Title 1
Title 1 Program Description
Title I, Part A
Hellgate Elementary sponsors a Targeted Assistance Title I Program in each of the three district campus school buildings. Title I, Part A is intended to help ensure that all children have the opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach proficiency on challenging state and academic standards and assessments. The program focuses on promoting reform in high-poverty schools and ensures student access to scientifically-based instructional strategies and challenging academic content.
How It Works:
Title I, Part A provides formula grants to school districts, which then allocate most of these funds to individual Title I schools, based on their number of low-income children.
Schools may use Title I funds in one of the following program approaches:
Schoolwide Programs:
High-poverty (those with 40% or more students from low-income families) are eligible to adopt schoolwide programs to raise the achievement of low-achieving students by improving instruction throughout the entire school, thus using Title I funds to serve all children.
Targeted Assistance Programs:
Schools that are not eligible for (or do not choose to operate) schoolwide programs must use Title I funds to provide targeted services to low-achieving students.
Title I funds can only be used in eligible school attendance areas. A school attendance area means the geographic area of a particular school in which the children served by that school reside. In order to identify children from low-income families for eligibility and allocation purposes, statutes specify five measures of poverty that districts may use. The district must count the number of children ages 5 through 17 in poverty for eligible school attendance.
Title I funds may be used for a variety of services and activities, most commonly for instruction in reading and mathematics. The legislation encourages the use of strategies such as extended day (before- and after-school programs), extended school year, and summer school programs to increase learning time. Districts and schools may use Title I funds to serve students from preschool age through high school.
Eligible Title I Student:
The eligible population for Title I includes (1) children not older than 21 who are entitled to free and public education through grade 12, and (2) children who are not yet at the appropriate grade level for free and public education. The school selects eligible children from all students by identifying those who are failing, or most at risk of failing, to meet the states challenging student achievement standards.
The school makes the determination based on multiple, educationally-related, objective criteria established by the district and supplemented by the school. Children from preschool through second grade must be chosen solely on the basis of the judgment of the teacher, interviews with parents, and other developmentally-appropriate measures.
Targeted Assistance:
The term targeted assistance signifies that the services are provided to a select group of childrenthose identified as failing, or most at risk of failing, to meet the states challenging content and student achievement standards, rather than for overall school improvement.
To accomplish this goal, a targeted assistance program must be based on:
- Improving achievement of participating children
- Using effective instructional strategies that give primary consideration to extended-time strategies
- Providing accelerated, high-quality curricula
- Minimize the removal of children from the regular classroom during regular school hours
- Coordinating with and supporting the general education population
- Providing instruction by highly-qualified and trained professional staff
- Implementing strategies to increase parent involvement
Prerequisites for Eligibility:
If a school receives Title I funds in accordance with identification of poverty from one of the five indicators and does not operate a schoolwide program to qualify with 40% poverty, then the school is a targeted assistance program.
Components of a Targeted Assistance Program:
The targeted assistance program must:
1. Use Title I resources to help participating children to meet the states challenging student academic achievement standards expected for all children;
2. Ensure that planning for students served under Title I is incorporated into existing school planning;
3. Use effective methods and instructional strategies that rely on scientifically-based research that strengthens the core academic program of the school;
a. To give primary consideration to providing extended learning time, such as extended school year, before and after school programs, and summer programs and opportunities;
b. Help promote an accelerated, high-quality curriculum;
c. Minimize removing children from the general education classroom during regular hours for instruction provided under Title I;
4. Coordinate with and support the general education program, which may include services to assist preschool children in transition from early childhood programs such as Head Start, Even Start, Early Reading First, or state-run preschool programs to elementary school programs;
5. Provide instruction by highly-qualified teachers and paraprofessionals;
6. Provide opportunities for professional development using Title I resources and other sources, for teachers, principals, and paraprofessionals, including, if appropriate, pupil services personnel, parents, and other staff working with participating students in the program;
7. Provide strategies to increase parent involvement, such as family literacy services;
8. Coordinate and integrate federal, state and local services and programs for violence prevention, nutrition, housing, Head Start, adult education, vocational and technical education, and job training.
Schoolwide Program
The term Schoolwide signifies that a school is permitted to use funds from Title I, Part A and other federal education program funds and resources to upgrade the entire educational program of the school in order to raise academic achievement for all students. Schoolwide programs have latitude in determining how to spend their Title I, Part A funds. Schoolwide programs do not have to identify particular children as eligible for services. A Schoolwide program can use their Title I, Part A funds in the manner they choose, as long as they engage in reform strategies that increase the amount and quality of learning time and help provide a high-quality curriculum for all children, according to a comprehensive plan to help all children to meet the states challenging standards.
Prerequisite:
The school must meet the required poverty threshold of 40 percent. (The district may use any of the five poverty measures authorized by the statute under Section 1113 of Title I.)
Identification of Students:
All students are eligible to participate in all aspects of the Schoolwide program. The statute requires schools to particularly address the needs of low-achieving children and those at risk of not meeting the state student academic achievement standards.
Components of the Schoolwide Program:
Section 1114 of the statute enumerates the 10 components of a Schoolwide program:
The Primary Design of Schoolwide Plan:
The Schoolwide plan, must assume premier importance to the following four elements:
- Describe how the school will implement the mandatory Schoolwide components above;
- Describe how the school will use resources from Title I and other sources to implement those components;
- Include a list of federal, state, and local programs that will be consolidated in the Schoolwide program; and
- Describe how the school will provide individual student academic assessment results, including an interpretation of those results, to parents in a language they can understand.
The plan must be developed over a one-year period unless the district determines, after considering the recommendation of the requisite technical assistance providers that less time is needed. The plan must be developed in consultation with the district and its support team and other technical assistance provider. It also must be developed with the involvement of parents, other community to be served and individuals who will carry out such a plan, including teachers, principals and administrators.
Primary school parent compact agreement
Intermediate school parent compact agreement