Ben Garbacz/Daily Mining Gazette CCISD Board Meeting, CTE and LEAD-K By BEN GARBACZ bgarbacz@mininggazette.com HANCOCK— The Copper Country Intermediate School District (CCISD) Board of Education approved a cooperative development agreement with Invest U.P. during Tuesday’s meeting. Career Tech Director Corey Soumis said the agreement is part of Invest U.P.’s Build U.P., which provided a $200,000 and zero percent interest loan for the Career and Technical Education (CTE) home builds at the Red Oak Estates in Houghton. The CTE has students building houses in order to give them a hands on experience in construction. After the sale of the house in August, the CTE program returned the $200,000 to Invest U.P., and Soumis said Invest U.P. has offered to give back another $200,000 to support the house the CTE students are building in Hancock across from U.P. Health System Portage. “We also have the same loan going on at the at the L’Anse build,” he said. “There are just some small modifications to the agreement, if I recall correctly-- the sale of a home with an 80 to 120 percent of the value of the home, which I agree with, in other words, we can't take low ball offers and disrupt the market. That would’t be good.” Suomis explained the purpose of the ISD and the CTE program is to be a training institution for students. The CCISD board also heard a presentation from the Teacher Consulttant for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing and Speech Language Pathologist, Sarah Freitag, regarding the Language Equality and Acquisition for Deaf Kids (LEAD-K) Initiative and a grant awarded to CCISD and four other partnered intermediate school districts. Freitag explained LEAD-K was passed in 2022 as a public act. “The purpose of this public act was to make sure that children that are birthed to age five get appropriate services and assistance to help them meet their language milestones during that critical development period, and so I sat in on the advisory committee that was downstate in Lansing, and participated in that process,” Freitag said. She explained the LEAD-K Advisory Committee and the Michigan Department of Education had to create a parent resource in order for parents to be able to monitor their deaf or hard of hearing children and their language acquisition and ensure the children are reaching language milestones. Local intermediate school districts and academies are going to have some accountability for monitoring and tracking language milestones with those children. Freitag said a required response from intermediate school districts must be made if assessment results show a child is not meeting developmental milestones. A written statement must then be provided explaining why a child is not meeting those milestones and what will be done about it. “We have to provide a recommendation about including specific strategies and what we're going to do to promote the language acquisition of these children,” she said. “So the goal is to get these deaf and hard of hearing kiddos and ready for kindergarten. So kindergarten readiness is the goal, and like I said, we also have to track that development of expressive and receptive language skills, whether it's ASL, American sign language, or English and spoken English.” Freitag said the CCISD was able to apply for a grant to purchase the assessments and obtain training and the curriculum to get the things needed to help the children succeed. The LEAD-K grant amounted to $80,000 and must be used by June 30, 2027. “Within that $80,000 budget, we are able to purchase assessments and provide training on those assessments, as well as purchase curriculum materials and the training on some of those curriculums, provide professional development for trainings, conferences, ASL instruction for educators and school personnel, as well as family support,” she said. Freitag also provided some examples of how the grant has been utilized. One example included her organizing ASL classes taught by a deaf instructor with 25 participants enrolled across three intermediate school districts. Parents were included and an ASL interpreter was present to translate for the participants. Other uses of the grant included purchased material for continuing the education while the children are home.

HANCOCK — The Copper Country Intermediate School District (CCISD) Board of Education approved a cooperative development agreement with Invest U.P. during Tuesday’s meeting. Career Tech Director Corey Soumis said the agreement is part of Invest U.P.’s Build U.P. program, which provided a $200,000/0% interest loan for the Career and Technical Education (CTE) home builds at the Red Oak Estates in Houghton. The CTE has students building houses in order to give them a hands-on experience in construction. The action came at the board’s meeting Tuesday.

After the sale of the house in August, the CTE program returned the $200,000 to Invest U.P., and Soumis said Invest U.P. has offered to give back another $200,000 to support the house the CTE students are building in Hancock across from U.P. Health System Portage.

“We also have the same loan going on at the at the L’Anse build,” he said. “There are just some small modifications to the agreement, if I recall correctly — the sale of a home with an 80 to 120 percent of the value of the home, which I agree with, in other words, we can’t take low ball offers and disrupt the market. That would’t be good.” Suomis explained the purpose of the ISD and the CTE program is to be a training institution for students.

The CCISD board also heard a presentation from the Teacher Consultant for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing and Speech Language Pathologist, Sarah Freitag, regarding the Language Equality and Acquisition for Deaf Kids (LEAD-K) Initiative and a grant awarded to CCISD and four other partnered intermediate school districts. Freitag explained LEAD-K was passed in 2022 as a public act.

“The purpose of this public act was to make sure that children birth to age five get appropriate services and assistance to help them meet their language milestones during that critical development period, and so I sat in on the advisory committee that was downstate in Lansing, and participated in that process,” Freitag said.

She explained the LEAD-K Advisory Committee and the Michigan Department of Education had to create a parent resource in order for parents to be able to monitor their deaf or hard of hearing children and their language acquisition and ensure the children are reaching language milestones. Local intermediate school districts and academies are going to have some accountability for monitoring and tracking language milestones with those children.

Freitag said a required response from intermediate school districts must be made if assessment results show a child is not meeting developmental milestones. A written statement must then be provided explaining why a child is not meeting those milestones and what will be done about it.

“We have to provide a recommendation about including specific strategies and what we’re going to do to promote the language acquisition of these children,” she said. “So the goal is to get these deaf and hard of hearing kiddos and ready for kindergarten. So kindergarten readiness is the goal, and like I said, we also have to track that development of expressive and receptive language skills, whether it’s ASL, American sign language, or English and spoken English.”

Freitag said the CCISD was able to apply for a grant to purchase the assessments and obtain training and the curriculum to get the things needed to help the children succeed. The LEAD-K grant amounted to $80,000 and must be used by June 30, 2027.

“Within that $80,000 budget, we are able to purchase assessments and provide training on those assessments, as well as purchase curriculum materials and the training on some of those curriculums, provide professional development for trainings, conferences, ASL instruction for educators and school personnel, as well as family support,” she said.

Freitag also provided some examples of how the grant has been utilized. One example included her organizing ASL classes taught by a deaf instructor with 25 participants enrolled across three intermediate school districts. Parents were included and an ASL interpreter was present to translate for the participants. Other uses of the grant included purchased material for continuing the education while the children are home.