EDLD5344 Reflection

While I do not work in K-12, the McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Act discussed in the Week 2 web conference was the most interesting and applicable to my work in higher education. I was surprised at how broad the definition is and how many students in deep, South Texas are considered homeless. We have a large population of migrant students, students in substandard housing, and students who share housing due to economic reasons. Although NCLB addresses access to higher education and the Department of Education will provide financial aid for homeless students who qualify, community colleges can play an integral role in preparing students and their families for the transition to higher education. I have shared the McKinney Vento Act with my outreach staff so together we can develop transition plans for homeless student populations. The plan includes bi-lingual parent education programs that emphasize the value of an Associate’s Degree. For many homeless students, a college certificate or degree will put their family on the path to the middle class. Our vision is a “better quality of life for our communities;” facilitating access and completion for homeless students and families in our region puts that vision into practice.

As a student affairs administrator at a community college, I do not evaluate teacher performance; however, I do play role in identifying highly qualified teachers to teach dual enrollment courses. High schools in our district often recruit highly qualified teachers in an effort to ramp up dual credit course offering on their campus. Oftentimes, college personnel are included in drafting job descriptions and interviewing prospective faculty. Furthermore college program chairs as well as students evaluate the dual enrollment teacher per the college policy. The program chair evaluation includes in class observation, student success rates and completion of learning outcomes. Student evaluation is typically survey driven. I do not believe these evaluations are considered during the high school contract renewal process, however.

This year, with state budget cuts impacting high school staffing plans, many schools waited until the deadline to issue contract renewals. This impacted the college’s ability to develop the dual enrollment schedule and secure faculty for the fall term. While it is not common practice to issue continuing teacher contracts, I think that consideration should be given for highly qualified, effective teachers.

Confidentiality and student records are a hot topic in higher education. FERPA is applied to all college students, regardless of their age; and most faculty are very conservative in their interpretation as it relates to conversation with parents. This can present a problem when one-third of the college’s enrollment is made up of dual credit, high school students. As a result, the college has ramped up FERPA training and given faculty and staff the tools and resources to respond to parent inquiries. Furthermore, the college has secured Memorandums of Understanding with dual credit partners in order to exchange student level data. FERPA provisions allow higher education institutions to share de-identified student data at the aggregate level for accountability and compliance; however, dual credit programs require student level data to facilitate transcription of grades for the high school course. The MOU indicates that the high school has a legitimate educational interest and as a result will receive student level data including academic standing and grades.

Finally, this year the State of Texas passed legislation requiring all college students under age 30 to have a meningitis vaccine before the first class day of the regular term. Because high school students are required to have a meningitis vaccine at age 11 and a booster at age 16, we have been working closely with our high school health officials and legal counsel to determine if vaccine data can be shared as part of the college readiness standards. Together we have attended FERPA workshops and webinars to work through this process and ensure that the new requirement does not impact matriculation in our region.