POLICY ON TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND INTERVENTIONS

Pursuant to the Sponsor’s Oversight and Evaluation policy and guidance, the Sponsor may uncover deficiencies, or the Sponsor may become aware of deficiencies by other means. This policy provides notice for of types of intervention that the Sponsor may take if the School fails to perform satisfactorily in the areas reviewed, such as through the oversight process, performance assessment framework, or if the School does not meet its contract goals, or contract terms. The Sponsor will make attempts to both streamline and customize interventions based on the School’s operations structure and mission and based on the severity of the deficiency.

Some of the intervention samples listed belowinvolve the Sponsor’s technical assistance. Technical assistance is a form of cooperative intervention which involves supports of the Sponsor in order to fulfill the sponsor responsibilities, priorities, and requirements under the laws rules and regulations as well as under the community school contract.

Technical Assistance by the Sponsor will be carried out as needed, and specific technical assistance is carried out pursuant to a written survey and a needs assessment. The administration is authorized through this policy to set out it survey form and needs assessment process. Such process will be used to determine deficiencies, set priorities for technical assistance,allocate resources, provide professional developmentor training, and make improvements to sponsored schools. Technical Assistance will be as timely as possible when in reaction to a specific request, or when Sponsor is made aware of and reacting to specific problems, however technical assistance may have to come from outside sources. Proactive technical assistance will be offered as part of the Sponsor’s programming, as well as to address the customized needs of a school.

The Sponsor has attempted to limit financial cost to the School interventions requiring expenditure of School funds. However, the School should budget for a certain amount of expense and/or staff job duties due to required performance interventions, programs to collect data, and staff to provide performance data, as well as increased staff for tutoring or to cure deficiencies.

All interventions will require follow-up, timeframes, deadlines, progress reports, proof of cure, and adherence to cure. Examples of technical assistance, interventions, remedies or cures offered or imposed by Sponsor may be, but are not limited to the following:

Mission and Vision Statements
•	 Sponsor technical assistance in mission-driven decision making and to assess the ability of the School to realize its mission, which may include aspects of culture, parent satisfaction,orother visions stated by the School in its Contract, curriculum, or programming.
•	Sponsor assessment of leadership with the Board orthe administration and mutual plan to correct weaknesses in meeting goals, targets and standards.
•	Outside coaching or training, research, observations, or remedies to meet stated goals, at School’s cost.

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•	Leadership training in area of desired goals and why they are not being reached or how to reach them more effectively.
•	Other tailored interventions based on the specific circumstances

Governance
•	Training session in area of weakness.
•	Targeted technical assistance in procedure, minutes, motions, notices, or similar governance matters.
•     Working session held by Sponsor, or, by an outside professional at School’s cost. •     Recommendations of Sponsor to be followed by Board as to dysfunctions or
deficiencies and options for resolving them.
•	Review and changes to Code of Regulation, governance policies, or other rules or practices affecting governance.
•	Clear guidance written into policy and adherence to guidance, as to roles and responsibilities of the governing authority.
•	Recommended replacement if repeated absenteeism, or of members hampering business or quorum.
•	Recommendation to Governing Authority to dismiss board member or officer violating policy, law, procedure, rules, ethics or conflicts, or other customary good governance precepts.
•	Training, using trainer suggested by or acceptable to Sponsor, at School’s cost. •	Other tailored interventions based on the specific circumstances.

Fiscal or Financial Matters
•	Sponsor	technical assistance	such	as outside	treasurer reviews	or recommendations.
•	Enhanced and more accurate financial reports required, such as additional financial documentation, debt- to- asset ratios, cash flow analyses, requirements of debt service coverage ratios, enrollment variances and withdrawal frequencies, requirements of minimum unrestricted cash, and increased transparency enhancements for analytical purposes.
•	Compliance plans for recurring or material findings.
•	Contingency plans addressing potential funding shortfalls or other disruptive events, purchase of business interruption insurance.
•	Require finance committee or finance expert on the governing authority. •	Pre-audit exercise with qualified Treasurer consultant.
•	Independent training, at the School’s cost.
•	Other tailored interventions based on the specific circumstances. •	Enactment of Plan to Cure Financial Difficulties.

Special Education and Other Diverse Learning Needs Interventions
•	Sponsor technical assistance, including but not limited to Sponsor audit of files. •	Legal review of practices and procedures targeted to issues discovered.
•	State audit of files and State training.

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•	Training by Sponsor, or, Training by consultant approved by Sponsor at School’s expense.
•	Independent Special Education Audit, at the School’s cost.
•	Other tailored technical assistance and interventions based on the specific circumstances.

Academics
•	Sponsor technical assistance in targets, goals, performance framework, curriculum and data analysis.
•	Targeted assistance by the Sponsor as defined below.
•	Face to face meetings and increased reporting to Sponsor on progress. •	Checklists, plans to cure, and periodic data reporting.
•	Revisions to the Ohio Improvement Plan.
•	Required academic or professional assistance or development.
•	Parent Engagement to support students in academics, attendance, and curriculum.
•	Curriculum Mapping.
•	Study of Ohio’s New Learning Standards and or the Next Generation of Assessments in Ohio.
•	OTES and OPES evaluations of staff.
•	Required training on the Ohio report card indicators or components, specifically as to remedies for indicators or components needing improvement.
•	Targeted coaching, at the School’s cost.
•	Targeted tutoring before or after school and/or weekends, at the School’s cost.
•	Short-term assessments or random sampling by Sponsor to assess whether School is meeting requirements.

Operations
•	Targeted assistance for inefficiencies, professional development, evaluations, staff and human resources, timeliness, roles and responsibilities, contracts, vendors, compliance, and other operational needs.
•	Corrective action plans or specific training.

Academic Interventions and Assistance
Reports on academic data for all measures and components of the Ohio Local Report Card will be required and submitted to Sponsor by October 1 of each school year. A meeting will be required yearly (between October1 and December 15) between the Sponsor and the School’s chief academic officer or administrator(s) to assess the readiness of the School to collect data, assess data, cure weaknesses, and report to the Sponsor. If the School is not fully prepared for this meeting, the School may be subject to some level of discipline.

Any D or F or “does not meet standards” in any measure from the prior year, or any relative weakness in a component or measure, will require targeted intervention. The first step of that intervention will be the School’s submission of all data which make up the

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measure, or components of that measure, and which components have caused the poor grade. The School must list each component with all proof of accurate data to support it, and the School must report bi-monthly on academic data for measures and components identified as weaknesses.

All academic interventions will require a thorough understanding of weaknesses, based on data and tools recommended by Sponsor, a thorough understanding of in which measure and which component or standard within a measure the weakness occurs, and a targeted plan to cure that particular weakness or those weaknesses, whether it be Graduation Rate, K-3 Literacy Improvement, Prepared for Success, Achievement, Progress or Gap Closing, Overall Grade or any other measure now assessed or required to be assessed in the future.

Each plan to cure the weaknesses will require bi-monthly reporting to the Sponsor with a narrative, data or graphs as to how the plan is achieving progress. Should the plan be showing lack of progress, after two months of data, the plan will be re-evaluated and changed, with either additional technical assistance, interventions or supplements to the existing interventions.

Summary
The goal of the Sponsor is to work out all assistance and interventions and achieve a successful cure in a cooperative manner. However, repeated deficiencies or lack of adherence to a plan to cure, or inability to cure deficiencies may lead to statutory interventions. Statutory Interventions include probation, suspension, non-renewal, takeover of operations or termination or closure.

The Governing Authority, by and through its President or Chair, shallacknowledge receipt of this policy by signature. The Chief Administrator of the School shall also sign as having received this policy.

Please see Sponsor’s Notice and Guidance on Interventions and Tracking Table for non-statutory                 interventions,                 for                 more                 information.

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