About Us Authorized Provider Job Openings Map & Driving Directions PDA Staff Privacy Statement Who We Are Registration Online Registration Calendar Upcoming Workshops Opportunities Unlimited Printable Registration Form Privacy Policy Bookstore Site Map Home

The purpose of this memorandum is to share with you updated information about the Administrators' Academy, including clarifications of earlier policies and several new policies and procedures.

As we have discussed on several occasions, our shared responsibility for the Administrators' Academy is particularly challenging this year. We have new criteria for Academy courses, few if any courses that could be quickly put into operation, new requirements for the number of Academy courses to be taken as part of administrator certificate renewal, and diminished resources by all parties. We are finding that the latter circumstance is creating even greater problems than we imagined, and we need to take action to address those problems.

For example, the new criteria for approval of Administrators' Academy courses have been shared with you at several Administrators' Academy Coordinators' meetings, and they have also been explained in detail during ISBE training sessions on how to use IAAMS to submit proposals to the State Board for review and approval. Unfortunately, we are still receiving proposals that do not include all required information or do not adequately respond to the questions asked. This is especially true when a third-party provider who is unfamiliar with the criteria wants to submit a course for approval.

Two documents are attached that may help you when preparing proposals for submission.

• Guidelines and Criteria
  This document is intended to clarify what is needed for the approval of Administrators' Academy courses. It provides more detail on the approval process, as well as on the specific criteria that must be satisfied before a proposal can be approved.
  
• Administrators' Academy Course Proposal Template
  This document reflects the online Administrators' Academy course proposal form. It may be completed when planning or drafting a course, and it may be shared with third-party providers to guide them when developing a proposed course. Once completed, the narrative portions of the template may be copied and pasted to the online course proposal form.

We encourage you to carefully review these documents before submitting a proposal for review, and we especially hope that you will share the template with third-party providers. This template should help them understand what is required and we hope save your time in entering their proposals. We also hope that greater diligence by all parties will ensure provision of all required information and reduce the time needed for review as well as the number of modifications necessary.

We are continuing to study a variety of issues associated with the Administrators' Academy and third party providers. Some of these will be discussed with the CIP and Academy Coordinators next month. However, we have decided to authorize three major statewide organizations that serve administrators IASA, IPA and IASBO to submit their proposals directly to the State Board of Education. Each of these organizations has developed a group of courses that respond to the needs of their members and can be offered throughout the state. We believe it is in everyone's best interests to facilitate the review and approval of these courses, so instead of requiring that IASA, IPA, and IASBO submit their courses through several regional offices, they will be allowed to submit them directly to the State Board staff. For now, all other third party providers will continue to work through the regional offices.

One final point of emphasis pertains to the need to make information about the Academy courses/workshops widely available. As you are well aware, we essentially started over this year, developing an entirely new catalogue of Academy courses at the same time the new requirements doubled the need for those courses. It is therefore critical that administrators in areas that have not yet developed or provided courses be able to know what is being provided throughout the state and where and when those workshops are being held. The IARSS website provides an exceptional resource to centralize this information and combine it with other professional development opportunities, so we are strongly urging each of you to list all of your Academy courses/workshops on that site. At some point in the future, we may be able to link IAAMS with that system but until then, we hope you will publicize your workshops and Academy courses through the IARSS site. Questions should be referred to Regional Superintendent Gary Steinert.

Thank you for your continuing support and assistance in providing a comprehensive and high-quality Administrators' Academy system. We now have 81 approved courses, a tribute to the special efforts you have made to develop and roll out new courses. We hope these new policies and procedures will support you in that work in the months ahead.

We welcome your suggestions

Copyright 2007 Professional Development Alliance