Title I Information
Title I is a federal program designed to provide academic assistance to the disadvantaged. Please see this page for more information.
The purpose of the Title I program is to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments.
Michelle Nutt, Mary Arnott and Shannon Mangan are the staff in our Title I room.
Lone Rock School District is designated as a Targeted Assistance Title I school. Title I, Part A is intended to help ensure that all children have the opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach proficiency of the Montana K-12 Content Standards, and proficiency on state assessments. The program focuses on promoting reform in high-poverty schools and ensures students access to scientifically based instructional practices and academic content to meet the state’s challenging academic standards.
How It Works:
Title I, Part A provides formula grants to school districts, which then allocate most of these funds to individual Title I schools, based on their number of low-income children. Schools may use Title I funds in one of the following program approaches:
Schoolwide Programs:
High-poverty (those with 40% or more students from low-income families) are eligible to adopt schoolwide programs to raise the achievement of low-achieving students by improving instruction throughout the entire school, thus using Title I funds to serve all children.
Targeted Assistance Programs:
Schools that are not eligible for (or do not choose to operate) schoolwide programs must use Title I funds to provide targeted services to low-achieving students. If a school receives Title I funds in accordance with the identification of poverty from one of the five indicators and does not operate a schoolwide program to qualify with 40% poverty, then the school is a targeted assistance program.
Title I funds can only be used in eligible school attendance areas. A school attendance area means the geographic area of a particular school in which the children served by that school reside. In order to identify children from low-income families for eligibility and allocation purposes, statutes specify five measures of poverty that districts may use. The district must count the number of children ages 5 through 17 in poverty for eligible school attendance.
Title I funds may be used for a variety of services and activities, most commonly for instruction in reading and mathematics. The legislation encourages the use of strategies such as extended day (before- and after-school programs), extended school year, and summer school programs to increase learning time. Districts and schools may use Title I funds to serve students from preschool age through high school.
Eligible Title I Student:
The eligible population for Title I includes (1) children not older than 21 who are entitled to free and public education through grade 12, and (2) children who are not yet at the appropriate grade level for free and public education. The school selects eligible children from all students by identifying those who are failing, or most at risk of failing to meet the Montana K-12 Content Standards.
The school makes the determination based on multiple, educationally related, objective criteria established by the district and supplemented by the school. Children from preschool through second grade must be chosen solely on the basis of the judgment of the teacher, interviews with parents, and other developmentally-appropriate measures.
Targeted Assistance:
The term targeted assistance signifies that the services are provided to a select group of children identified as failing, or most at risk of failing to meet the Montana K-12 Content Standards, rather than for overall school improvement.
To accomplish this goal, a targeted assistance program must be based on:
Improving the achievement of participating children
Using effective evidence-based interventions that give primary consideration to extended-time strategies
Providing accelerated, high-quality curricula
Minimize the removal of children from the regular classroom during regular school hours
Coordinating with and supporting the general education population
Providing instruction by highly-qualified and trained professional staff
Implementing strategies to increase parent involvement
Components of a Targeted Assistance Program:
The targeted assistance program must:
Use Title I resources to help participating children to meet the Montana K-12 Content Standards expected for all children;
Ensure that planning for students served under Title I is incorporated into existing school planning;
Use effective methods and instructional strategies that rely on evidence-based research that strengthens the core academic program of the school;
To give primary consideration to providing extended learning time, such as extended school year, before and after-school programs, and summer programs and opportunities;
Help promote an accelerated, high-quality curriculum;
Minimize removing children from the general education classroom during regular hours for instruction provided under Title I;
Coordinate with and support the general education program, which may include services to assist preschool children in transition from early childhood programs such as Head Start, Even Start, Early Reading First, or state-run preschool programs to elementary school programs;
Provide instruction by highly qualified teachers and paraprofessionals;
Provide opportunities for professional development using Title I resources and other sources, for teachers, principals, and paraprofessionals, including, if appropriate, pupil services personnel, parents, and other staff working with participating students in the program;
Provide strategies to increase parent involvement, such as family literacy services;
Coordinate and integrate federal, state and local services and programs for violence prevention, nutrition, housing, Head Start, adult education, vocational and technical education, and job training.
Hellgate Elementary. (2019). Title I Program Description. Retrieved from https://www.hellgate.k12.mt.us/Page/929.
Curriculum:
Lone Rock School District is a member of the Ravalli County Curriculum Consortium. The Ravalli County Curriculum Consortium (RCCC) empowers teachers to collaboratively design a comprehensive, common curriculum, aligned to the Montana standards, in order to provide students with a rigorous, twenty-first century education.
Ravalli County Curriculum Consortium. (n.d.). Welcome to the Ravalli County Curriculum Consortium. Retrieved from http://ravallicurriculum.pbworks.com/w/page/6391333/FrontPage.
Parental Right-to-Know
Parents may request and the district will provide the following information regarding the professional qualifications of the student’s classroom teachers: Whether the teacher has met state qualifications and licensing criteria for the grade levels and subject areas in which the teacher provides instruction; whether the teacher is teaching under an emergency or other provisional status through which state qualification or licensing criteria have been waived; the baccalaureate degree major of the teacher and other graduate certification or degree held by the teacher, and the field of discipline of the certificate or degree; and/or whether the child is provided services by paraprofessionals and, if so, their qualifications. If your child is instructed by an unqualified or non-certified teacher for more than four consecutive weeks, you will be notified in writing.
For more information, please contact Robert DoBell, Superintendent.