Title I News

May 2025

Volume 9, Issue 5

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

― Albert Schweitzer

As we reach the final stretch of the school year, it’s time to reflect on the incredible work you’ve done to support students, families and communities. This is a time to celebrate the milestones you’ve achieved – whether it’s increasing family participation, launching new initiatives or seeing students thrive because of the collaborative efforts you’ve fostered. As you wrap up the year, take a moment to acknowledge the progress made and the lives you’ve touched.

Foster Care Refresher

Title I, Part A Foster Care District Set- Aside: What’s Allowed?

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allows local education agencies (LEAs) to use Title I, Part A funds to implement the following Title I educational stability provisions:

• Covering “additional costs” incurred in providing school of origin transportation for students in foster care. (See ESSA 1112(c)(5)(B).)
• Funding positions for LEA foster care points of contact. (See ESSA (g)(1)(E)(iv).)

Essential Practices – Navigating the Credit Maze: Strategies to Prevent Dropout Dilemmas for Students with Foster Care Experiences

Students with experience in foster care often encounter significant obstacles in earning educational credits and making progress toward graduation due to frequent placement changes and school transfers. 704 KAR 7:090(2)(4) requires the awarding of credit, including partial credit, to students experiencing homelessness for all coursework satisfactorily completed. Ensuring that students with foster care experiences benefit from these same requirements can help students graduate.

Collaboration meetings with the local child welfare agency are key for coordinating support and finding out where the students have been for both in-state and out-of-state placements. This information can help LEAs piece together the credits the child has earned.

For additional resources about how to support students in foster care with credit accumulation, please visit KDE's Dropout Prevention and Persistence to Graduation webpage and review the Supporting Transient Student Credit Accumulation resource.

Accepting Applications for Diagnostic Review Team Members

The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) and Cognia are accepting applications for diagnostic review team members to serve during the 2025-2026 school year.

The Cognia diagnostic review process is a performance-driven approach that relies on data from student performance, stakeholder feedback, classroom observations and a review of documents, artifacts and school practices.

Diagnostic reviews yield a comprehensive analysis of an institution in an extensive report intended to energize and guide continuous improvement planning for underperforming schools/districts.

All diagnostic review team members must have experience or expertise in the following areas:

1. School or system administration, with a specific emphasis on instructional leadership such as superintendent, principal, instructional supervisor, director of curriculum and instruction, assessment, special education, etc.
2. Leading or supporting turnaround/improvement initiatives at the school, system or state department levels.
3. Familiarity with the analysis and use of data as a driver for improvement.

Diagnostic review team members are required to complete specialized training. While there is no compensation for participating as a diagnostic review team member, all expenses associated with travel for an onsite visit will be reimbursed by Cognia.

If you are interested in serving in this capacity, please begin by submitting your contact information on the diagnostic review team member interest form.

We will send next step information to support you through the training process. We will have multiple training options available throughout the next few months in preparation for reviews scheduled for the 2025-2026 school year. If you have questions, please email the Cognia team.

Evaluate Equitable Services for Effectiveness

Before you begin planning next year’s private school equitable services, an evaluation of this year’s services will be helpful in determining effectiveness of the Title I program within the private school.

ESSA 1117(b)(1)(D) includes “how the equitable services will be academically assessed and how the results of that assessment will be used to improve those services,” as one of the required topics to be discussed during consultation with the private school.

Collect and analyze academic performance data from the private schools served – including standardized test scores, formative assessments and other relevant metrics – to assess the impact of Title I, Part A services on participating students. It may also be beneficial to survey teachers or other administrators at the private school, as well as parents of participating students, to assess the effectiveness of the services provided.

This evaluation process will help inform decisions for the upcoming school year as you work in consultation with participating private schools to determine needs and identify how funds can be used effectively to address those needs.

Principal's Perspective: Maximizing Parent and Family Engagement Funds

Effective parent and family engagement is key to student success, and Title I schools have a valuable resource in their parent and family engagement (PFE) funds. However, to ensure these funds have the greatest impact, strategic planning and meaningful parent input are essential.

The best way to maximize PFE funds is to involve parents from the start. ESSA 1116(a)(3)(B) requires districts to provide parents with the opportunity to be involved in deciding how PFE funds are spent. Seek parent input through surveys or advisory committees to ensure funds are allocated to initiatives that truly meet their needs.

When seeking parent input on how to use your PFE funds, provide them with the context they need to understand the purpose and intent of the funds. For example, in a survey you may want to offer a multiple-choice list for parents to select the most meaningful topics. Do they want literacy workshops, technology training or homework help? Would they be interested in family learning nights, take-home resource kits or partnerships with community organizations?

Let them know that funds can be used to remove barriers to participation and increase attendance at events. Would parents be more likely to attend if the school provided childcare or transportation?

Knowing what your parents need and targeting funds to meet those needs can elevate your parent and family engagement activities.

Allowability

Ensure that decisions made to spend PFE funds are allowable and meet the intent of Title I parent and family engagement to provide meaningful two-way communication and build a parent’s capacity to be involved.

Some items that are generally unallowable include: meals, communication folders, agenda books or planners, decorations or other items for social entertainment events, school swag and even books if not intentionally tied to the event.

Make sure you have documentation to support what you’ve purchased and what it was used for. It could make a difference when allowability comes into question. For example, at first glance a bulk purchase of assorted trinkets may appear unallowable. But if those trinkets were used to set up creative math counting, sorting or graphing station games, then at that point they take on a whole new life and serve a purpose of educational support to families and students. Something as simple as taking pictures and adding an accompanying narrative can help your school to document how funds are used in creative ways to meet the intent of parent and family engagement.

By prioritizing parent input and aligning spending with student success, Title I schools can make the most of their engagement funds and build stronger school-family partnerships.

Open Title I, Part A Projects and Associated Deadlines

Please review the table below and make note of the approaching deadlines regarding the obligation and expenditure of funds from all open Title I, Part A projects.

In This Issue

• Reminder: KDE to Offer Statewide Federal Programs Training
• Schools and Districts Encouraged to Submit Best Practices
• Foster Care Refresher
• Accepting Applications for Diagnostic Review Team Members
• Evaluate Equitable Services for Effectiveness
• Principal’s Perspective: Maximizing Parent and Family Engagement Funds
• Coordinator’s Year at a Glance
• Open Title I, Part A Projects and Associated Deadlines

Reminder: KDE to Offer Statewide Federal Programs Training

The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) is pleased to offer a virtual statewide federal programs training at no cost to school districts on June 17-18. The same content will be offered both days.

The training will highlight upcoming changes to the Uniform Grants Guidance, fiscal requirements and other topics of importance for district federal program administrators.

The training will be provided by The Bruman Group (formerly Brustein & Manasevit), a legal firm that is nationally recognized for its federal grants management and education regulatory and legislative practice.

The training will benefit district staff who are responsible for the oversight and administration of federal education programs and compliance with legal requirements. We strongly encourage the district superintendent, finance officer and federal programs coordinator to attend.

Information about registration will be emailed to coordinators as soon as it is available.

For more information, email Leslie Bridges or call her at (502) 564-3791, ext. 4040.

Schools and Districts Encouraged to Submit Best Practices

KDE’s Best Practices and Sustainability webpage is open for submission of best practices from schools and districts.

The Best Practices website is designed to serve as a clearinghouse to promote practices that motivate, engage and provide measurable results in student learning, achievement and school/district processes. Any aspect of a school or district system that can impact student outcomes through improved instruction or operations can be submitted as a best practice.

Best practices should be submitted to the Best Practices database by May 9 to be considered for acknowledgement at the Continuous Improvement Summit, scheduled for Sept. 22-23.

For more information, email Natasha Stein.

Coordinator's Year at a Glance – Suggested Tasks for May

• Meet with district financial staff to reconcile fiscal issues prior to the end-of-year closeout. This will help ensure the district will not exceed the 15% carryover limitation.
• Review time and effort documentation for staff paid partially with Title I funds to determine the actual percentage of time spent working on the Title I, Part A program. If the percentage of time does not align with the full time equivalency listed in the Grant Management Application and Planning system, the application should be updated. Similar adjustments must be made in Enterprise ERP to ensure Title I funds are paid for the accurate percentage of the employee’s salary.
• Determine roles and responsibilities of appropriate local education agency representatives to determine comparability requirements.
• Gather data on private school services and evaluate programs for the upcoming year.
• Work with Title I schools to review program implementation and effectiveness and plan for the upcoming year.
• Review and update district parent and family engagement policy based on data (e.g., evaluations), as needed.

Monthly Title I Webinar

The April webinar and accompanying PowerPoint are available on the Title I, Part A Documents and Resources webpage. During the webinar, information centered around evaluating the content and effectiveness of the district parent and family engagement policy.

The May webinar will be held at 10 a.m. ET May 29. A reminder email will be sent before the webinar.

We value your feedback and would like to learn more about what is helpful and what you would like to see more of in the monthly webinars. Anonymous feedback and topic suggestions may be submitted through the optional Title I Monthly Webinar Feedback Survey. The feedback will be used to help ensure the monthly webinars meet your needs.

CONTACTS

Title I District Consultant List