Pre- consent Notification letter - State Title III Director LIEP to ED

Dear X [State Title III Director]:

As you may recall from monthly webinar meetings with Supreet Anand, the U.S. Department of Education is conducting a study titled “Language Instruction Educational Programs (LIEPs): Lessons from the Research and Profiles of Promising Programs.” We define LIEPs as program models that consist of a comprehensive set of services including curriculum and instruction strategies as well as other essential services (e.g., counseling, family support, etc.) that facilitate English proficiency and academic content gains for English learners (ELs). In late 2010, either you, or an expert in the field, nominated some LEAs and/or schools in your State as promising LIEP models. We are pleased to announce that nominated sites within your state [insert specific names of LEAs/Schools] have been approved for participation by the U.S. Department of Education. We will be visiting these LEAs during the upcoming academic year from September to November 2011.

When we visit LEAs and schools in your state, we will be conducting interviews and observations to help us learn more about the following key components regarding your LIEPs:

 

• EL curriculum and instruction

• EL program components and services

• Assessment of students and evaluation of programs

• Teacher capacity

• Professional development/learning

• Resource allocation

• Family/community roles and support

This data will be used to create a “Guide” to provide practical assistance to local educators on selecting, designing, implementing and evaluating LIEPs.

We would be delighted to have you participate in the study. Participation in this study is voluntary. It will involve one scheduled phone interview by the evaluators from SEI/edCount, the contractor team who will be conducting the study. During the interview, we will ask you about LIEPs from a State perspective. The interview should last about 60 minutes. Every attempt will be made to keep all information collected confidential by use of unique identifiers, publishing findings in aggregate and keeping data in secured systems. The informed consent is attached for you to review.

 

A member from the SEI/edCount team will call you by XXXXX to ascertain your availability. We will be setting up a group information teleconference about the study with interested participants. During the information session, the project team and a representative from ED will be available to answer any questions as well as discuss the Informed Consent form which you will be asked to sign. Please contact Rhonda Crenshaw at rcrenshaw@seiservices.com, the study project director, if you have any related questions. In the meanwhile, we appreciate your support of this project, and we look forward to the opportunity to work with you.

 

Sincerely,

Stuart Kerachsky, Director US Department of Education Policy & Program Studies Service

Rhonda L. Crenshaw, M.A. Project Director

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