Program Goals: Blue Lake Rancheria is a leader in efforts to develop resilience and sustainability in the local community and among Native peoples and organizations. This focus helps inform the Grow Your Own Administrator (GYOA) program design. The Tribe does not seek to create a parallel organization or system for credentialing Native American school administrators. Instead the Tribal Education Agency and the Consortium for Tribal Innovation and Entrepreneurship (C-TIE) seeks to sustainably align our efforts with our local university’s administrative credential program and expand upon the existing two-year induction program all new administrators participate in to clear their preliminary credentials. This choice is intentional – through thoughtful collaboration with the Tribes, California State Polytechnic, Humboldt, the local county offices of education and the school districts in our region it was determined that improving the current structure to credential more Native school administrators was significantly more sustainable than creating a complex new system.
Our goal is to recruit, train, and support three (3) cohorts of eight (8) Native American teachers between 2021-2023 for a total of 24 new Native American credentialed Administrators, each receiving two years of Induction support, including an additional 20 hours of mentoring by Native American Champion Mentors, current or former Native American credentialed Administrators, in addition to the 40 hours of induction and mentoring support provided by the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) Administrative Services Induction Program.
Required GYOA Program Enrollment Paperwork by organization:
§ Blue Lake Rancheria Tribal Education Agency:
o Blue Lake Rancheria Scholarship application and its requested attachments:
§ Letter of Interest
§ Transcripts
§ Tribal affiliation information
o Blue Lake Rancheria Student Pay Back Policy Agreement
o Employment Verification Authorization Form
§ US Department of Education:
o ED_80-016_Cerification of Eligibility
o PDPDCS Website Registration & Service Payback Agreement
§ California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt:
o Educational Leadership Program application and its requested attachments
§ Deadline to apply is July 31
GYOA Process
Program Timeline: The Blue Lake Rancheria Tribal Education Agency received a five year grant to provide for three cohorts each with a 10-month Educational Leadership training program via Cal Poly Humboldt and two years of Induction mentoring by Native American Champion Mentors.
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08/03/2021 |
BLR TEA notified of grant award from US Department of Education |
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08/14/2021 |
Cohort 1 Educational Leadership Program Begins |
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08/24/2021 |
Cohort 1 Kick-Off Meeting |
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01/01/2022 |
Cohort 2 Recruitment Begins |
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01/31/2022 |
Mid-Year Cohort 1 Meeting |
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03/06-08/2022 |
Cohort 1 attends SSDA Annual Conference in Sacramento |
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04/01/2022 |
Cohort 2 Applications Due |
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05/18/2022 |
Cohort 1 graduation from Cal Poly Humboldt Educational Leadership Program |
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06/01/2022 |
Cohort 2 Kick-Off Meeting |
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07/11-13/2022 |
3 Day Summer Conference for Cohort 1, 2, & Champion Mentors in Blue Lake, CA |
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08/2022 |
Cohort 2 Educational Leadership Program Begins |
Future Dates for Cohort 2 and 3 To Be Determined
Videos:
1. Kick-Off Meeting Video (August 2021)
2. Mid-Year Meeting Video (January 2022)
FAQ:
· What are the federal regulations that govern this Professional Development program?
· When can Administrative hours worked begin to be counted towards the Service Payback Agreement?
o After completing the Educational Leadership Program and graduating from Cal Poly Humboldt; all Administrative hours worked after that time can be counted towards your Service Payback Agreement.
· How is the amount of time for my Service Payback Agreement calculated?
o The number of months you are actively in the Educational Leadership Program and attending classes at Cal Poly Humboldt defines the number of months of work using the certificate you are receiving from the program, your Administrative Credential. The Cal Poly Humboldt program lasts for ten months, from August to May. Thus, ten months of work which uses your Administrative Credential as expressed as .83 FTE.
· How long do I have to complete my Service Payback Agreement?
o Your Service Payback Agreement is only complete after you have served a cumulative .83 FTE worth of work using your Administrative Credential, no matter how long that takes you to achieve. However, you have one year from leaving the training program (graduating from Cal Poly Humboldt) to begin recording hours for this goal, and must update the system indicating the number of hours worked every six months after that point until the hours are accumulated and the goal achieved. You are required to make progress towards achieving this goal and update the PDPDCS website every six months with hours towards this goal, and if no hours are recorded, the US Department of Education Professional Development payback personnel will contact you regarding making a cash payback payment plan.
· What type of work counts towards hours for the Service Payback Agreement?
o The HR Department of a school district determines that the assigned duties are typically performed by a Certified Administrator, regardless of the pay mechanism or rate, the work is counted as Administrative hours towards the Service Payback Agreement. Furthermore, examples given are, but not limited to: LCAP, Site Council, IEP Admin, Principal, VP, Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent, Director of Athletics, Director of Special Ed, Teacher on Special Assignment, et. al as determined by district HR.
§ What will be necessary is for the HR Department to determine the calculation of time worked on these type of assignments in terms of the Full Time Equivalent (FTE) amount, and example would be the LCAP assignment equals .2 FTE.
o To reiterate, how you are compensated and at what rate you are compensated does not matter to the US Department of Education, so long as the work performed are duties that meet with your professional career training program objectives, in this case Educational Leadership duties – i.e. needing a Certified Administrator to do them. The following regulations help define this at:
§ 34 CFR §263.9 (a) and (b) Participants qualify for work-related payback if the work they are performing is in their field of study under the Professional Development program and benefits Indian students. Employment in a LEA that serves a high proportion of Indian students qualifies as work that benefits Indian students.
· How do I know if my LEA serves a high proportion of Indian students and qualifies as work that benefits Indian students?
o Blue Lake Rancheria Tribal Education Agency GYOA program staff has been provided a list of schools and districts meeting these criteria by the US Department of Education as defined from the 2018-19 Common Core of Data Local Education Agency (School District) Universe Survey Data. For the State of California, the LEA Average Percentage of AI/AN students is 1.39%.
· Program Staff:
o Alison Robbins, Program Administrator
o Steve Godla, Cohort Administrative Mentor
o Jack Bareilles, Program Evaluator