LAUNCH Flagstaff update for Jan. 24

ADVANCING WORLD-CLASS EDUCATION

The holidays are over and the LAUNCH Flagstaff Community Actions Networks (CANs) have already been hard at work. Here are some recent accomplishments over the past several weeks.

3 STEPS FORWARD

LAUNCH Partners Host Financial Aid and Scholarship Fair

Nearly 150 students and parents braved the snow on the morning of Saturday, January 20th to learn about scholarship opportunities and strategies for receiving other financial aid to help pay for post-secondary education and training. Over 13 organizations were on hand to share tips and information.

“Parents and students want up-to-date information about financial resources but often have difficulty knowing where to start,” said Megan Anderson of the Northern Arizona College Resource Center and coordinator of Saturday’s event. Providing these resources in one location at the right time of the year was a primary intent for holding what Anderson hopes will become an annual event for Flagstaff.

Organizations from Northern Arizona and across the state manned booths and conducted group workshops throughout the day.

Read more to see a complete list of participants and more photos from the Financial Aid and Scholarship Fair.

ADE Awards Support for LAUNCH Kindergarten Collaboration

The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) awarded support to the multi-LEA (Local Education Agency) collaboration facilitated by LAUNCH Flagstaff for implementation of the Arizona Kindergarten Developmental Inventory (KDI) / K-3 Formative Assessment.

W.F. Killip Elementary School, Eva Marshall Magnet School, Mountain Charter School, PEAK Charter School, and Charles W. Sechrist Elementary School will coordinate their efforts to receive training and implement the KDI starting with the current cohort of kindergartners this year.

Training will begin on January 25th for participating school administrators and later in February for teachers.

The ADE will cover the costs for training participating teachers and for substitute teachers while training is underway. Because of this unique collaboration ADE trainers will come to Flagstaff, rather than requiring individual teachers to travel to Phoenix on their own each month.

The goal of implementing the KDI is to establish a consistent and reliable method for assessing community-wide student readiness for school and to better address individual student needs.

Through this collaboration, over 185 students will be served across the five elementary schools. Additional partners in this first of its kind collaboration include Northern Arizona University’s College of Education and the Coconino County Educational Service Agency.

LAUNCH Data Team Studies Predictors for Education Success

In December 2017, LAUNCH Flagstaff investigated the relationship between a cohort of 107 students who:

participated in KinderCamp®
received a Kindergarten Development Assessment (KDA) upon entering kindergarten within the Flagstaff Unified School District (FUSD)
received a 3rd grade English Language Arts (ELA) score on the AzMERIT state standardized test.

The primary goal of this study was to determine the factors or a combination of factors that are predictive of the AzMERIT ELA scores for 3^rd grade achievement and help design interventions that can impact kindergarten readiness and later reading skills.

LOOKING FORWARD

Baseline Report on the State of Flagstaff Education

We are putting the finishing touches on our first baseline education report to serve as a foundation for our work in the coming year. The report will serve as the focus for the conversation of our Community Leadership Councilmeeting on February 6, 2018.