FAQ

The names of all active and maintenance strategies selected for inclusion in district and school improvement plans as well as the description of activities associated with those strategies will be pulled from the MICIP platform and be available in the Consolidated Application. Budget line items in the Consolidated Application can then be tied to specific strategies and the activity descriptions can be used in place of, or as starter text for the budget descriptions in the Consolidated Application.

No, the funding amounts entered in the MICIP platform are meant to aid districts in general planning associated with selection and implementation. They are not expected to be completely accurate, nor will they be reviewed as part of the Consolidated Application approval process. The funding amounts and funding sources identified in the MICIP platform will not be transferred into the Consolidated Application. LEAs will be able to fund activities in the Consolidated Application as local need and actual fund availability dictate and will specify exact funding amounts for activities in the Consolidated Application during the program year covered by the application.

No, districts are encouraged to fully engage in MICIP to develop at least one goal and should ensure that the needs assessment drives the work, rather than allowing the work to be driven by what they want to do with the funds. Strategies and activities associated with goals created in the MICIP platform will be available to tie budget requests to when the LEA completes their Consolidated Application. If no strategy is available from the MICIP platform to link a budget request to, or an activity the LEA wants to fund was not listed in the MICIP platform, the user will be able to add additional strategies and activities in the Consolidated Application. As LEAs build out their plans in the MICIP platform over time, the hope is that most funded activities will end up in the MICIP platform. This will save districts time as they complete their Consolidated Application. However, districts should avoid letting the funding drive the process.

MICIP engagement begins with a robust needs assessment, which should be conducted on a large, district-level scale at least annually. Strategies and activities that come as a result of full engagement with MICIP provide an added assurance that they are based on that needs assessment; this helps a district demonstrate that funding requests in the Consolidated Application are necessary. Strategies from the MICIP platform also must be selected from the strategy bank and require a district to utilize a selection tool to support their addition to the plan. This helps support the funded activities associated with that strategy as being reasonable in terms of their ability to meet the cost objective of the grant source. Strategies added to the Consolidated Application that did not originate after full engagement with MICIP may bring added scrutiny from application reviewers as they try to determine if the funded activities are reasonable and necessary.

Another benefit of using MICIP to identify strategies and activities is that MICIP provides support for and documentation of monitoring and evaluation. This ensures that the district is meeting the federal requirements to evaluate all programs funded with federal funds. Districts that fund strategies and activities which did not arise from full engagement with MICIP will need to ensure they have processes in place to evaluate those strategies and activities and record and communicate the results of that evaluation to support the continual funding for those strategies and activities.

While districts will have an option to use an alternative template for the 2021-22 grant year, it is a one year option only and any work done to complete the template will still need to be re-done the following year in the MICIP platform. Districts are encouraged to begin the transition to the MICIP platform now and utilize the flexibility of being able to add additional strategies and activities not yet in the MICIP platform to their Consolidated Application during the Consolidated Application submission process. This will allow districts to more naturally transition to the MICIP platform over time as they learn how to engage fully in the process rather than forcing districts to make an abrupt transition from the ASSIST platform to the MICIP platform or from the ASSIST platform to an alternative template to the MICIP platform. Using the template may be helpful if a district is unable to even begin to engage in MICIP by the time the Consolidated Application is due, but it does not create a pathway to engagement with MICIP.

No, districts do not need to recreate goals, strategies, and activities in the MICIP platform that already exist in their current DIPs. Districts are encouraged to engage fully in MICIP starting with a robust needs assessment. If that needs assessment leads the district to select strategies and activities already associated with existing DIP goals, they are encouraged to follow that pathway. However, districts do not need to intentionally direct the needs assessment to land on a particular strategy or activity and are advised against such actions. As districts continue to engage in MICIP it is hoped that over time many of the pre-existing goals, strategies, and activities will make it to the new MICIP platform or be retired by the district, but this does not need to be a forced transition.

Since MICIP and the MICIP platform were designed to support a flow of Needs to Plans to Funds, the flow of information between the MICIP platform and the Consolidated Application is not bi-directional at this time. There is no linkage back from information entered into the Consolidated Application to the MICIP platform. If strategies are added to the Consolidated Application they will not appear in the MICIP platform. Similarly, if activities are added or activity descriptions from the MICIP platform are edited in the Consolidated Application, those changes will not be reflected back in the MICIP platform. Finally, financial information from the Consolidated Application about the cost of activities and the funding sources actually used are not reflected back in the MICIP platform.

The template is designed to primarily capture a description of your overall system of supports in each building aligned to Title I program requirements. That system is informed by the work done as part of MICIP (needs assessment, strategy selection, monitoring, etc.) but is not directly linked to it. Many of the system descriptions may be maintenance activities that do not immediately rise to the surface as districts and schools utilize MICIP to identify priority areas on which to focus their improvement efforts. As such, the template should be completed in tandem with the work done as part of MICIP but does not either replace MICIP nor can it be replaced by a plan out of the MICIP platform. As schools and districts continue to engage with MICIP, the linkage may become tighter between the two, but in general, to meet statutory requirements, the template captures both higher level system descriptions than what are addressed in MICIP and more granular actions and activities specifically related to the Title I program in a particular school than what may be covered during engagement with MICIP.

MICIP stands for Michigan’s Integrated Continuous Improvement Process. Continuous means that there is no “due date.” However, to take advantage of the link between the MICIP platform and the Consolidated Application, districts will need to have strategies and activities already populated in the MICIP platform for them to appear in the Consolidated Application. Since this is a live link, districts may be able to work in both platforms concurrently and changes made in the MICIP platform will be available in the Consolidated Application based on the update cycle for the application. If changes are made in the MICIP platform to edit wording of strategies or activities or delete strategies and activities, those changes will not result in changes or a loss of information in the Consolidated Application, instead districts will need to “re-link” line items to the updated information in order for it to appear. Previously linked information will remain static based on the wording used at the time the item was linked. Districts may continue to engage in MICIP as the year progresses and may have additional strategy and activity links that can be made during the Consolidated Application amendment period.

Schools will have a continuous improvement plan; however, school plans will be subsets of the district plan. District continuous improvement teams are expected to include school representatives, and school level data should be included as part of the district Assess Needs process. District plans will include goals, strategies, and activities; however each of these can be assigned to particular buildings through a tagging system. Building level plans will be produced based on this system. Implementation, monitoring and evaluation will be done at the school level with the support of the district and the data being brought back to the district improvement team.

Access to MICIP will be assigned through by the district. The district will assign who is responsible for the various goals, strategies, and activities as well as for monitoring, evaluating and updating the plan. The May 21, 2020 issue of MICIP Continuous Communication discussed team-based leadership as being essential to building a high-quality continuous improvement team who has creating and editing rights to their district plans. Building-based leadership is a key stakeholder when determining needs, creating plans, and monitoring and evaluation those plans.

No, you will log in with your local district account information. Your technology department will need to ‘federate’ your email or network login with MiLaunchPad. Technical information on setting up MiLaunchPad for your district can be found here.

There is no need for a separate plan for single building districts. You will use MICIP as it works for all districts regardless of its size.

Yes, this is intended to help with alignment between improvement and consolidated plans and eliminate the need to re-articulate the plan when applying for Title funding. MICIP is programmed to share the necessary fields to the consolidated application thus eliminating any redundancies.

Yes, a training site and manual will be available by the first week of November. Districts will need to contact their ISDs for username and password.