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As you head out for summer break, DoDEA wants you to know that our staff is busy preparing for School Year 2010-2011. Please feel free to contact us with your ideas, questions, or concerns.
There are many ways to communicate with DoDEA.From joining your local PTA to emailing DoDEA Leadership -- here's how you can share your ideas, questions, or concerns.
Dr. Miles' End of School Year 2009-2010 Letter
DoDEA's 2009-2010 School Year is rapidly coming to a close in most of our schools around the world. In several of our schools, the end of the year coincided with the Memorial Day Holiday.
I would like to thank military commanders and parents for their outstanding support of our schools and our students. I'd also like to thank our teachers and staff for their hard work and for ensuring our children achieve their fullest potential. Our schools, military communities and military families come together every day to provide the kind of caring environment that helps children learn, grow, and realize their dreams.
While we looked introspectively at our programs through our Task Group Initiative, during School Year 2009-2010, we took a departure from looking within our organization to looking outside of our processes to expand continuous improvement beyond our internal boundaries.
Looking within DoDEA this past school year, we continued our emphasis on the concept and practice of Continuous Improvement. Our Combined Task Groups met in December to discuss their work and findings to date regarding a variety of curriculum and program topics under review. The Task Group Initiative began last school year with the establishment of seven different task groups to examine Assessment, PreK-12 Literacy, PreK-12 Mathematics, Professional Development: Administrator Performance Appraisal, Professional Development: Data-Driven Decision Making for Differentiated Instruction, Professional Technical Studies, and the Virtual School programs. Three new Task Groups were launched at the beginning of School Year 2009-2010 to review 21st Century Skills, Early Childhood Education (ECE), and Middle Level Education.
Following the Task Group meetings a group of senior DoDEA leaders met in May to prioritize the recommendations. Area Directors and Assistant Superintendents will also review and prioritize Task Group recommendations and then I will review the entire package and make decisions on implementing the best courses of action that benefits our students. Every level of the DoDEA workforce had some part in this initiative, and we are proud of what they accomplished and we are thankful for their hard work. This truly was a team effort and I am confident that the recommendations we implement will reflect our commitment to continuous improvement and highest student achievement.
Taking a look outside of our processes and programs, our mission will expand in the Pacific next school year, due to tour normalizations for Army soldiers and their families who are scheduled for assignment in Korea. We anticipate our student population to grow by 250-300 students next year, and eventually by the end state of tour normalizations we will have 20 to 22 new school facilities in Korea that will educate an estimated 17,000 - 18,000 additional students. We are working very closely with Army leaders in Korea to ensure that the right number of teachers, administrators, support staff, and facilities are in place to educate all students in Korea.
This past year, the philosophy and practice of continuous improvement exceeded the parameters of our programs, curriculum, and instruction. In late winter, the President's budget request included more than $400 million for DoDEA to replace or renovate 10 schools. This is the first step in our plan to replace or renovate more than 100 of our schools by 2015. In addition to the support of the Administration and the Department of Defense, we are very fortunate to have a resource management team that works at every level of our organization to plan strategically and manage resources efficiently and effectively to allow us to make the necessary improvements to our facilities. These improvements will have a significant and lasting impact on the quality of education we deliver and the achievement of each and every one of our students throughout the world.
Continually improving the education experience beyond the traditional "brick and mortar" classroom was the focus of the past year's work on building and preparing for the launch of DoDEA's virtual high school in School Year 2010-2011. This past year saw the transformation of our distance learning program into a fully accredited comprehensive virtual high school. The virtual high school will assist transitioning DoDEA students by allowing them to take classes they need regardless of their location and enhance curriculum by providing additional resources to fill gaps, assist in transition, and provide flexibility in scheduling.
While the virtual high school is not going to replace or supplant face-to-face instruction, it will give our 9th through 12th grade students increased education options. There will be 33 new courses available to students this coming fall. The Virtual School will continue to provide courses to supplement our current course offerings such as Advanced Placement courses. Another important distinction of our Virtual School is that we will own the content of the courses, so the class will remain the same whether a student is sitting in a traditional DoDEA classroom or taking the class online.
Beyond the traditional and "virtual" DoDEA classrooms, our Educational Partnership Branch wrapped up the successful launch of its grant competition, "The Promoting Student Achievement at Schools Impacted by Military Force Structure Changes." The Invitational Grant Program specifically focused on schools that support installations with frequent and/or sustained deployments, or are located in remote locations.
Through this grant competition, DoDEA awarded $56 million (fenced funding) in grants to 284 public schools serving more than 77,000 military children in 44 school districts throughout the nation. The grant program focused on enhancing student learning opportunities, student achievement, and educator professional development at military-connected public schools
While this work has been most impressive, I've only touched on the highlights of this past school year. The most important work DoDEA does is the work that's done in the classroom every day and the work that's done to support the classrooms in the hundreds of offices in our schools, districts, areas and headquarters around the world. We are responsible for teaching and nurturing children and challenging them to do their best to achieve their full potential. We are responsible for ensuring that academic and life skills are taught in safe, caring, environments that have the proper heating, cooling and lighting requirements and are equipped with the proper resources.
I want DoDEA to be the very best school system we can be for children of military families and I want you to know that everyone in our school system shares that vision. Our students and their families are our number one priority and we know you are counting on us.
I hope the upcoming school year break provides you with a time to rest and reenergize yourselves for School Year 2010-2011. For those who are moving this summer we wish you safe travels to your new home. If you are leaving our school system because of a new assignment, please take our best hopes and wishes for continuing a successful educational journey. We are working hard through our Educational Partnership Branch to ensure military connected students in schools outside of our system receive the support they might need.
For those of you who will be returning to our schools next year, we look forward to seeing you for School Year 2010-2011. Watch our website in August for a preview of the new school year.
