Resource Inequities Planning Requirements

Resource

Identifying Possible Resource Inequities

Instructional Time

Instructional time is prioritized for identified areas of need.   Additional instructional opportunities are provided outside of a regular schedule.  School schedules are maximized to ensure attention to instructional time is a focus and priority.

Early Intervention

Students have access to early support and intervention.  Systems are in place to determine which students participate in interventions and decisions are data-driven. Regular collaboration should take place between interventionists and teachers ensuring support and services are aligned with core instruction and designed to meet students’ needs.

Teacher Quality

Students have access to effective, in-field, and experienced teachers. ESSA requires state education agencies to evaluate whether low-income and minority students are taught disproportionately by ineffective, out-of-field, or inexperienced teachers as compared to their higher-income non-minority peers.  Equitable distribution of teachers ensures low-income and minority students have access to teachers that are:

• Effective:  Teacher’s evaluation rating, based on Colorado’s Educator Quality Standards, effective or highly effective. Half of this rating is based on professional practices; half is based on measures of student learning/outcomes.
• In-Field: Teachers without at least one of the following, in the subject they teach: Endorsement on a Colorado teaching license, Degree (bachelor’s or higher), 36 semester hours (24 hours grandfathered in for 2017-18), Passing a State Board of Education-approved content exam (currently the ETS Praxis Series).
• Experience: Teachers with three or more full years of K-12 teaching experience (regardless of the state of licensure).

Schools have a system in place to measure teacher effectiveness.

• When the SEA or CDE has identified gaps within an LEA, the LEA must have a plan for addressing any EDT gaps, particularly for schools that are identified for Comprehensive or Additional Targeted support and improvement.

School Leadership Quality

Schools are led by qualified school leadership staff members. Leadership staff ensures professional development priorities and resources align with the needs of students.

Family Involvement and Engagement

Barriers to parent engagement such as emotional, linguistic, physical, and/or cultural differences are identified, and the school implements strategies to overcome these barriers.  Ongoing efforts to partner with parents of low-performing students are evident.  School communication is provided to parents in their native language or communicated through interpreters. Ongoing efforts are prioritized to partner with parents of underperforming students. 

School Funding

Funds are allocated with consideration given to low-performing students and the allocation of funds is directed at identified areas of need.

Facilities

School offers safe and appropriate physical spaces as well as provides appropriate space for rigorous instruction to occur.

Rigorous Content/Courses

All student groups have access to curricula that are aligned with grade-level standards.  Student assessment outcomes demonstrate all students are held to a high standard. In LEAs with advanced placement, International Baccalaureate programs, and other advanced courses and opportunities, LEAs must ensure that all students have equitable access to such courses.

Comparability in State and Local Services

State and local funded services in schools receiving support under Title I, Part A that, taken as a whole, are at least comparable to services provided in schools that do not receive support under Title I, Part A.   

If the SEA or CDE has identified comparability concerns or issues within an LEA, the LEA must take corrective action to address such findings.