$11.67 Million Federal Grant Could Enable JSU’s CORE Program to Go National

01/30/2014

(This story originally appeared in the Spring 2014 edition of GEM magazine)

It was quite possibly the best gift Dr. Alicia Simmons could have received on that Friday afternoon last December as the Jacksonville State University campus was emptying for the holidays.

A ding from her inbox signaled to the Executive Director in the Office of Planning and Research/Institute for Research and Collaboration that she had an incoming message. In that one message, years of hard work paid off in the form of a $11.67 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s highly competitive Investing in Innovation (i3) program.

It was the largest grant ever awarded to the University.

The award was for a proposal Dr. Simmons and her team had submitted months earlier to validate and expand JSU’s Collaborative Regional Education (CORE) comprehensive model, an already successful program that brings technology to high-need, rural classrooms with the goal of improving college and work readiness among 8^th-12^th grade students.  The grant is for a five-year period and included a $1.2 million match requirement, which was quickly exceeded by roughly $700,000 due to some very enthusiastic national partners: the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU);  the Council for Aid to Education; and the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC). ICF International will serve as the grant evaluators.

The CORE model integrates technology in classrooms and provides teachers with professional development that prepares them to use technology as a tool to support individualized learning.  Other components include partnership building, classroom support, dual enrollment and change management.

The i3 grant will build upon what has already been established for CORE, with the long-term goal of implementing the program nationwide. There is also a strong research and assessment component, as participants will be followed and data will be collected throughout the life of the grant.

One of the most exciting benefits of the grant, according to Dr. Simmons, is the addition of CORE Scholars, which will provide 500 dual enrollment scholarships per year during the first three years of the grant. Dual enrollment allows high school students to take college courses and earn credit toward a degree while they are still in high school.

“Our data tells us that first-time freshman who took at least one dual enrollment course at JSU have an 85 percent first-year retention rate, 17 points higher than all JSU first-time freshmen, so we know that dual enrollment has a very positive impact on student success,” she says.

“As a result of this grant, we will be recruiting students, particularly students who might not otherwise be able to pay for dual enrollment courses.”

To further understand the impact of the grant on the future of CORE, one must first take a look back, at CORE’s beginnings.

A component of JSU’s Institute for Research and Collaboration, CORE began in 2010 as a partnership between Jacksonville State University and Piedmont City Schools. Armed with the knowledge that the future success of students required 21^st Century skills as well as a new approach to teacher education, the educational institutions were transforming classrooms at all levels “from the inside out,” according to Dr. Simmons. From this nucleus grew a partnership of 18 public school systems and three private school systems representing 72,600 students, or almost 10 percent of all Alabama public school students.

The first CORE workshop, which took place at JSU in November 2012, hosted 70 attendees from these partner schools. These educators discussed the CORE model and helped fine-tune the CORE vision. Two months later, in January 2013, the second CORE workshop took place. There, partners discussed and demonstrated how they used technology in their classrooms. By early June, when the inaugural CORE Academy took place on the JSU campus, 273 participants including teachers, superintendents and other school systems staff joined JSU faculty and staff to discuss and learn more about teaching with technology, collaborative classrooms, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives and implementation, and learning management systems. Dr. Mark Milliron, a nationally recognized speaker on the topic of educational innovation, delivered the keynote.

Fast forward several months, to January 2014. After the December grant award, the team that put together the grant application—Dr. Simmons, Lynn Garner and Allison Newton— had little time to rest on their accomplishment. By the time classes resumed after the holidays, the grant period had kicked in. Dr. Simmons and her team hit the ground running. In addition to Dr. Simmons, who serves as project director, the grant management team consists of Garner, project manager; and Nina King, assistant project director.

Among the first items on the to-do list were working with i3 staff in DC to handle grant specifics, hiring the 10 staff members needed to manage components of the grant, and planning a meeting of the partners, which took place March 19-21 at JSU. 

Also on the JSU campus that week were nearly 70 CORE school system representatives, who converged on JSU’s Stadium Tower on March 20 for a Learning Management Systems Workshop. The free, full-day workshop focused on software and building curriculum. In addition to technology presentations by their peers, the teachers were able to meet some of the partners who have demonstrated their commitment to CORE.

The presence of all these entities on the JSU campus together was one more reminder of why CORE exists.

“Everything is about collaboration; we couldn’t have done any of this without our wonderful partners and staff,” says Dr. Simmons.

 “This project is really about the excitement of everyone who is involved in education in our state. It is transformative, and it allows us to be leaders in education, not only in our region and state, but nationally,” she adds.

What is next for CORE?

In April, CORE grant evaluator ICF International will draw a sample of 66 teachers from the original CORE participating rural school systems to determine who will be part of the CORE study. Of the participants, 33 will be the active group and 33 will be the control.  All will get funding for their classrooms. Also in April, students in these classrooms  will begin taking the College and Work Readiness Assessment (CWRA).

In mid-May, the teachers selected to be part of the CORE study group will come to JSU for training, where they will be issued a MacBook laptop computer. Some will also receive iPads. These teachers will return throughout the summer and fall for additional training and support. In August, there will be a CORE assessment data collection workshop for the participants.

On June 3-5, JSU will host the second annual CORE Academy. Anticipated attendance is 500 teachers, administrators, curriculum directors, special education coordinators and others interested in technology and practical implementation methodologies for the classroom.

As year one winds down, the work will have only just begun. Year two calls for expansion of the program and the next step on the journey to nationwide CORE integration, the recruitment of additional universities to serve as CORE incubators.

For more information about CORE, please visit the website at www.corepartners.org.