Section 254.2340  Administration

a)         The Educational Service Centers will be responsible for administering the Vocational Instruction Practicum including, but not limited to:  

1)         promoting the program with vocational education personnel, local school districts, and postsecondary agencies as well as the private and public sectors;

2)         encouraging the involvement of universities in the grant recipient's practicum experience;

3)         disbursing grants to personnel for participation in the program;

4)         conducting evaluation activities for making annual improvements in the program;

5)         the use of a standard application form provided by the State Board of Education for Vocational Instruction Practicum applicants which includes an Education Plan.  The Education Plan shall contain the information necessary to:

A)        Assess the applicant's potential to acquire practical knowledge and skills which will improve his or her performance in the vocational education program;

B)        Assess the applicant's commitment based on prior participation in professional development experiences directly related to his or her area(s) of instruction; and

C)        Assess the relevance of the practicum experience to the applicant's professional development as a teacher, counselor, or administrator and/or to new and emerging programs in the applicant's local area.

6)         Each applicant shall provide the following descriptions in his or her Education Plan, which will be used by the review panel to rate the application relative to subsections (A), (B), and (C) above pursuant to the scale presented in subsection (7):

A)        A description of the professional development experiences within the last five years which have helped the applicant to improve teaching, counseling, or administrative skills.

B)        A description of the inservice training need which the applicant wishes to address while on-site.

C)        A description of what the applicant expects to know or be able to do as a result of participation in the Vocational Instruction Practicum.

D)        A description of how participation in the Vocational Instruction Practicum will contribute to the improvement of the applicant's teaching, counseling, or administrative assignments.

7)         The use of a standard evaluation forms provided by the State Board of Education to judge Vocational Instruction Practicum applications.  Based on the information supplied by each applicant in his/her Education Plan, the review panel (see subsection (a)(8) of this Section) will rank applications and recommend them for funding according to the following procedures and standards:

A)        Each member of the review panel will complete a rating scale for the responses to each of the four statements in the applicant's Education Plan (see subsection (a)(5)(C)).  Responses to the statements will be rated from one (low) to five (high).

B)        The following standards apply to the rating of each response:

i)          For statement one, a rating of one through five shall be assigned which relates to the number of professional development experiences described by the applicant which in the judgment of the rater, have helped improve his/her teaching, counseling, or administrative skills.

ii)         For statement two, a rating of four or five shall be assigned if in the rater's judgment the applicant specifically details the inservice need(s) to be addressed; a rating of two or three shall be assigned if in the rater's judgment the applicant generally details the inservice need(s) to be addressed; and a rating of one shall be assigned if in the rater's judgment the applicant insufficiently details the inservice need(s) to be addressed, while on-site.

iii)        For statement three, a rating of four or five shall be assigned if in the rater's judgment the applicant specifically details what he or she expects to know or be able to do; a rating of two or three shall be assigned if in the rater's judgment the applicant generally details what he or she expects to know and be able to do; a rating of one shall be assigned if in the rater's judgment the applicant insufficiently details what he or she expects to know and be able to do, as a result of participation in the Vocation Instruction Practicum.

iv)        For statement four, a rating of four or five shall be assigned if in the rater's judgment the applicant specifically details how participation will contribute to the improvement; a rating of two or three shall be assigned if in the rater's judgment the applicant generally details how participation will contribute to the improvement; and a rating of one shall be assigned if in the rater's judgment the applicant insufficiently details how participation will contribute to the improvement of his or her teaching, counseling, or administrative assignments.

C)        Review panel members list the total score for the four statements.  The total scores earned serve to rank each applicant compared to all other applicants.  Decisions to fund or not to fund a given applicant are made based on these rankings.  The State Board of Education will allocate funds for approved applications based upon overall rankings, in the order of highest to lowest, up to the extent of funds available for this purpose, except that no applicant scoring fewer than eight points shall qualify for funding.

8)         The use of a regional panel to provide assistance to the Center for the selection of personnel to participate in the Vocational Instruction Practicum. The panel shall include two practicing vocational education teachers, one counselor, and one vocational administrator to represent secondary and postsecondary agencies; and one or more commerce, industry, and labor representatives from each education for employment system served by the Center.  An education for employment system means a consortium of public high schools, area vocational centers, and local community college(s) whose members have agreed to foster areawide vocational education programs.

9)         The use of education for employment system personnel and postsecondary staff to provide advice, counsel, and promotion, and to work with local commerce, industry, and labor representatives in identifying sites for the practicum experiences needed by grant award recipients.

10)         Submitting the following required reporting forms:

A)        distribution, collection, and compilation of program evaluation/reporting information, and

B)        filing final expenditure claims and program reports.

b)         Each Educational Service Center shall, through a letter of agreement, submitted to the State Board of Education not later than April 30 of each year, request an allotment of funds equal to the sum of the recommended individual grant awards.  Each letter of agreement submitted to the State Board of Education by an Educational Service Center shall specify the allotment amount as determined by recommended individual grant awards.  Each letter of agreement shall be approved by the State Superintendent of Education if it includes the following information.

1)         A copy of all applications recommended for approval.

2)         A statement of assurance that in preparing recommendations for grant awards the Educational Service Center has followed the procedures and applied the criteria established in Section 254.2340 of this Subpart, and has records to substantiate this assurance.

3)         A list showing the amount of each recommended grant award, including a separate indication of the amount of an employer's contribution where applicable, and the sum of the grant awards requested.

4)         A statement that grant awards which an Educational Service Center has not expended by August 31 in any calendar year shall be returned to the State Board of Education by the Center within 45 calendar days of that date, including the information required by Section 4 of the Grant Funds Recovery Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 127, par. 2301 et seq.).

(Source:  Amended at 13 Ill. Reg. 8459, effective May 22, 1989)