as well as any issues related to re-opening
- General Outlook - Positive or Negative
- Questions & Answers
- Closing Prayer
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Parish School principals will receive a Google survey to sign up for the time you would like to meet. Please talk to the people from your school/parish who will be involved and have some tentative dates chosen. These will begin May 20 and go for a couple of weeks. Thank you!
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Elementary and Secondary Schools Education Relief funding (ESSER)
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It sounds like we may be ahead of the game thanks to WCRIS in keeping us informed about this Federal funding. That being said, many of you have reached out to your LEA and they don’t know anything about it. After a meeting with WCRIS, it sounds like DPI is still getting their “ducks in a row” so have not done much with information to the LEAs. The recommendation is to let your LEA know that when the state releases the funds, you want to take part in the program. As far as the GEER Fund, which is a discretionary fund for the Governor to use as he wishes, only if that money goes to your LEA will you get an equitable share.
Michelle Doyle Education Consulting Services
offered some webinars regarding the ESSER funding. She shared the recording, slide deck and a consultation checklist. Here is her email,
Over the next few weeks, I will continue to provide new resources on the CARES Act and the ongoing services your students should continue to receive under existing ESSA and IDEA programs. I hope you will find them helpful.
Good luck to you during CARES consultation. Stay safe and healthy!
All the best,
Michelle Doyle
Michelle Doyle Educational Consulting, LLC
michelle.doyle.ESSA@gmail.com
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E-collect forms can be used to collect any type of data you need to collect at your school. Registration, permission slips, athletic forms, field trips, incident reports, discipline tracking, teacher and staff forms, and parent-teacher conference sign-up just to name a few.
I have scheduled a training on e-collect for May 21st from 9-10:30 a.m. Please RSVP. I am limiting this training to 20 people. If this session fills up I will schedule another session. Thanks, Becky Krahn
Please RSVP using this link.
E-collect
May 21st 9 a.m.
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If anyone is ordering Math Expressions 2018 version, please contact Scott Vanderloop at St. Nicholas School, Freedom,
svanderloop@stnicholasfreedom.org.
He would like to partner with others to possibly get some bulk pricing.
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Congratulations to St. Mary’s
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This year’s ZephyrFest
netted
$480,000 for the school! The entire auction was held on-line. Great job!!
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NCEA Budget and Finance Seminar
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NCEA will be hosting three one-hour sessions tailor-made to help you fully assess your school’s current financial reality, envision targets for vision/mission/strategy over the next 12 months, and prepare a budget to address your school’s operational vitality. Each session will provide opportunities for problem-solving, expert guidance on critical financial planning issues, and provide solid support to school leaders to increase confidence during this uncertain time.
The Budget & Finance Workshop
is ideal for principals, presidents, pastors, school board members, diocesan leaders, and others involved or interested in finance in Catholic schools.
SESSION INFO
- Session 1 (May 20) - Where are we now? - focus on enrollment reality, parent and family income reality, solidifying and communicating the school value proposition, and strategies for recruitment/retention/enrollment
- Session 2 (May 21) - Where do we want to be at the end of September, December, March 2021, June 2021? - implementing the vision/mission of the school over short/medium/long-term, using the input of various stakeholders, bringing intense focus to faith formation and academic excellence, determining needs and adaptation/adjustment tactics
- Session 3 (May 22) - How do we finance where we want to be? - zero-based budgeting, organizational priorities, resource identification, strategic reductions, and potential contingencies
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Build your budget for school enrollment marketing
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Very few schools budget enough for enrollment marketing activities. The recommended amount that a school should allocate to enrollment activities from the Enrollment Management Association is 1% of your total revenue as a school.
If you cannot devote part of your existing budget to enrollment, then you need to grow a new revenue stream.
With all of us locked in our homes because of the Coronavirus – most of our purchases are being made with Amazon.com. Amazon has a program for non-profits that allow you to receive a portion of every purchase made “in your name.” This is called the
Amazon Smile Program.
Customers who use Amazon Smile and are linked to your school will earn your school ½ of 1% of their purchases at no additional cost to them. ½ of 1% may not seem like a lot, but it can add up to some significant amount of money over time.
Looking at a school of 100 students, let us assume that each student’s family purchased around $300 of goods through Amazon last month. 100 X $300 X ½ of 1% gets you $300 in that month or $3,600 for the year. Now, this is in no way a replacement for allocating a specific budget to your enrollment efforts, but it does allow you to generate additional money that you should earmark specifically for enrollment.
Over time, your investment in enrollment marketing will result in more students and allow you to build up a specific budget. When you are starting out, this may help you with some “seed money”.
To get started with Amazon Smile, just click on this
link
which will take you to the sign-up page on the Amazon website.
Then, you need to constantly communicate with parents about your program and ask them to type in
www.smile.amazon.com
when they are going to Amazon to shop. They will need to list your school as the organization that they are supporting, and no further action is required from anyone.
Amazon will automatically track the purchases and send your funds to your bank account quarterly.
These three easy and free action items can be done in less than an hour. None of these will solve your admissions challenges, but they will all incrementally help your efforts to enroll more students and are great first steps to building a more robust and meaningful plan.
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May is traditionally a time to honor Mary in special ways, such as with May Crowning celebrations. This year, we can look to Mary as a model for facing uncertain times. When faced with the news that she would be the Mother of God, Mary had questions but accepted God’s plan for her with complete trust. By Joe Paprocki
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Considerations for Reopening Schools
- While there are many unknowns for reopening schools, the DASA Executive team have started to think about some considerations. We have created a document that will be flexible as the situation evolves over the coming months.
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Thursday Tech Chats
- Sponsored by EWITC and SITA In anticipation of SITA and in an effort to support teachers now, we are hosting Thursday Tech Chats on Thursday evenings at 7:00 pm (link will be posted on Thursday). Click the Thursday Tech Chats for more information about the topic each Thursday.
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Google My Business is a FREE service that is foundational for improving the chances that your school be found on the internet. In this training video, they will walk you through why this is important and how to register your site (10 minute process) on Google My Business.
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PPP Funds not Held Against Choice Schools for Audit
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Many of you reported great concern about how PPP would negatively affect your reserve balance for the Choice Program audit. Typically, any government assistance reduces net eligible education expense, as has been posted on DPI's site in recent weeks as their initial stance:
"If a school receives a loan through the Paycheck Protection Program and the loan is subsequently forgiven, the portion of the loan that was forgiven and that was used for educational programming purposes will be included as offsetting government assistance revenue in the Choice Programs and SNSP Reserve Balance Schedules. Offsetting government assistance revenue decreases the school’s net eligible education expenses."
Late Friday, we received word from DPI that they relented:
"For 2019-20, DPI will publish a waiver that waives the application of PI 48.10(3)(a)2. to the extent the subdivision applies to any funds received under the Paycheck Protection Program. DPI does not have waiver authority for the 2020-2021 school year, so we will begin policy discussions as soon as we are able on amending the applicable administrative rules for the 2020-21 school year."
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We have heard from our schools on how the need for more simplification of the enrollment process as well as the ability to do more forms and schedules through Powerschool. We have been working with Powerschool on implementing their new E-Collect system with the goal to roll it out to our schools over the summer. More information will be coming as we schedule the trainings.
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There have been many requests to change the grade scale or add different coding, etc. In mid stream it is not conducive to make a lot of specific changes. What is in PowerSchool is “Special Codes” that could effectively communicate what you need to parents and students at this time. If you have further questions, please encourage your teachers to contact you or Jane Schueller for conversations regarding the grading process at this time. All help tickets regarding grades are referred to both Becky Krahn and Jane Schueller.
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Just a reminder that if you participated in the SNSP Program for 2019-2020 and the cost for your student exceeded the $12,500 reimbursement cost, you can submit an actual cost statement for the student to receive an increase of up to 150% of the cost for the student for the 2020-2021 school year. Please note that only 90% of the additional 150% would be paid for the student.
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Upcoming Choice Deadlines
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May 14
-WPCP open application period for the 2020-21 school year ends (began on February 3)
May 29 -
Deadline for schools to complete all verifications of WPCP student applications for the 2020-21 school year via OAS
By the end of May - PSCP
-The DPI processes the May state aid payments to eligible schools based on each school's second Friday in January count report.
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Here is the
letter
from April 12,regarding the issuing of contracts beyond the April 15th date.
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Open Letter to Independent School Leaders from CAPE
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Our current situation with COVID-19 has disrupted our daily normal. As we navigate what the future might hold, we need to remain flexible and thoughtful in our planning as things change rapidly. On April 9, independent, Kennesaw State University, business school, offered an open letter to independent school leaders that you may find interesting and insightful. The letter was sent to CAPE (Council for American Private Education) leaders.
The letter
offers some things to think about in the coming months.
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In February, Human Resources put together a webinar to explain the changes in benefits. Click on the link to view:
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Addressing Significant Tuition Balances
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There was a request for help in dealing with parents who may have a significant balance of tuition. Here is a sample from Lori Paul that you can use.
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Discover how to run live-stream virtual school tours during the COVID-19 crisis
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This webinar ran in early April of 2020 to over 250 Schools in the USA. It was a huge success and will provide you a step-by-step plan on how you can keep your school tours going. We cover streaming services, best practices, the signup process and tools you can use today.
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Check out the NCEA website for updated webinars.
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From the Office of Safe Environment:
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It is once again time for the
Annual Safe Environment Survey for all parishes and schools
. Your designated LoSEC will receive the Annual Safe Environment Survey link
April 17, 2020
. I am asking you to please ensure your LoSEC gathers the proper data and completes the
Survey online by Friday, May 15, 2020
. We are asking that you, as School Principal/Administrator, sign the Survey acknowledging that you have reviewed the information provided and the data is accurate to the best of your knowledge. This year we are also requiring each school to send in an accompanying spreadsheet that lists the names of the employees and volunteers reflected in the survey data. Please contact me with any questions.
Deacon Dan Wagnitz
Safe Environment Coordinator
920-272-8171
For complete letter from Dcn. Dan:
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Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, in-person Virtus Training has been suspended. Over the past year an online version has been piloted. Therefore, a decision has been made to implement the
online option effective April 1, 2020
. Find the full explanation
here
.
Details with how to access will be forthcoming.
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Schools/Business Managers:
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Dean Gerondale is requesting four items from you
each week, on Friday
. Please send this information directly to
Dean Gerondale.
This is critical to understanding the potential issues.
1) Current cash balance savings and checking
2) Cash received by school and parish that week
3) Checks sent out (Separate payroll)
4) If you have a line of credit the remaining open balance available
Please pass this on to your business manager.
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Frontline is doing its best to help schools during this crisis with some specific product enhancements. We are also offering free access to COVID-19 tracking & reporting functionality within Frontline Student Health Management through July 31, 2020.
We believe this will be of great value as it enables schools to track suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases, report trends, and send alerts to key officials. The solution will be of key importance as schools return to normal operations and need to closely monitor the health of their students and staff. There are more details here -
COVID-19 Support Resources Page.
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The Office of Catholic Schools has provided a resource page on our Google Site for the sharing of Coronavirus Resources:
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Haven't Had Enough Yet?
There's More!
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NCEA webinars cover trending and need-to-know topics relevant to your career in Catholic education. All participants will receive the recorded webinar and presentation files for reference and inclusion among other professional learning resources.
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And more . . .
Click on icon below to read the latest issue of
Catholic School Matters
Newsletter from NCEA and Dr. Tim Uhl.
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Office of Catholic Schools
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