At 8:00 this morning, the District rolled up its collective sleeves to work with a Technical Assistance Provider from the Michigan Department of Education. Mr. Larry Lawless's role is to monitor school district compliance in regard to teacher certification and the "highly qualified" provisions of No Child Left Behind. The process began with an overview, a question/answer period, followed by a random audit of personnel files to ensure our teachers have their credentials appropriately documented. It is nearing the 6 hour mark, and the team (Mr. Leisenring, Ms. Valley, Dr. Johnson, and myself) has been working straight through with Mr. Lawless. It has been a great learning experience for all of us. In addition to fulfilling the state requirement, we have received much assistance to help us ensure our teaching staff will continue to be assigned in areas for which they are both certified and highly qualified.
While time consuming, the Mi-TAP process has been worthwhile!