Budget Meetings Update

Dear EGOS Staff,

As you know, the administrative budget committee has been meeting regularly since January to address the budget deficit facing Emily Griffith Opportunity School and higher education.

The committee has examined all areas of the school and has evaluated every suggestion from staff. Many excellent ideas came from the staff meetings and the suggestion box. While some of the ideas are in the process of being implemented or undergoing further research, others are not feasible at this time. We are currently seeking staff input on the remaining suggestions to identify the 5 best suggestions, as some will require a commitment from the staff. However, please know that all suggestions were considered and will be saved for future consideration.

The goal of the budget committee was to have most decisions involving personnel completed on, or before, April 30, 2010. We are preparing to share the information with the staff and specific individuals next week.

At this time, I will share with you two of the decisions that have been finalized. First, we have reluctantly decided to raise tuition 9%, effective for summer 2010 classes. Tuition will increase from $56 to $61 per credit hour for most programs; high-cost programs will increase from $76 to $83 per credit hour. In addition, some programs will have increased student fees.

Second, the school will be closed for staff and students during three weeks of the school year—Aug. 16–20, Dec. 23–31(winter break), and March 28–April 1 (spring break). This schedule will not impact the high school staff who return on August 10 for registration.

The budget decisions made to date are intermediate solutions for a problem that is predicted to continue for several years. The outlook is not promising and additional budget cuts will likely be necessary. Our challenge now is to continue to provide the education and services that we have provided for over 94 years.

Sincerely,
Lou Ann GilhoolyInterim Principal



Lou Ann Gilhooly
Interim Principal
Emily Griffith Opportunity School
1250 Welton Street
Denver, CO 80204
720-423-4738
Fx: 720-423-4850

Results of the State Board of Nursing Audit

Hello. I wanted to share with you the results of the State Board of Nursing audit of both the Home Health Aide and Nurse Aide Programs that were completed this month.

The auditor stated many times how wonderful both programs are and the commitment of the staff to the students in the programs. She was especially complimentary of the information that is provided to the students regarding the cost of the program. The fact sheet Jean Butler has developed helps the student to know exactly the costs of the entire process when obtaining the nurse aide licensure.

When you see Judy Curtis, Darlene Fraser, Mary Payne, Meg Noll, Eve Bohan, Belva Zeck, Janet Holdsworth, and Terrie McDaniel could you congratulate them? Thanks to all of you because as the saying goes…it takes a village!

Thanks. Dorothy

Dorothy Seal, RN, BS, MEd.
Instructional Dean, Health Occupations
Emily Griffith Opportunity School
720-423-4734
fax 720-423-4762
dorothy_seal@dpsk12.org

HAPPY HOUR

OK so let’s try this one more time!

WHAT: Staff Happy Hour
WHERE: Pint’s Pub (221 West 13th Avenue (303) 534-7543)
WHEN: Friday May 14, 2010
TIME: 3:00 - ???

Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can enjoy ourselves and sit outside! See you there.

Dorothy Seal, RN, BS, MEd.
Instructional Dean, Health Occupations
Emily Griffith Opportunity School
720-423-4734
fax 720-423-4762
dorothy_seal@dpsk12.org

MAGAZINE RACK

The Aircraft Training Center is looking for a magazine rack for the facility in Watkins. If anyone has an extra one, please contact Maria Herrera, Office Support @ (720) 424-2961.

ACT TEST DAY

QUIET PLEASE ACT TESTING
APRIL 28, 2010

Wednesday April 28, 2010 is Colorado ACT test day. Emily Griffith High School will be proctoring the ACT to our junior students in the Glenarm Conference Center and rooms 403/405. Room 318 will also be used if necessary.

Please remind your staff and students that testing will take place from 8am-12:30pm on Wednesday April 28, 2010 and we need to have as little disturbance as possible.

Thank-you for your cooperation.

Thank-you,

Denise Madrigal

720-423-4760--

March 2010 Web Stats

Applications Rates- For the month of March, 2010 Emily Griffith received 861 applications on the web site which equals about 27.7 applications/day. For comparison, 905 applications (25.3 applications/day) in February 2010 and 865 applications (28 applications/day) in August 2009 were received.

Web Visitors Navigate to Become Students - Of the approximately 15,119 visits per month, 10% of visitors navigated to the first stage of application.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - In October program page titles were added to the web site to help search engines find Emily Griffith pages better. In March we added meta tags or search words to each page to help search engines find our individual program pages. As of April 20, we have renamed our individual program pages address (URL) to be something easier for search engines to search. For example: http://www.egos-school.com/health/program?t=3100021 will change to http://www.egos-school.com/Dental-Aide-/health/program?t=3100021. With the increasing competition among websites, all of these factors greatly increase our searchability with Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.

March's Most Popular Program Pages by number of Pageviews:
1. CNA 1,612 (Feb. 1,608)

2. LPN 1,444 (Feb. 1,460)

3. Medical Assistant 769 (Feb. 744)

4. GED 685 (Feb. 587)

5. Cosmetology 664 (Feb. 566)

6. Pharmacy Tech 615 (Feb. 584)

7. Pro Sew 529 (Feb. 491)

8. Barbering 523 (Feb. 514)
9. Dental Asst 464 (Feb. 431)
10. Network Tech 445 (Feb.. 429)

March's Top Traffic Sources:

Google.com search: 57.13%

Direct source (typed in url): 14.49%
Bing.com search: 7.23%
Yahoo.com search: 5.70%
Google (cpc): 1.53%

Unfortunately, comparison statistics with other college websites of our size are not available this month.

FREE ROCKIES TICKETS

Get your free Rockies tickets! There are a limited number of tickets available on a first come, first serve basis. Staff may pick up a maximum of 4 tickets. If tickets are not all distributed, you may request more on the day of the game. See Jan Raymond to get your free tickets.

Games available are:

Monday, April 26 at 6:40 p.m. Vs. Arizona Diamondbacks
Wednesday, April 28 at 1:10 p.m. Vs. Arizona Diamondbacks--

Marla RodriguezEmily Griffith Opportunity School1250 Welton St., Denver, CO 80204720-423-4755EmilyGriffith.eduTo be sure email reaches me, also send to: marlasari.rodriguez@gmail.com

Thank You

I would like to thank everyone who gave us goodies, helped out at the table and especially the staff who bought stuff. We exceeded our goal of $400.00 by over $100.00.

Many people do not know the reason we had the bake sale. Because of budget cuts, we no longer have funding for the end of the year staff award ceremony. The cost last year was just a little over $1500.00 and with four awards given: High School, ESL, Teacher, and Support Staff. Each group needs to come up with $400.00. We would like to extend an invitation to the other groups to match what we did, and we would love to support them as they supported us.

Dianna Marriott
Emily Griffith Opportunity School
Treasurer's Office
720 423-4786
720 423-4842

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference

TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION COLORADO, INC. (TIE) is a Colorado-based organization founded in 1986 by a group of teachers with a vision to host a conference focusing on the increasing role technology plays in education. Its major objective is to organize a four-day, hands-on technology focused conference each summer that models and promotes the use of technology integration in the classroom.

Last year’s conference featured 100+ different workshops, featured speaker sessions and roundtables with more than 170 different presenters and co-presenters, mostly classroom teachers. This year TIE is cooperating with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) to offer a much bigger conference.

Now in its 31st year, ISTE's Annual Conference & Exposition features an amazing array of professional learning and collaborative networking opportunities. As part of your conference registration, you can choose from more than 600 sessions—formal sessions and hands-on labs, traditional and student poster presentations, Birds-of-a-Feather discussions, and themed lounges and playgrounds. And three inspirational keynotes!

The 2010 ISTE Conference will be held June 27-30 right across the street at the Colorado Convention Center. For us, this is a great opportunity. In addition, the TIE organization has arranged for Colorado attendees to register for the entire conference for only $210…PLUS, we will each get a one-year ISTE membership ($89 value) FREE!!

If you are interested in attending, please let your supervisor know by April 9, 2010. In order to take advantage of this reduced rate, we must register by April 14. If you are eligible to go through the Vocational Teachers’ Council, please get your request submitted to the Council by April 9, as well. Individuals who will be funded through Perkins need to submit leave forms to Jan Raymond by April 9. Jan will register all of us as a group.

Don’t miss out on this OPPORTUNITY!!