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Indicator: 1
[Output]
Measurements in/of Recommendations Made
Relationships: Department of State - Narrower_Than
Other Information:
Overseas Schools Advisory Council
| Type |
Target |
Actual |
| StartDate |
2010-10-01 |
2010-10-01 |
| EndDate |
2011-09-30 |
2011-09-30 |
| Number |
n/a |
8 |
| Description |
Unspecified |
1. The Council Chair appointed an ad hoc committee on Fundraising in January 2011 to improve fundraising to support the Council's
annual Educational Assistance Program. The Fundraising Committee held several meetings by conference call to discuss ideas
and take several actions on how to increase contributions from U.S. corporations and decided to recommend to the Department
an expansion of the Virtual School. The Council intends to raise substantial sums from U.S. companies that are large users
of the schools to make the Virtual School available to all 197 overseas schools. The Department has approved this initiative.2.
In January 2006, the Executive Secretary, the Council Chair and several other members, and the Acting Assistant Secretary
for Administration met with the Under Secretary for Management to discuss ways that the Council could work more closely with
the Department to maintain the high quality of American overseas schools. The Under Secretary committed her office to supporting
the Council's work fully and indicated that she would sponsor a meeting with U.S.corporate leaders to obtain their support
for the Council's program. Also as a result of this meeting, the Assistant Secretary for Administration wrote letters to 100
CEOs of U.S. corporations requesting their support for the Council's 2006 Educational Assistance Program to assist American
overseas schools. 3. The Department hss used the Council to help the Department develop four public-private parnerships with
the U.S. corporate community that will significantly enhance the quality of education in American overseas schools. These
partnerships include a virtual school that would enable these schools to continue instruction during emergencies, grants to
enable additional American overseas schools to establish programs for students with special needs. The public-private partnership
initiative also includes expanding the Council's Project AERO (American Education Reaches Out) to update the information tools
and support that American overseas schools need to establish and maintain an American, standards-based curriculum. 4. Several
years ago the Department collaborated with several American corporations that wanted to do business in Libya to re-open the
Department assisted school in Lybia. Several Council members worked closely with the Department's Office of Overseas Schools
to achieve this goal.As a result of these efforts, the new American overseas school in Libya opened in September 2005 and
continued to experience an an increase in the number of students each year until the school was closed because of the uprising
in Lybia in 2011.5. In 2004, the Department of State established a security task force, known as the Soft Targets Working
Group, which developed a program in response to a Congressional directive to enhance security at non-official facilities frequented
by U.S. citizens overseas including overseas schools. The first soft targets that received security enhancements from the
Department were the 194 American-sponsored overseas schools, which serve American-citizen children of overseas employees of
U.S. businesses and the U.S. Government. In directing the Department to establish the soft targets program, Congress recognized
that many U.S. citizens attend schools abroad other than the 194 American-sponsored overseas schools. Therefore, the Department's
Soft targets working group developed a follow-on element of the program in Fiscal Year 2004 to address the security needs
of non-sponsored schools with U.S. citizen students. In 2004 under Phase I of the program, the task force made a total of
$10 million in grants to the 191 American overseas schools for pubic address systems, emergency radios, and Mylar protective
shielding for school windows. In 2005 under Phase II, the task force allotted $15 million for security fences, gates and bollards.
The Executive Secretary then outlined Phases III and IV, that began in the summer of 2005 and included the same items as Phases
I and II, but covered approximately 400 other international schools, which U.S. citizens attend. The Department task force
was expected to approve grants to a number of schools in these latter categories in FY 2005. OSAC members had brought to the
attention of the task force, 105 of these schools, which children of their overseas employees attend. This information was
valuable to the Department's working group in validating preliminary information about these non-sponsored overseas schools
that educate U.S.-citizen children. 6. In 1998 the Council saw a need to improve planning for emergencies in American overseas
schools. The Council proposed to the Department that the Council develop an Emergency Procedures Manual to help overseas schools
plan for emergencies of all types. The Department accepted this proposal and the Council proceded to develop the manual, which
was reprinted three times in response to the demand among the 196 American overseas schools, other international schools,
and U.S. diplomatic posts. In 2003 the Council updated the manual and again demand was high in the overseas schools and diplomatic
communities. In November 2005, the director of the American Community School, Amman, Jordan reported that the manual was a
valuable reference in responding to the concerns of students and staff after the terrorist bombings. The director used the
manual as a guide in providing information and emotional support to students, for which many teachers and parents expressed
appreciation. The Emergency Procedures Manual has proved so useful to overseas schools that the Council published an update
in 2006 that included information on preparing for pandemics such as Avian flu. In addition, the Council sponsored a project
in 2007 to update the manual, this time to provide information to American overseas schools on the handling of terrorism and
trauma. In 2008 the Council sponsored a project to update the manual to incorporated the latest information on the handling
of emergency situations. The Council has distributed the updated manual to American overseas schools and to U.S. diplomatic
posts and posted it on the Department’s Intranet at http://aopros.a.state.gov. 7. The Council has made several other recommendations
to the Department in recent years, which the Department accepted. These have led to the implementation of significant additions
to the Department's assistance program to American overseas schools. Council members saw a need for additional training for
teachers in these schools to assist students with special needs. In response, the Department's Office of Overseas Schools
developed a training program for teachers of children with special needs in American overseas schools. Provision of this training
continues to be a high priority of the Department and to this end, the Office, in collaboration with the Association of American
Schools in South American (AASSA) and Johns Hopkins University, sponsors an annual Optimal Match Network Institute (OMNI).
The Institute offers training to resource, classroom, and ESL teachers as well as school psychologists and diagnosticians
in assessing students with high capability, those with learning disabilities, and those requiring English-as-a-Second Language,
and in designing appropriate education programs to meet their needs. For its part, the Overseas Schools Advisory Council has
sponsored several educational enhancement projects for American overseas schools on students with special needs including
the publication of "Count Me In", which provides guidance to teachers in integrating students with moderate disabilities into
regular classrooms. 8. The Council saw a need to increase the use of technoloy in the classrooms of American overseas schools.
The Department agreed with the Council, and as a resul, the Department's Office of Overseas Schools has included as a key
part of its mission, encouragement and assistance to these schools to incorporate new educational technologies (computers,
CD-ROM, multimedia and telecommunications) into administrative areas and the educational process. Through this initiative,
faculty and students have improved their skills, expanded their knowledge, and enhanced the instructional program. For its
part, the Council has provided assistance in technology to American overseas schools through eleven technology assistance
projects over the last twelve years. One of those was a pilot, held at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology,
to train overseas teachers in how to integrate technology into the classroom. The pilot was so successful and the demand was
so great that the Office of Overseas Schools assumed the sponsorship of an annual summer technology training institute for
American-sponsored overseas schools. In 2009 this program, known as the Jefferson Overseas Schools Technology Institute, provided
for the 17th consecutive year, technology training to 100 overseas educators. The Institute trained elementary and secondary
school teachers in how to integrate technology into the classroom, offered state-of-the-art examples to technology coordinators
to support updating technology networks and applications, and assisted administrators in planning, budgeting, and coordinating
technology in their schools.
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