questions

Please list any questions that you may have...they will be submitted to John O'Connell.

**Question:** Many of the items on the "Eligible" list are software products but they are listed with a "General Purpose Voucher" rather than "Software Voucher". This is creating a lot of confusion and concerns for schools. A sample list is attached. We are asking that software be classified as eligible for the "Software Voucher" or that we receive an explanation that can be shared with schools. **Answer:** Thank you for your inquiry to the Iowa School Microsoft Settlement. Eligibility is determined by the terms of the Court approved Settlement Agreement. Software must fall into one of the defined categories listed in the Settlement Agreement in order to be reimbursed using the Software Voucher. These categories are: operating system software, word processing software, spreadsheet software, presentation software, desktop relational database software, web-authoring software, productivity suite software, encyclopedia software, and server software. This information is also available on the program website at __[]__.

Another provision of the Settlement Agreement is that non-custom software that runs on qualifying hardware, but does not fall into any of the categories listed above, may be reimbursed using the General Purpose voucher.

1. Can a school district that has full and half days of professional development and one hour each week all devoted to the Iowa Core Curriculum tally all those costs per teacher and use this budget total as the "In-Kind" contribution for a waiver of the 15% of the total budget. The professional development is linked to the ICC and helping teachers learn how to use interventions and strategies within the classroom. This would include the in-service of hardware and software purchased with Microsoft Settlement Dollars. This would also help with a consistent implementation of the strategies and interventions and evaluation of these as well. Yes but only for the teachers in the focus area. E.g. if the whole school of 20 teachers is doing the implementation of the Iowa Core but the focus area for the application is Math at the 2, 3,4, and 5th grade then only the 4 teachers -assuming one teacher per grade - would have their PD days as in-kind match for the purpose of this grant.  2. K-12 focus for PD will be Core Curriculum. We will meet from 2:30 – 3:30 each Wednesday during the school year. May I use MS Settlement $ to pay the teachers that hour as “in-kind” that comes and goes from the General fund? The answer to your question is No you may not use MS $ to pay teachers during contract time or on designated PD time. You may use this as district in-kind to release those GPV (General Purpose Voucher) $ that have to be used for PD so that they can be spent in other places. Or if the teachers are working off contract you can use MS $ as a stipend. I would also refer you to the web page for FAQ www.iowaschoolmicrosoftsettlement.com for further discussion see the question "Can vouchers be used for professional development for teachers and staff? "

3. We have a high school would like to focus on Math. They would like to use the MAPPs end of course assessments to evaluate. Can they evaluate multiple courses since they have an assessment for each course? E.g. (Algebra I, Algebra II, Integrated Math) What about special ed teachers who serve kids outside of the regular classroom, but follow that curriculum of the gen ed classroom. (e.g. At-risk students)

4. Talk with me about the MAPP survey with goals test at the high school level. Can this serve as the evaluation of a focus area? (e.g. Literacy)

5. I have a K-3 building and they are planning on focusing on Math and plan on using the ITBS Math Computation fall test as their evaluation. They did not take the Math Computation test this fall. Is that going to be problem? Should they use the Math Total as required by the federal government?  I am assuming that only grade three will be evaluated. If this is the case why not use the math total because we can break out the math computation statistically. If this is a Fall testing building, you would start the pretest next Fall but would also have to administer again in the Spring for the posttest. This would provide the basis for developing growth curves for math computation and math total. This also means that we will have to work out with this building for sending me the fall and spring data that you receive back from ITBS.  6. Inspiration is a good fit for many because it can be used across content areas and grade levels, yet the cost is reasonable enough that they have $$ left over. They have ELL students who could benefit from a specific program, they have early elementary students who could benefit from a specific program as well. Teachers would have to report on Inspiration/Inspiration, Microsoft word, program A, B, C etc.  The reporting would be that the software is added to the list of teacher products that they say they used in the last month. So if there are 4 products purchased then the teachers on their monthly survey (if you are doing a tier 3 evaluation) would have to say if they used 1,2,3 or all of the products in the month they are reporting. It would also be on the list for the principal walk through. If more products are purchased then the list gets longer and the teachers would have more to choose from. Time wise each product would add about 4 seconds to the teacher monthly report.