The McKenzie Special School District receives federal funds under No Child Left Behind through the following titles

• Title I, Part A                      Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged
• Title II, Part A                     Teacher/Principal Training & Recruitment Fund
• Title III                              English as a Second Language
• Title VI, Part B                    Rural Education Initiative

Funds for these programs are intended to ensure that all children have the opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach proficiency on challenging state academic standards and assessments.

These programs are designed to improve:

• Academic achievement
  
• Reading skills
  
• Professional development
  
• Mathematics and science teaching
  
• Technologically savvy educational practices
  
• English language acquisition
  
• Safety
  
• Parental involvement
  
• Overall educational reform.

The purpose of Tennessee's federally funded Title I, Part A Program is to ensure that all children have the opportunity to obtain a high quality education and reach proficiency on challenging state academic standards and assessments.

Title I schools can operate either as targeted assistance or school wide.  Targeted assistance schools identify students who are at risk of not meeting the state's content and performances standards and provide individualized instructional programs to the identified students so that they may meet the state's standards.  Schoolwide programs use their funds to improve the entire program of the school so that all students are impacted.

The purpose of Tennessee's federally funded Title II, Part A program is to:

(1) increase student academic achievement through strategies such as improving teacher and principal quality and increasing the number of highly qualified teachers in the classroom and highly qualified principals and assistant principals in schools; and

(2) hold local educational agencies and schools accountable for improvements in student academic achievement.

Title III is the portion of No Child Left Behind that serves English as a Second Language students.  Through Title III, students who have a primary language other than English receive instruction in English in a specialized setting.  Tennessee has more than 35 language groups who come from more than 50 countries.  For these students, English is not the first language they learned to speak.  However, for many of these students, English is the first language in which they have learned to read and write.  ESL classes vary from district to district and from school to school.  The purpose of the Title III office in the State of Tennessee is to offer support and guidance in meeting federal and state guidelines set forth to educate this important subgroup in Tennessee schools.

The Small, Rural School Achievement (SRSA) Program is an initiative designed to address the unique needs of rural school districts.  These districts frequently lack personnel and resources needed to compete for federal competitive grants and often receive formula allocations that are too small to be used effectively for their intended purposes.  SRSA retains the current Rural Education Achievement Program, which provides additional formula funds and flexibility in the use of certain funds to small rural districts.  It creates a new program to provide additional funds to rural districts that:

• Are ineligible to participate in the Small, Rural School Achievement Program
  
  
• Serve concentrations of poor students
  

 

SRSA provides participating LES's with additional flexibility by authorizing them to consolidate their allocations under the Teacher Quality, Innovative Programs (formerly Title VI), Safe and Drug-Free Schools, and Educational Technology.  It also lows LEA's to use their consolidated funds to carry out activities authorized under Title I, Teacher Quality State Grants (Title II-D), Language Acquisition State Grants (Title III), Innovative Program State Grants (Title V-A), and Safe and Drug-Free Schools State Grants (Title IV-A).  LEA's may use consolidated funds to carry out activities authorized under Title I, Eisenhower Professional Development, Safe and Drug-Free Schools, and Technology Literacy Challenge Fund programs.

The Rural and Low-Income School Program authorizes LEA's to use program funds for:

• Teacher recruitment
  
  
• Professional development
  
  
• Educational technology
  
  
• Parental involvement activities
  
  
• Activities authorized under Safe and Drug-Free Schools
  
  
• Activities authorized under Title I, Part A
  
  
• Activities authorized under Title III