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Dear Catholic Secondary School Educator:

This is the September edition of E-News provided for you by the Secondary Schools Department of the National Catholic Educational Association - a monthly update of information supporting the ministry of the Catholic high school. As the school year begins, this newsletter will help expand your awareness of programs and events focusing on and supporting administrators, educators and students. We hope you find this information helpful.

For your convenience, this E-News is arranged under the following headings:

Hurricane Katrina Relief
NCEA Professional Development Opportunities and News
Curriculum Resources and Professional Development
Federal Regulations and Health Survey
Catholic School Finances

Results-Oriented Decision-Making in Catholic Schools, Chicago, IL, Nov. 17-19, 2005 The Center for Catholic School Effectiveness at Loyola University Chicago and NCEA are co-sponsoring this conference on Instructional Leadership. Principals, Academic Deans, Department Chairs, Curriculum Coordinators and Assistant Superintendents will gain valuable insights to help them as school leaders. Watch your mail for a brochure. For additional information you can email Dr. Lorraine Ozar at Loyola (lozar@luc.edu) or click here http://www.luc.edu/schools/education/ccse/novconf/.

Thinking Outside the Box: A Conversation for School Leaders, San Jose, CA, February 16-19, 2006. This will be a gathering of 50 Presidents/Principals and emerging leaders in a facilitated conversation about the development and future of Catholic high school leadership. To receive first notice of the program and registration information, please send an email to nceasec@ncea.org.

Minds in Motion: New Thinking about the Capital Campaign, Orlando, FL, March 9-12, 2006. Advancement issues in Catholic Secondary Education. To receive first notice of the program and registration information, please send an email to nceasec@ncea.org.

NCEA National Convention, New Orleans, LA, April 18-21, 2006 As of this writing, plans are still set for NCEA to hold our convention in New Orleans. We will continue monitor the situation and alert you to any changes. Please continue to keep our colleagues in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in your prayers! See http://www.ncea.org/katrina/.

Gather By the Bay: Faith & Philanthropy in the Catholic High School, San Francisco, CA, June 28-July 1, 2006. Advancement issues in Catholic Secondary Education. To receive first notice of the program and registration information, please send an email to nceasec@ncea.org.

LEAD: Leadership in Equity, Advocacy and Diversity, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA July 12-15, 2006. A conference addressing diversity issues in the Catholic high schools with special emphasis on supporting special needs students. To receive first notice of the program and registration information, please send an email to nceasec@ncea.org.

Constitution Day - September 17
The US Congress declared September 17, the date the US Constitution was signed in 1787, as "Constitution Day and Citizenship Day." All schools and colleges that receive federal money are to teach about the Constitution on that day. The Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools is participating in the National Constitution Center's effort to make educational materials and resources readily available to schools seeking to provide meaningful programming. Link directly to the material here: http://www.constitutionday.us/.

Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund (JFMF) Teacher Program
The Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program provides U.S. primary and secondary school teachers and administrators with the opportunity to participate in three-week study visits to Japan and to return home with a follow-on plan designed to introduce Japanese culture to American students. Each year, up to 600 teachers and administrators, including participants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, are selected to participate in the JFMF program. The JFMF Program features an orientation to Japan followed by visits to primary and secondary schools, teacher training colleges, cultural sites, and industrial facilities. As an additional benefit to participants, graduate level credits are also available. More information is available at www.iie.org/jfmf The deadline for applications for the 2006 program is December 10, 2005. Feel free to contact the program at jfmf@iie.org or 1-888-527-2636 with any questions or to request printed materials.

Resource for Chemistry and Religion Teachers
Br. Malcolm Melcher, S.C., is a retired high school teacher from Mobile with more than 40 years of experience in the classroom. As a service to other teachers, he established two Web-sites with student-tested drill work, quizzes, tests and other examinations. The entire content is available to teachers free of charge.

For more information about the sites' contents and for instructions on how to access the questions, chemistry teachers should visit http://www.boshf.org/chembank/ and religion teachers should visit http://www.boshf.org/moraltheologybank/.

National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) maintains EDSITEment, providing on-line resources from some of the worlds great museums, universities, libraries and cultural institutions for educators in the fields of Art, Literature, Language Arts, Foreign Language, History and Social Studies. Click the hot-link to visit the site. The NEH also provides numerous grants to educators. Visit http://www.neh.gov/ for more information

Random House Resources for Educators
Random House, Inc., offers teachers guides, readers guides, author biographies and other educational resources on its Web-site: http://www.randomhouse.com/highschool/.

MarcoPolo
According to its Web-site, "MarcoPolo: Internet Content for the Classroom is a nonprofit consortium of premier national and international education organizations and the MCI Foundation dedicated to providing the highest quality Internet content and professional development to teachers and students throughout the United States." It provides lesson plans, downloadable worksheets, professional development programming and other resources. For more information, click here: http://www.marcopolo-education.org/home.aspx.

IDEA Transitional Regulations for School Year 2005-2006
The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services has issued a memorandum providing transitional regulations regarding parentally placed students in private schools to be served under IDEA for the coming school year 2005-2006.

The change pertains to the new requirement that the district in which the school the student attends is located is now responsible for conducting child find, determining the proportionate share of federal funds, and providing equitable services to parentally-placed students with disabilities who attend private schools located in that LEA.

For the 2005-06 school year only, States and LEAs are to use the best available rather than requiring new child counts by the district of the private school location. Therefore, the private school principals should review student files to determine which students have been evaluated previously by any LEA and diagnosed with a disability. All of these children are to be counted regardless of whether or not they received an IEP/services plan or any services. These are the numbers that should be provided to the LEA.

Please download the complete Memorandum (Adobe Acrobat Reader required) and have it with you when consulting with the LEA about which children will be served this coming school year. The full text of the Memorandum and other information can be found at the NCEA Web-site at: http://www.ncea.org/publicpolicy/federalprograms/idea.asp

National Health Study
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) conducts the School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS) survey every 6 years. If there are enough schools in the sample, the private school data can be analyzed separately. If your school is asked to participate, please do to help make the data as accurate possible. The selected dioceses and schools will be receiving the requests to participate during the first semester; surveys will be conducted in the second semester.