DR. SANDY JOHNSON, CHIEF INSTRUCTIONAL OFFICER

Information on TVAAS for Schools/Parents

An email was sent to principals the morning that the Diane
Long article on TVAAS appeared in The Tennessean
(last Friday) to alert them that parents might be contacting
them for student data and graphs. They also were notified
as to how to request user-names and passwords to access
the legally mandated restricted-access TVAAS website
containing student-level data. Principals who requested
user-names and passwords were provided these on the
same day their request was received, along with brief
instructions on how to enter the website and access
student-level information.

Mary Reel, Tennessee Department of Education, Division of
Assessment and Evaluation, will instruct principals with a
brief presentation of the website's capabilities at Dr. Garcia's
3:33 Principals' Meeting on, Monday, January 31, 2004. MNPS Department
of Research and Evaluation will arrange for more in-depth training, if needed.

LANCE LOTT, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER

Chancery performance remained a very serious issue Monday
through Thursday of this week. Chancery brought three of their
top system architects into town and they are remaining here
(through the weekend) until acceptable performance is restored.
The issues are not network-related but are tied to the database itself.

On Thursday afternoon a significant issue was discovered and corrected
in the evening hours. As of today (Friday) the system is responding well.
We are still limiting some of the compute-intensive functions that occur
in the system and will be introducing them back in a controlled way so
we can monitor their impact on the system.

We did put a very concentrated effort on helping our high schools
with transcripts leading up to the February 1 st deadline that
many universities use. Because of system performance we ran
the transcripts centrally in most cases and e-mailed them to
the schools. Some schools experienced more problems than
others but as of today transcripts should be delivered in time
to meet university deadlines.

DR. JUNE KEEL, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR HUMAN RESOURCES

Alternative C Licenses

On January 27, 2005, at 4:30 p.m. at East Literature Magnet,
representatives of the Human Resources Department and the Office
of Teacher Licensing will meet with current MNPS teachers who
are teaching Math or Science on a Permit. The purpose of this
meeting is to encourage these teachers to apply for an Alternative
C license for the 2005-06 school year. In general, to qualify
for this license, a person must pass the required Praxis examinations
in his/her subject area. Upon acceptance into the Alternative C
program, a person will be able to “fast-track” to licensure by
completing 15 hours of coursework and successfully completing two
years of teaching. This license qualifies a teacher for Highly Qualified
status. About 50 teachers are expected to attend.

WOODY MCMILLIN, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER

Completed arrangements with representatives of Dover Downs International
for an academic results incentive program. Students in all our schools earning
straight As on the last report card of the year will receive one free ticket
to the July 16 Indy Racing League event at Nashville Superspeedway ($52 value).
As part of this promotion we can have an Indy racing car visit schools and
have engineers do presentations to math or science classes. We are also
working with the Indy Racing League to have an Indy 500 race driver visit
a school (working to have the only female driver in the series and/or a past 500 winner visit Nashville).

Handled media calls on a wide range of topics, including: Rose Park Principal,
Tennessee value added scores, missing child at Dalewood, New Beginnings
program at Highland Heights, special education transportation, security
for schools surrounding Iraq elections, marijuana confiscated at Wright middle
school, special education academic results, charter school applications,
school lockdowns, new schools in the Antioch cluster, nutrition in schools,
MNPS funding issues, fire at Gateway Elementary, Day in the life story
for Tennessean (involving Oliver, Shayne and Edison schools) and Chamber of Commerce report.

Met with Inter High students and teacher sponsor Monday evening to continue
work on rebuilding that group, then worked with Ralph Thompson on plan to
increase support among high school leaders.

Met with website redesign consultants and began work on developing outline
for content. Continued research on other district websites from across the U.S.

Started research to obtain data on parental involvement activities in Title I program, including funding issues.

Continued work on Black History Month activities.

Continued work with Nashville Alliance on the March 1 inaugural induction ceremony
of the MNPS Hall of Fame – and also continued work on the MNPS Sports Hall of Fame inaugural induction ceremony.

Working with local Office Depot headquarters to arrange attendance incentive program for elementary schools.

Met with President of the Parents Advisory Council to discuss new website, then
met with full group during their regular monthly meeting.

Continued work on material for State of Metro Schools presentation.

Attended termination proceedings for an employee and discussed with Tennessean reporter.

PEG/jw