WebEx Meeting - June 16, 2021 - Transcript

…so that folks have it.

Hi Curtis.  Hi Bonnie.  

Hi Curtis and hi Darlene.

Hi.

Hi Vicky and Bonnie.  Bonnie we're on like back-to-back meetings. 

We are on a roll Darlene. 

And that happens, I think that uh I asked um Carmen to join us so you'll probably see her too.  Great. 

Hi Anthony, glad you got the link.  Now, we can't hear you just so you know.

Sorry about that thank you I’m glad to be here.

Glad you are. So, and I’m just letting everyone know that the meeting is being recorded.

So and Angela this is a kind of a technical question I don't know if it will be covered but I thought I would just ask. So the limit is 10 pages of narrative plus a budget plus the letters of support. Or, does the budget be, is the budget included in those 10 in those 10 pages.

Let's try and get it into 10, but I’ll address that again. Let's try and manage that. Including the budget?

Yes.

Okay

So, it is noon but we'll give folks maybe another minute or two more just to see if we can pick up a few more but if not that's okay too. 

Yes I know the Dee was planning on hopping too.

…is there a meeting at noon… I’m jumping on… I sent you the link. Okay.

Hi Kirk.

Good afternoon Kirk. 

And this meeting is being recorded so that we can uh have it for folks who aren't able to join today and then at the end we can decide if folks want to go to work after today and then maybe have another meeting next week if if you have more questions.  So, we'll give folks maybe one more minute and we'll get started.

Okay there's Dee. Good afternoon, Dee, good to see you here, glad you could join us.

I will begin go I’ll go ahead and begin right now um this meeting is being recorded um I think everyone knows me but for purposes of the recording my name is Angela McLean and I’m the Director of American Indian and Minority Achievement and K-12 partnerships at the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education and it's really been a great privilege to work with so many of you to get to this point today.  We're really in an exciting place. Today's conversation will be about the request for proposals for Montana Grow Your Own Educator Programs and this opportunity comes as a direct result of House Bill 403 whose sponsor was Tyson Running Wolf, Representative Tyson Running Wolf, who championed this in the 2019 legislative session and then again this last legislative session to great success this last session and we're really pleased to be where we are.  Before I move on with a walk through of the RFP, what I would like to do is make sure that I have a good record of who is on the call today so if I could have each of you just quickly give your name and your institution because I do have some folks whose telephone numbers are up and I don't know who they might be so if we could just go really quickly through the windows here and I’ll start with Vicky, if you could give your name and your institution.

Good morning or afternoon I’m Vicki Howard with University of Montana Western. 

Thank you.  Darlene?  

Darlene Sellers with Montana State University Northern.

Okay, Bonnie? 

Bonnie Rosette, Stone Child College.

Curtis?

Curtis Smithy MSU Northern.

Thank you.  Anthony?

Anthony Rosette with Stone Child College.

Welcome. John?

John ____  MSU Bozeman glad to see everybody.

Glad to see you.  Kirk?

Good morning everybody Kirk Miller.  I’m with School Administrators of Montana and I’m just listening in uh here so that I have full understanding of the roll out of House Bill 403.  Thanks to everybody for joining.

Thank you for joining. Dee?

Dee Hoyt, Blackfoot Community College.

Okay and then we have one more [intelligible]

Carmen Luna, Montana State University Northern.  Hi again, Bonnie.

Okay well good to see y'all it sounds like so many of you have already seen each other today. But it is really an exciting opportunity that we have before us.  This is the first time that we have seen an appropriation for this model to grow our own educators across the state. And so I’d just like to start with the first paragraph and uh before I do I mean we really feel a great charge and a great responsibility here at the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education to make sure that we, with you and our K-12 partners across the state, do really well by this opportunity and that we get this right so that we can go early and often between now and the next legislative session to interim committees and then next legislative session to the education committees and report productivity, and strong numbers, strong delivery of strong programs, that have really met or exceeded uh expectations of lawmakers who would have supported this bill this last session. Because we see this as a promising practice for Montana in an effort to support our rural schools in meeting their educator recruitment and retention needs.  And so with that I’ll open up with the first paragraph. To address educator recruitment and retention issues in rural Montana and Indian country. The Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education seeks applications to the Montana Grow Your Own Educator Program. This program will fund post-secondary and K-12 partnerships to implement strategies that develop the pipeline of K-12 students entering the teaching profession with the intent to serve communities with acute educator shortages. So, pretty explan… self-explanatory there but I’ll go in, we will be using all of the grant funding and what we anticipate is that over the course of the biennium the total grant fund funding will be $450,000 that's the absolute amount that we're given to spend on it.  We will be issuing all of the awards up front so that we can do exactly as I indicated at the opening and that is make sure that we build and develop strong promising programs and so you can anticipate 50 percent of it the first year of the biennium and 50 percent the second year of the biennium. So, we will anticipate four awards, four awards is the maximum that we will be able to award. And each application can, each applicant can apply to up to the full $112,500 and then the period of performance for this grant will be August 30th of this year to June 30th of 2023. But again, I just would remind folks that while the reporting goes all the way through there uh early promising numbers uh promising program delivery practices are what we're looking for in these applications so that we can go to the interim committees uh have conversations with lawmakers about excellence that is being delivered as a result of this first time very unique appropriation for this program. So, any questions on any of that?

Yes, Angela so right off the bat, I would like clarification on developing the K-12 pipeline.  Is this funding provided for the purpose of dual enrollment work-integrated learning opportunities or more and or more traditional teacher preparation of individuals within the community?

Okay I think we're going to get to that specifically here in just a minute as I speak to the cohort, Vicki, so I want you to know that that's an excellent question and I will point it out here in just a minute.  Fair?  Anything else?

Okay, so Montana public post-secondary institutions in collaboration with one or more qualified school districts should submit applications to me by 5 pm on Wednesday July 7.  Priority will be given to establishing partnerships with a diverse set of post-secondary institutions and the reason for that is we anticipate that there may be more than one from an institution and if that happens, we want to make sure that we are prioritizing opportunities for more than one institution to receive grant awards. So, a qualifying K-12 school district is one which is impacted by a quality critical educator shortage as per the Montana Office of Public Instruction 2020-2021 quality critical educator shortage list and this was just approved. The link is provided, it was just approved in January of this year so very up-to-date numbers; I confirmed that with OPI before we went live with this. For full consideration, two-year community college and tribal institutions of higher education without educator preparatory programs should demonstrate coordination and collaboration with a Montana-based accredited educator prep program.  

Any questions on that? 

Okay, then we're having the WebEx event today.  Okay, so then on the successful applications, the successful applications will outline a compelling collaboration that will enable juniors and seniors in high school to engage in work-based learning and make significant steps in their studies to become a teacher through dual enrollment and other promising practices.  Outline a collaboration that will enable students to start and complete an educator prep program where they live. Demonstrate the ability to sustain the program beyond the startup. Submitting a sustainability plan as a component of the application and demonstrate the collaboration's ability to begin implementation in fall of 2021 with scale and full implementation. For example, students taking courses that contribute to a post-secondary teaching credential no later than spring of 2022.

Now, before I pause and turn it over to questions, I am going to read the next bullets because I think they circle right back to Vicki's question. Successful applications must incorporate the following program components:  Support development of dual enrollment at the K-12 level allowing the grow your own cohort to begin coursework their junior year in high school. The cohort is defined as a student entering their junior year of high school fall of 2021. And, so that was a decision that was made to deliver this as a cohort model, a cohort-based program.

And so I hope that answers your question.  But then with the intent, Vicki, is that you would build out that that cohort the junior the juniors in high school starting this fall seniors the following year and then juniors coming up the next year um with a plan to sustain the program as these folks would graduate from high school and continue on.   And by then hopefully, knock on wood fingers crossed, all of the above we will circle back with very successful models programs that have already been successfully developed and they've begun implementation and rolled out and they will be in their third year so that we can go to the legislature and seek fund… continued funding and the ability to build on this as we go forward.

So just for clarification, this is only for high school students?

The cohort is a junior in high school… the cohort this year is… 

Yes, okay.  

A junior in high school this year however we do expect to see in these proposals a plan to deliver the grow your own model after the junior senior high school.  The junior senior in high school…

Can you clarify that so we're looking at the sustainability of this focus on juniors in high school so we're identifying juniors in high school and helping them stay on the path to applying for college and teacher education as an education major, right?

That's right. And I speak just a little bit more of the specifics about that a little bit more in the application so…

So, you're talking about then that third year we would, for the sustainability piece, we would loop back about what we're doing with the juniors in that third year to continue that. So when you said that there also needed to be some connection between their you know completing you know graduating in high school students and entering college so do you want part of that, do you want part of that to go into their first year as freshmen?

Do I want part of what?

The discussion and the narrative about sustainability?

Please. How will you how well how will your plan ensure that these juniors that start where they live can complete where they live.

Okay. 

Keeping in mind that we can we can plan out for this first two years with this appropriation.

Okay, so we're just talking about the assurance of completion of their total preparation for as an educator is part of the narrative.

Please.

Okay. 

So, and these are meant to be one-time startup grants to position folks to develop these programs

Okay, got it.

So, I think that there's a challenge here in that you know juniors and seniors … they're like …this project seems like it assumes that juniors and seniors in high school will want to stay in their community in order to complete their program, where you know that's not necessarily the case.  I know we can't guarantee that, but you know we hope that they will go on and complete their degrees in education and come back to their communities, if they don't stay within their communities. So, is that right that that's an assumption?

That is, yes.  And one of the things that we're wanting to do is to work with grantees and that's one of the last bullets throughout the next couple of years in not only supporting these high school juniors and seniors through successful implementation of this and their continued participation in the program, but also to assess their interest and their commitment beyond this next two years and to figure out what corrections may need to happen so that we can make sure that they have the support they need to stay in the program junior to senior year, senior to freshman year in college level, and beyond.  And so we just need to… we just want to stay in constant communication with grantees to support that and also to report that back to lawmakers.

So, so you … you're looking for pilot projects … you know piloting …beta level projects, but with a good, you know a good quality design having some you know probability of success, right?

Yes.

So, this is a logistical thing that occurs to me and that is the timing of the grant. So right now if we're recruiting juniors for August they they're not available. We, I mean, it would be really really hard …they already have kind of their schedule for fall semester and so that would be difficult.  The other thing about juniors, and you I know you've been through this with other programs, but I can see this being a real challenge is a lot of juniors have a full schedule already of courses, you know, that they're taking for their requirements. Whereas seniors tend to have a little bit more flexibility. So, part … you know a lot of the planning would be how do we create coursework that is dual enrollment credit that they can satisfy their high school requirements and get college credit as well. And so that seems like a process that will be challenging in the three months or two months left in this summer.

Now I would like to go along with what Vicky’s saying because I pulled up… So out all of our course offerings for dual credit were basically published in the spring and for fall and we have them you know assigned to faculty and the information to all the schools and so you know there are most of them that are juniors could take advantage of would be what would be considered gen ed courses because we have not fully planned this education focus. So, we are kind of limited and so juniors um we it most of our uh we have more students take dual credit as seniors than juniors so there's going to be some um I can see focusing on seniors um this fall because they have more flexibility and so oftentimes they've even … you know they've already they're only taking maybe a couple of courses and they're off working already because they've they've completed the credits that they need pretty efficiently.  Those that are doing well in their classes they've loaded up many times and they're on perhaps even half load in our small communities and when it comes to other that senior year so there is some I guess some issues that I agree with Vicki about kicking it off with juniors in the fall. We can catch those juniors in the spring.

So, and that's why, that's why it's open to that. It's open; we're really eyeballing and I recognize, Vicky, I recognize Darlene, timing is not ideal. The legislature just got over in May, this was signed on May 14th, so then we got the real go ahead and so we did, we went to work right away on getting this out.  You would have until spring. Applicants would have until spring 2022 to roll this out, however, Darlene mentioned something that is really key.  I think um some folks some campuses um already have some infrastructure to deliver gen eds and could begin working with those K-12 partners um and that could be part of this commitment.  We recognize that these juniors registered for their fall classes in February probably, right.  But that's part of this commitment. What do they need to do to visit with these juniors and their moms and their dads or whoever else needs to be a part of the conversation and get them into this pipeline this fall if that's something that is absolutely ..if that is something that can be done. Can our applicants find a way to do it. We recognize that that may not be able to be something that happens across the state and so we have allowed for that implementation of spring.  And I just I and I wish we had more time, but I just don't think I can go, and I know my boss and my boss's boss cannot go back to the legislature late next spring and say we just don't have anything going yet. We've got to have some numbers if we want to show them that we can deliver on this across the state of Montana in the future. And so I hear what you're saying and I will be happy to support facilitation of conversations; we have Dr. Miller on today I can assure you I know that he would be happy to facilitate conversations with the K-12 partners.  And I’m happy to provide you a link to an email to Dan Karalus - he's our dual enrollment coordinator- I’m going to put his name in the chat in the event that you need to develop infrastructure uh there over the course of the summer and fall. But I do want to end with letting you know that I hear your concerns there and I and I also want to work with you in mitigating them and supporting you through successful applications. But I also want to make sure that we have an opportunity to continue to deliver this program in the future and I think that by showing them that we're nimble and that we're creative and that we've turned over every stone to deliver strong applications and strong programs. And we can believe that the campuses across the state and our K-12 schools can do exactly that.

Angela, it's Curtis.  If you could address, I mean when you talk about being nimble, I would suggest that transformational learning and personalized learning and advanced opportunities bills are all provided a great deal of flexibility for K-12 I’m not sure higher ed has been that same level of nimbleness as K-12 might be allowed to do right now I’m not sure that that is fully going, but I mean I could see us doing some work uh some work based uh you know transferability etc in the fall with juniors that may be credit bearing based that boards have that ability to do that and and opportunities… can you talk more about that?  Is that going to be part of the requirement because I think that's kind of a you know that's that's a big deal for districts.  How do we how do we end for boards how do we move to that how do we get that that protocol I guess in some ways done so we talk about opportunities and flexibility and personalized learning and transformational learning how… to become teachers. That's a great opportunity so how do you think how do you see that kind of being and get included in this application process?

Well, I think that I think that that's really going to depend on your conversations with each individual school leader and their conversations with their local trustees. If I think, you know if I’m hearing you correctly, I think you know I think you would go and talk to superintendents and or principals in their respective districts where you were considering partnering and then you would you know work through those conversations as to how that fits with other initiatives in their district.

So, Angela, you know our um iGraduate grant is very much aligned with this this grant and this grant is exactly what we're we're doing with that iGraduate graduate grant in that we're recruiting seniors to do work-integrated learning and paying them, giving them a stipend, to work in the schools as tutors or small group instruction and and then also providing college credit. Not necessarily dual enrollment, but college credit for elementary ed courses. So that's what we're doing. But we were … when we spoke with the superintendent at Browning, she was very like very enthusiastic about this model and she thought she was supportive.  We talked to the principal at the high school in Browning; she was enthusiastic and wanted you know was supportive of the project but, it seems like … so this is just me being you know, uh argumentative I guess, um that completing coursework and work-integrated learning are mutually exclusive for juniors. Like, they can either have the work experience or they can do the coursework, but if we ask them to do both then it might be hard for them to actually pick up the credits. So that, and maybe that's just me not being visionary enough. But it seems like that and so I agree with Darlene that you know the seniors may only have one or two or three classes and they can… and we talked to the the superintendent about would we want our students in the schools in the morning or in the afternoon doing the work um and because we want them not to have their classes high school classes or whatever um scattered throughout the day where they wouldn't have a a solid body of time to do their work and and so we we agreed that, you know, whoever participates will be one or the other. But uh so we kind of talked through this but I’m trying I’m having a hard time figuring out how juniors are going to be able to do both.

Yeah, I can tell you that the work-based learning component, and specifically that language, is pulled from the legislation where it's referenced several times and so I think it's going to be very important for us with our K-12 partners to think through how we make that happen whether it's in the summer, whether there's opportunities outside of the school day to make opportunities happen, outside of the regular academic school year, to make those opportunities happen. It was a priority of the bill's sponsor, and so you know we can you know think through what those opportunities might look like.

Possibly like after school programs for tutoring and it's a it's a starting point at least.

For sure for sure.  Okay so I’m going to move on to the next bullet after the cohort so provide the opportunity to take dual enrollment coursework as part of their path to work program completion this dual enrollment coursework must be available to students at no cost and may include general education courses as well as introduction to education core coursework. And so again, there's that recognition that folks may have infrastructure for some intro to ed or for gen ed and some of you may have both of both of those things happening. But if you wanted to start with one and then build one out for next spring that's acceptable too. But just recognizing all of the coursework that students would need to ultimately complete their degree, where they live, is the is the expectation here in doing that, doing as much as we can through dual enrollment at no cost to the student.  And remember there's the one-two-free program so the first six credits of course are provided by the state at no cost and that's through Montana University System campuses. One of the things where folks can consider match if it's not already committed is if there's a program at the high school level that's already offering uh for offering to pay for dual enrollment classes, sometimes Upward Bound, sometimes Gear Up programs pay for those dual enrollment credits, there are some opportunities there as well, that folks could maybe leverage, in terms of match.

 

I was wondering, Angela, if there are any programs that are unallowable for leverages match.

Well, there would be, and then that's once you once you're well… we'll really give it an eye during the application process um and then uh you know if we, we want to make sure that none of it is already leveraged as matched somewhere else um and so you know if we have any questions on that we may follow up with an applicant. But yes, there uh there may be some things that are already uh leveraged for match and then those would be prohibited.  We  did talk with our with our accountant here at the state level, we can leverage you know district resources here, um we can we can leverage state resources here, uh and federal resources here.

But then [crosstalk] then what's that?

And then parents just pay the balance. I wrote a check today for the balance.

Not with this. The expectation here is that we'll get through this junior and senior level of course work for these students without any without any cost to them.

That would be amazing.

So, so uh so like well, in taking in Upward Bound and also Gear Up, have funds that are would pay for students to take college credit. So you're saying that if there's any resources available that are waivers or funds that are set aside would be available for matching in this grant.

You could sure submit them, yes.  And just make sure that they're not leveraged anywhere else in your institution or in the institution that is providing the payment for dual enrollment credit.

Okay.

So then again, provide an opportunity for students to engage in work-based learning and education, and then again I think there's maybe a number of models here that could play out.  It'll be exciting to see what you folks come up with.   Um, consistent collaboration between one or more qualified K-12 school districts and post-secondary institutions.  And again one or more I recognize that so many of our schools that are on that shortage list are quite small um and so it might lend itself to opportunities to provide what we're providing to maybe more than one school. And again thinking outside the box, thinking creatively, to get to that end so that we serve uh more students and more schools and more communities as we as we do this.  And then include dedicated professionals to guide and support students toward completion of an educator prep program. So again, that speaks to the nature of the cohort we recognize that these are juniors in high school and we're asking them to really delve into this as a as a career choice as juniors in high school and we're showing a promising pathway towards completion where they live because we want them to teach where they live.  And part of what I'd like, we'd like to see in these applications, is who is going to be dedicated to fostering that conversation, fostering that support at the local level, that will ensure that when we show these when we get these surveys from students and get these surveys from our awardees that students are demonstrating a commitment to the program and to staying in it and into getting done where they live. So you know however that would look for each of you I’ll look forward to reading about that again providing a pathway for students to complete an educator prep program where they live.  And then the dollar-for-dollar match again it may be in kind and is subject to approval uh and agreement upon award so again that goes back to the question, I think Anthony that you had, about the match.  Um, yeah, we want we want to work through this with you, make sure that we're using the right and the appropriate match but initially at the outset we want to take a good look at what what you're thinking um will work will work best.

To then the next applications, applicants um applications are encouraged to incorporate the following program components include an effort to establish an educator's rising chapter at the impacted schools educators rising as a current technical student organization really designed to cultivate and foster this understanding of education as a career choice and encourage students to get on the path and to stay in the path until completion so that we can address the educator recruitment and retention needs.  Diane Fladmo of MFPE is the contact for state efforts. It is relatively new in Montana but we think that there's a real opportunity here to foster growth in that and a program that could create some sustainability for your students and support for your students by maybe their K-12 peers across the state.

And then establish a local grow your own task force and committee with key stakeholders. Again, this goes back to that grassroots, that buy-in, that ability to sustain this program, who's going to be a part of this conversation. Everybody in your community knows that your ability to recruit and to retain teachers is a top priority. And so, who do you need to have at the table to make sure that this program is successful.  And then we thought that that would be a a good way to provide you the support, as applicants, in making sure your program is successful.

And then award recipients must agree to submit an annual report including but not limited to the number of students served, number of completed courses, expenditures overall and expenditures per student, number of courses established and delivered and to how many students, and how many dual enrollment credits were delivered. Again, not an exhaustive list, but I think that we're going to be getting asked these; we at the Office of the Commissioner you as potential awardees, uh maybe Dr. Miller, maybe Dennis Parman, uh other K-12 partners who are part of this conversation. I think the legislature really was interested in this program and they want it to work um and so that's why I we just are really um wanting to support strong applications with the ability to provide some strong evidence that they will succeed.

And then, award recipients must agree to participate in monthly meetings online or in person with the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education so that we can support you in strengthening your program and fostering that support for students. And then I imagine that we'll get started once the awards are made and then we may grow our monthly meetings maybe to those stakeholder committees etc so that we can strengthen the opportunities that are part of this award set. And then be prepared to prevent … to present performance metrics to the Montana legislature. There's a lot of talk a lot of chatter out there about this, a lot of excitement. And so folks are going to want to know who got these awards, what are they doing with them, how are they serving students. And so even out, out front once you get started you folks may become familiar with students who have great stories to tell or whose stories you can share on their behalf.  Those pieces are incredibly compelling.  I’ll never forget Vicki Howard talking about her launching of the LBHC program a couple of years ago at the Board of Regents and the story that she told about a student and their commitment level to that program.  I don't know if there was a dry eye in the room when she was done.  And so be thinking as you as if you were to be awarded what are your what are your programmatic stories that would be uh powerful and tell a story of success in addition to the numbers that are so important.

And then the last one is you must agree to survey program participants at the local level and return results to the Office of the Commissioner.  The survey will be created in partnership with the OCHE staff, so this is going to be one of our first tasks with the awardees um is to create a survey so that we can each semester see where you're at and also see where students are at.

So then, uh then the application form, you don't have to adhere at all to you know to you know I’ve got the lines the signature lines etc you can use those um but then you've got the the 10 page uh the 10 page expectation here and um however you would use that to communicate uh each of these pieces.  It's just gonna be really critical tell your good story that you folks um are going to tell; tell it so well.

Okay so I I’ll go back to my question then.  So, that 10 pages includes the narrative the budget and letters of support, true? 

Yes.

Or the letters of support are separate?

All of it all.  It's ten pages, it is inclusive. So if you have one two three four partners you've got four pages and then you've got then you've got to speak to your grow your own development and implementation plan, your 100 word synopsis, number of students in that description so conciseness … is but powerful at the same time but you've got your one two three um four bulleted items on that.

So, Angela, could there be an exception of that especially for those for us on the high line because we have many very,  very small schools that are listed and so each of their letter would be one page, so we could easily have 10 letters of support.  So would there be any kind of agreement that that, because these would be critical ….

So, we could do that, Darlene, that's a great question.  And I hear exactly what you're saying.  I think that we could do that I think let's just make that clear today and I’ll go in and make a change to the application once it's posted.  Let's have the letters of support be separate; let's have the letters of support be separate.

Yes, thank you okay.

I can do that.

I mean if I look I wrote down the districts that we might be interested in participating and considering some of this would have to be at a distance uh I mean just running down the list I’ve got uh probably 20. and there may only be one or two one from every district or you know maybe you know so it wouldn't take us long to burn up burn up letters of interest even if you went to the Hiline administrators and said uh this would be are you interested?

Right the other thing I think that for us we've got graduating classes of less than 10. and so I think that the numbers that we need this uh the ability to expand because of if we you know because our schools are so small here that you know there's the numbers of um potential teachers right are small in each district because of this fall uh the small numbers of graduating seniors so that was my concern is that we want you know these are the schools too that need the most to have the grow your own. So if one or two of those of those seniors graduate and decide to be teachers that could be more than 20% of their graduating class.

Fair enough; that that's an easy, that's an easy change to make and I’m happy to make it. So, just so for the good of the group and for those of you who are watching this on a recording when it gets posted um we will have 10 pages of narrative, budget, match, implementation plan, sustainability plan etc and the letters of support can be will be additional to that 10 pages.

Okay,

We can make that work on our end absolutely and I hear what you're saying.  And then one thing that I would just add to that is is in addition to the district level interest um please do all that you can to uh garner commitment, interest and commitment, to numbers and to those courses and to model of of delivery of this program um because I think those things will be taken into account as well.  We want to see that that real commitment from the K-12 partners as well as the post-secondary partners.

Okay.

That's a change that and I’ll make that change on the letters of support and the numbers I’ll make that change on the online application and get that over to Edwina today, she's our tech person makes those changes so that's easy.

I have one question so can um a match be if we volunteer to teach the courses during the summer without pay for our students to get in?

I believe so.

Okay.

Yes.  That in-kind piece is what that would be Dee, so I believe so, yes. 

There's a lot to chew on I know, um and we chewed on it here ourselves and and I just want all of you to know that our office, our team here, um I know uh the bill's sponsor um and so many others have complete confidence that our folks both at the K-12 level and post-secondary level are up for this very challenging, very unique, time sensitive task and we appreciate your time today and your time going forward over the next few weeks weeks and and then after that after that hopefully um even well past that.

I just have to um actually just to put a bug in your ear, what we're struggling with now here is the school district from both Heart Butte and Browning send us these provisional teachers that have already have a degree and they want them to have a teacher's license and majority of them are non-members and we do have our teaching program grants but we allow them to come and join our class, but they still have to pay for it and we that's what we're really struggling with.  How do we help these teachers that have moved here, or these students that have moved here married into the tribe, and now seeking uh certification Montana teaching license and um they're going to stay in our community and so you know those those are the things that we're struggling with and when we went and presented for homegrown your teachers that's kind of where we kind of thought this was going is to help these uh non-members stay in our community and teach our students and become certified and we do we need to you know we want to help our school district because they're referring them to us but how do we help them when they you know they don't have no resource. You know we do the best we can you know allowing them to join our group never deny anybody who wants to go into teaching and trying to make the best for them and to help our school district move on um with certified teachers so that's just a bug into your ear like those are the when we went and presented that's kind of where I was going with it is you know we already do this and we're trying to help you know the needs of getting good teachers in the classroom and helping our students and so those are some of the needs that we're facing now.

I really appreciate those comments, Dee, and I appreciate so much the work that you and Vicki and the superintendents and principals are doing up in Browning at Heart Butte it's it's really quite remarkable and I assure you the bug has been planted today and well ahead of today and we will continue to to make efforts on that front.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions?

Okay, well, I sure appreciate your time today your excellent questions if anything else should arise please just let me know.  I will look forward to your applications on or before the 7th and with that happy building partnerships and um just thank you.  Thank you all so very much for all the work that you do on behalf of all of our students at so many levels so unless there's any other comments I think we can go ahead and end this Grow Your Own RFP conversation today.

Thank you it's been a pleasure to talk with all of you today; this is going to be an exciting project.

 Thank you, Angela I really appreciate your time.

Thank you

Yes together thank you thank you so much