Executive Summary
The Keystone State ChalleNGe Academy (KSCA) is a tuition-free residential program housed at Fort Indiantown Gap in Annville, Pennsylvania. Participants in the 22-week program work toward earning high school credits toward graduation or earning a high school equivalency. The KSCA is a joint effort between the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veteran Affairs and the National Guard Bureau in consultation with the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
Public school students participating in the KSCA program remain enrolled in the sending Local Education Agency (LEA) and school they would normally attend, and must be reported as such by that LEA. Because there is no cost to the student's LEA, LEAs will not report membership in the Child Accounting data set for the time a student participates in the KSCA.
For the purpose of this guide, a sending LEA refers to a school districts, charter school, area career and technical center, or intermediate unit.
C1 October Student, C6 Student Updates
Students participating in the KSCA are considered to be participants in a program that is an extension of their regular school and will be reported by the LEA in the Student, Student Snapshot, and School Enrollment templates as if they are attending the school they would normally attend. A student's participation in the KSCA will be reported in the Programs Fact Template. See the PIMS Manual Volume 1, Programs Fact Template; and the Volume 2, Appendix F, Program Codes.
Nonpublic and homeschooled students participating in the KSCA must be reported by the sending LEA (in most cases, the District of Residence) with the appropriate Student Status code, O (NonPublic student attending a public school part-time or full-time) and A (Home-schooled student attending public school part-time) respectively, in the Student Status field of the Student and Student Snapshot templates. This will ensure the student is excluded from the sending LEA's accountability measures. See the PIMS Manual Volume 1, Student Template and Student Snapshot Template; and the Volume 2, Appendix L, Student Status.
C1 October Staff, C6 Staff Updates
Academic instruction for students participating in KSCA is provided by Capital Area Intermediate Unit (CAIU) staff. CAIU will report instructional staff in the C1 October Staff and C6 Staff Updates data sets. CAIU will report each staff member's full-time equivalency and full- or part-time status based on the time engaged in CAIU employment.
A KSCA student's sending LEA also will report instructional staff in the C1 October Staff and C6 Staff Collection. CAIU will provide a participant's sending LEA with data needed to accurately report KSCA instructional staff in the C1 October Staff, C6 Staff Updates, and C6 Course Instructor data sets. This will include an approximate amount of full-time equivalency (FTE) per student to allow the sending LEA to report its share of each instructor's time. For example, Instructor A teaches 100% FTE, equally distributed among 40 students. The 'per student' FTE would be 2.5%. If the sending LEA has two students in the KSCA, that LEA would report the FTE for the assignment as 5% (2 x 2.5%).
This may result in an instructor having a total FTE greater than 100%. This is expected in this situation.
As there is no cost to the participant's sending LEA, the sending LEA will report zero salary for KSCA instructional staff.
C2 Special Education, C4 Special Education Transition/Exit
Students participating in the KSCA are to be reported by the sending LEA using the following values in the Special Education Snapshot template:
Field 11, Educational Environment: "05", Public Separate Facility (Residential)
Field 70, Service Provider: "115000000" (Capital Area Intermediate Unit)
Field 71, Location of Special Education Services: "KSCA"
C5 Child Accounting
Because there is no cost to the student's sending school, the LEA will not claim membership for the student during the time they are enrolled in the KSCA program.
C6 Course Instructor
The student's sending LEA will report the student's course enrollment in the C6 Course Instructor data set. CAIU will provide the student's sending LEA with the data to accurately report in the Course, Course Instructor, and Student Course Enrollment templates. This will include a description of course content sufficient to allow the sending LEA to report the course as either the CAIU course name or to map the course to one in their own course list. This also will include the State Course to which the course should be mapped.
C6 Safe Schools
Safe Schools incidents will be reported by the offender's sending LEA. CAIU staff will provide the offender's sending LEA with the data needed to accurately report in this data set. The following values will be reported:
Incident template field 5, School Number of Incident: "9999"
Incident template field 6, Incident Place Code: For incidents that take place at KSCA: "2", At an offsite alternative placement facility. Otherwise, use the most appropriate incident place code.
Habitually truant students will be reported in the Location Fact template by the student's sending LEA at location 9999.
Exiting KSCA
When a student leaves the 22-week residential part of the KSCA program, the sending LEA will report a program end date in the Programs Fact template.
A student who returns to the sending LEA having met the sending LEA's graduation requirements may receive a regular diploma and will be reported by the sending LEA as a graduate with Diploma Type 806 (Regular HS Diploma).
A student who has earned a high school equivalency in the KSCA and is not continuing toward a regular diploma will be reported by the sending LEA as a graduate with Diploma Type 816 (GED).
A student who earns a high school equivalency while enrolled in the KSCA program will be reported by the LEA as a graduate with Diploma Type Code 816 (General Education Development).
A student who is reported as graduating with a high school equivalency must be reported in grade 11 or 12.
A student who returns to the sending LEA without having met the sending LEA's graduation requirements or earning a high school equivalency will be reported in the same manner as any other student.
When the student returns to the sending LEA, they may be reported in the Child Accounting collection for membership and attendance consistent with child accounting reporting requirements.
References
- PIMS Manuals and Calendar
- PIMS Manual Volume 1, Student Template, Student Snapshot Template, Programs Fact Template, Staff Template, Staff Snapshot Template, Staff Assignment Template, Course Template, Course Instructor Template, Student Course Enrollment Template
- PIMS Manual Volume 2, Appendix F, Program Codes
- Data Quality Office PIMS How-To Guides