To:  PROBE Project District Leaders

From:  Barbara Hopkins and Karen Graham, UNH Leitzel Center

Date:  March 2^nd, 2004

Re:  District Letter of Commitment

Please complete a “Letter of Commitment” containing the information cited below.  The teacher leader, Principal, and Superintendent should sign the document and forward the original to Barbara Hopkins, Joan & James Leitzel Center, Parsons Hall, UNH, Durham, NH  03824 by March 15, 2004.  Please call or email Barbara with any questions.   barbara.hopkins@unh.edu or 862-2684.  Fax 862-4278. 

The PROBE Project will assign a specific science or engineering graduate student Fellow to work with your school approximately 2-days each week for one to three years.  Depending upon the response of schools we may assign a mathematics Fellow to also work within your school.   We encourage you and your colleagues in science and mathematics to plan for participation in this project with some District or school unifying goals to strengthen your science and mathematics programs.  We look forward to working with all of you and towards building sustainable partnerships in the years ahead.

• Please identify your school’s PROBE teacher leader for this 1^st year of the project and designate which of the summer 2004 activities that individual will participate in.  All PROBE teacher leaders will be paid a stipend of $100 per day for all summer and after school activities they participate in.  Approximately $500 in supplies is designated for each of the Fellow-teacher-leader teams.  Where appropriate the teams may elect to pool supply monies for shared resources.  Please see the following page for summer 2004 activities.
• Keeping the three year project time frame in mind; please encourage other science faculty members to consider the lead-teacher position for each of the next two years [one each year].  All science and mathematics faculty members may also participate in any of the summer offerings.  Depending upon the current PROBE lead teacher commitments, we may be able to provide some financial support for other teachers.  This cannot be guaranteed but is possible.  You can enter other teachers’ interests in the summer programs in the 4th column of the teachers’ information chart below. We will confirm their acceptance into the programs individually.
• Please describe goals or objectives your science and mathematics departments are currently working on or would like to infuse with the PROBE Project.  Please discuss the plausible alignment of these goals with the PROBE inquiry and authentic science mission.
• All districts should include a copy of the District Science and Mathematics Curriculum.  Electronic copies are fine; we will print out copies for access by Fellows at UNH.

• Please complete the following table for all Science and Mathematics Teachers (who will be participating in the project or in your school?) The fourth column is designated for any specific needs that we should be thinking about as we pursue the PROBE goals.  If additional teachers are interested in attending a specific summer activity, please indicate which activity in the fourth column.    Please extend the table where necessary.