The Consolidated Federal Programs Unit has established a system of support for schools and districts that are in need of Improvement under No Child Left Behind, called the Colorado System of School Support (CS³)
The Colorado Department of Education developed this resource guide to support schools and districts that engage external service providers as part of their school improvement process. A number of schools and districts are incorporating external expertise into their turnaround or transformation strategies with support from School Improvement Grants or Tiered Intervention Grant. Regardless of whether services are purchased with grant funds or per pupil revenue, spending public money requires the highest level of transparency and prudent decision-making when it comes to purchasing processes. This guide is designed to inform best practice when it comes to identifying potential providers, issuing a request for proposal based on identified needs, evaluating potential providers and their proposals, contracting with an external provider, and evaluating and monitoring the providers ongoing performance.
The goal of Colorados education system is to ensure that all children have access to a high quality school and the opportunity to receive an excellent education. But for too many students--urban, suburban and rural schools--that expectation is not being met. It is widely held in the education profession that turning a chronically low-performing school into a high-performing school is the most difficult of all tasks. Many strategies have been tried; few have succeeded. However, the enormity and complexity of the problem is not a valid excuse for failing to solve it, and CDE must lead the way.
Supplemental Educational Services (SES) are additional academic instruction designed to increase the academic achievement of students in Title I schools with a status of Priority Improvement or Turnaround outside the regular school day. These services, which are in addition to instruction provided during the school day, may include academic assistance such as tutoring, remediation and other supplemental academic enrichment services. SES must be high quality, researchbased and specifically designed to accelerate student academic achievement.
