Instructor Expectations

MDVS Virtual Instructor Expectations

All instructors contracted by NEFEC for MDVS must possess a valid, professional Florida teaching certificate, be highly qualified for any courses assigned to them, and pass a background screening, using state criminal history records. It is the responsibility of a teacher to keep their Florida Educator’s certificate current. Please provide a copy of your certificate to the MDVS team when hired as a contract instructor and when it is renewed. Failure to keep certification current may result in termination of the Letter of Agreement (LOA).

Putnam County School Board approves all LOA’s offered to each MDVS instructor. An MDVS Instructor is not an employee of NEFEC or Putnam County School Board.

Contract Instructor Payment Schedule

Each year we review the calendar and determine the specific cut-off dates (midnight) to ensure that when a report is pulled, the data is correct. We issue payments based on the LOA.

Tab set up for the rest of the year:

Cycle 2.1 - March 1, 2021 (Teachers who have more than 10 completions)

• Greater Than or Equal to: 1/5/21

• Less Than or Equal to: 3/1/21

Cycle 2.2 - June 1, 2021 (All teachers)

• Greater Than or Equal to: 3/2/21

• Less Than or Equal to: 6/1/21

Cycle 3 - August 2, 2021 (All teachers)

• Greater Than or Equal to: 6/2/21

• Less Than or Equal to: 8/2/21

Invoices/Payments

• Invoices will be processed in January, June, and August for all teachers who have completions during the invoicing cycle. Invoices will be processed in November and April for any teacher that has more than 10 completions during the invoicing period. 

• At the beginning of the school year, student completion cutoff dates will be shared with all instructors. Please be sure to add this information to your personal calendar so that you can begin to encourage students who are close to completion in a segment/semester to complete by the end of the cutoff period. 

• The morning following a cutoff date, the MDVS team will pull reports needed and use those to develop backup documentation along with an invoice for your review. The backup documentation and invoice will be placed in your personal folder inside the Moodle - MDVS Teacher. Moodle will automatically send an email alerting you that the backup documentation and invoice are ready for your review. In addition, you will find specific directions regarding the process for submitting your signed invoice for payment. Please be sure to follow these directions exactly to ensure that you do not skip a step and impede your payment.

• It will take approximately 2 weeks to receive your payment (check) after returning your signed invoice to MDVS.

• Please be sure to keep track of your completions to verify against the backup documentation. If you find any discrepancies, there is a process to report your findings. 

Please do not send any student information (PII-FERPA) through email without password protecting it first.

Student Safety

As an instructor in the state of Florida, you are a Mandated reporter. A Mandated reporter is any person who knows, or has reasonable cause to suspect, that a child is abused, abandoned, or neglected by a caregiver, legal custodian, caregiver, or other person responsible for the child’s welfare is a mandatory reporter. §39.201(1)(a), Florida Statutes. 

Abuse Hotline

If you suspect a child’s safety has been compromised, you must immediately report child abuse to the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) through the DCF statewide hotline (call 1-800-96-ABUSE) (1-800-962-2873). Or you can Report Child Abuse Online. 

After you report the concern, immediately contact MDVS Staff and explain the details. Do not document this sensitive topic on any platform.

What is abuse? 

For children: "Abuse" means any willful act or threatened act that results in any physical, mental, or sexual injury or harm that causes or is likely to cause the child's physical, mental, or emotional health to be significantly impaired. Abuse of a child includes acts or omissions. Corporal discipline of a child by a caregiver or legal custodian for disciplinary purposes does not in itself constitute abuse when it does not result in harm to the child.

What is neglect?

For children: “Neglect" occurs when a child is deprived of, or is allowed to be deprived of, necessary food, clothing, shelter, or medical treatment or a child is permitted to live in an environment when such deprivation or environment causes the child's physical, mental, or emotional health to be significantly impaired or to be in danger of being significantly impaired.

For adults: "Neglect" means the failure or omission on the part of the caregiver or vulnerable adult to provide the care, supervision, and services necessary to maintain the physical and mental health of the vulnerable adult, including, but not limited to, food, clothing, medicine, shelter, supervision, and medical services, which a prudent person would consider essential for the well-being of a vulnerable adult. The term "neglect" also means the failure of a caregiver or vulnerable adult to make a reasonable effort to protect a vulnerable adult from abuse, neglect, or exploitation by others.

What is exploitation?

"Exploitation" means a person who:

1. Stands in a position of trust and confidence with a vulnerable adult and knowingly, by deception or intimidation, obtains or uses, or endeavors to obtain or use, a vulnerable adult's funds, assets, or property with the intent to temporarily or permanently deprive a vulnerable adult of the use, benefit, or possession of the funds, assets, or property for the benefit of someone other than the vulnerable adult; or

2. Knows or should know that the vulnerable adult lacks the capacity to consent, and obtains or uses, or endeavors to obtain or use, the vulnerable adult's funds, assets, or property with the intent to temporarily or permanently deprive the vulnerable adult of the use, benefit, or possession of the funds, assets, or property for the benefit of someone other than the vulnerable adult.

Laws Relating To Children

MDVS FERPA Guidelines

In order to remain in compliance with FERPA, MDVS has developed a process for identifying students in written communication which eliminates the use of any PII (Personally Identifiable Information).  It is important that ALL facilitators familiarize themselves with this process and use it every single time they are communicating about a student - whether through Freshdesk or email.  Please use the guidelines in this document to ensure you are complying with FERPA.

Suggested Guidance for Duties (Workday Goals)

Written for instructors using the FLVS platform, but applicable to all platforms.

1. Incoming calls and emails – Yes, this should be your first priority. Even if you have the time blocked off, if at all possible. This will save you time in the long run. Taking student calls helps establish your relationship with the student and reassures them that they can reach you for help. This also helps avoid frustrated students submitting subpar work, which you then have to grade, provide feedback, and grade again. This also means that there will be limited phone calls to MDVS with complaints from caregivers and district contacts that you cannot be reached, which frees time for contacting students who are not meeting the learning commitment and other tasks MDVS completes to support you as the instructor.

2. Scheduled calls – It is vital that you keep the appointments that are booked with you. Even if the call is running late, it counts a lot toward your credibility and the credibility of MDVS that you are doing your utmost to keep your appointments. Please be courteous and establish positive relationships with caregivers and students. Completing this call may help avoid playing phone tag, which ultimately saves time. 

3. Grading – Do your best to stay ahead. Per your signed LOA, you agreed to adhere to all other applicable NEFEC and virtual school curriculum policies and procedures as outlined. The requirement is a 48 hour turnaround. Keeping up on your grading helps your students move forward and stay on pace. It helps your students improve their work and enhance their understanding. It helps to be able to give accurate and up to date information when you call a student that is behind pace. Being prompt in grading helps build respect for you in the student and caregiver. When the student and caregiver respect you, it will be reflected in your interaction with them. 

4. Maintaining Contacts – If you are successful with the first 3 goals, this one will fall into place as a manageable part of your cycle. Use every student call as a chance to talk with the caregiver and log it in VSA, this will help you greatly. This is a required part of your LOA. MDVS team is reviewing your overdue contacts regularly. The majority of students stay on pace, do their assignments and their caregivers keep up with them. You will have some students who find virtual instruction challenging and will need your support and encouragement to complete. Build, maintain and log your contacts with these students. 

5. Welcome Calls/First Days of School – Students need to get started so they have time to complete their courses. This is particularly vital for seniors as they are working with a limited amount of time. However, these are quite often lengthy conversations and you need to manage your time accordingly. Here are a few tips:

• Message a student/caregiver ahead of time with a link to a course tutorial so they’re familiar with navigating the course when you call. DO NOT mark this contact in VSA as a Welcome Call. Only mark Welcome Call when you have the actual welcome call. 

• When possible, ask the student to email you and let you know when they’ve watched the tutorial and give you a time during which you can reach them and they can be near a computer. This will make your call go more smoothly and will let you focus on building a relationship with the student. 

• Make sure that you are very clear in communicating your expectations for the class to the student during this phone call and email them the pace chart while you’re on the phone if at all possible. This ensures that they know how to check the Educator email and reinforces that the student is equipped for success before you complete the call.  

• Update the student status to ACTIVE (in VSA) once the welcome call is COMPLETE. **There may be exceptions to this around holidays. Please check with the MDVS team before making an exception. Try to activate all students on Wednesday to ensure that their grace period does not fall during the weekend.

6. Live Virtual Session (Zoom) – Virtual sessions are very useful tools for assisting students. In addition, you can use this setting to conduct a DBA. If you do not have a Zoom classroom, please send an email to Mei-Ling Hickey. You will be given a link to create your account and set up a Zoom meeting room. 

7. Discussion Based Assessments (used with FLVS platform) – Discussion Based Assessments (DBA) must be documented in both Educator and VSA. Learn more about DBA in the section FLVS Platform.

8. Vacations/Extended Time Away – Communication is important for a successful student completion. Inform your students and caregivers with an email in Educator, log the same email in VSA for all students, and post on your announcement page if you plan to take time away from your students and will not be able to meet the following expectations during the workweek (Monday - Friday):

   • Student work must be graded within 48 hours of its submission.

   • Instructors must return voicemails and emails within 24 hours. 

Instructor Website/Announcement Pages

Communication is key to successful virtual instruction. In order to encourage communication, instructors should develop a virtual presence in some form. Through the use of your Google account, you can create an announcement page with Google Slides to embed into your classroom. You can also easily create a webpage with Google Sites to link from your Google Slide if you would like to curate resources for the courses you teach. It is crucial to understand that your virtual presence should not be static. Ideally, it should be updated every two weeks. 

Key components to include:

• • Accurate office hours/hours of availability posted

  • Avoid phrases that suggest limited availability, like “No Calls,” “Not Available,” or “Do not call.”

  • Contact information should be easily found on the first page

  • Positive welcome message to the course

  • Words of advice on how to be successful in the course

  • Additional links/resources to support student learning

  • Information about how to create and submit quality work, ie. expectations of complete sentences, etc.

  • Updates about vacations/extended time away