Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/777459
1. What is TIPS? TIPS is an acronym for The Interlocal Purchasing System. TIPS is a national purchasing cooperative that offers access to competitively procured purchas- ing contracts to its membership. TIPS is housed at and managed by the lead agency, Region 8 Education Service Center, located in Pittsburg, Texas. 2. Does TIPS meet the state procurement purchasing requirements where a school district could use TIPS Awarded Vendors for purchases over those thresh- olds instead of having to initiate its own RFP? Yes, TIPS meets the requirement as defined in Texas COOPERATIVE PURCHASING FOR TEXAS SCHOOL DISTRICTS Q&A Focus School Software offers educators the tools necessary to design mean- ingful assessments and to better capture and analyze data. Integrated into the Teacher Gradebook, the Focus Assessments Component gives teachers the ability to create a test in the same way that they add assignments. Focus' Create a Test feature is easy to use and offers a multitude of test question types, such as multiple choice, true and false, fill in the blank, passages and more. Teachers can create new questions, pull questions from the question bank and even import ExamView tests. Additionally, the Focus Adaptive Test Feature allows for teachers to select benchmarks instead of questions to create tests. An interview with Pedro Soto, Managing Director, TOPdesk. ESD: Tell our readers about your company. PS: TOPdesk offers a service manage- ment solution for solutions to education- al entities for IT, facilities, human resources, student relations and service desks for all-sized organizations, from individual school districts to multiple site universi- ties with physical and cloud-based campuses. ESD: What is your goal for the show? PS: We want to learn more about what is happening in An interview with Kendra Timberlake, Project Manager, PEG Writing in Texas. ESD: Give our readers some background on the program. KT: Since the 2014-2015 school year, Measurement Incorporated has contracted with the TEA to bring PEG Writing to thousands of Texas students in grades 6-12 in select schools at no cost. Even better, all Texas schools, grades 3-12, can use PEG Writing at a reduced rate. Participating schools have access to support and assistance from the PEG Writing team, including Help Desk and email support. MI also offers comprehensive Located in Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), with more than 146,000 K-12 students in 168 schools, is the second largest school district in the state and the 18th largest in the U.S. As part of its mission to maximize academic achievement, CMS initiated its Strategic Plan 2018: For a Better Tomorrow. Part of the Strategic Plan 2018 includes bringing digital learning to all students by 2018 and to have a 1:1 ratio of students to digital devices. This means that every student will have access to a digital device (laptop, tablet or other e-learning device) at school. In 2014, CMS began equipping each of its 30,000 Continued on Page 29 An interview with Ana Roca Castro, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Genius Plaza. ESD: Tell our readers about Genius Plaza. AC: Genius Plaza is an education technol- ogy social enterprise delivering culturally relevant, person- alized learning content, working to democratize education, as our mission is igniting the genius in every child. We want students from all backgrounds to relate to the content, including the stories, the characters and the experiences. The default for educational resources offers character diversity of about 2 percent. We at Genius Plaza champion Continued on Page 29 Continued on Page 29 MEANINGFUL ASSESSMENTS, DATA RIGHT FROM YOUR GRADEBOOK SERVICE MANAGEMENT THROUGH TOPDESK CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG SCHOOLS NEEDED CARTS; BLACK BOX DELIVERED PEG WRITING IN TEXAS GENIUS PLAZA INCREASES ACCESS, DELIVERS CULTURALLY RELEVANT, PERSONALIZED LEARNING Continued on Page 25 Continued on Page 29 Continued on Page 25 Oser Communications Group Austin Tuesday, February 7, 2017 AN INDEPENDENT PUBLICATION NOT AFFILIATED WITH TCEA