Atlanta, GA

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August 23, 2006: Day One

Members Attending: Kristen Allen, Sharon Bilbrey, Marilyn Bull, Vicky Cassabaum, Kerry Chausmer, Sharon Conrad, Emilie Crown, Carole Guzzetta, Lori Haskett, Carol Helminski, Pam Holt, Artie Martin, Marilu Montalvo, Michele Mount, Paul Rizzo, Deb Trombley, Lorrie Walker, Eleanor Walters.

Members Not Present: Yvonne Holguin-Duran.

Meeting Guests Present: Robert Dallas, GHSA representative; Bill Hall, University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center; Susan Helms, Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center and former Board Member; Rachel Witsaman, NHTSA.

Breakfast Guests Present: Amy Edwards, GA Governor’s Office of Highway Safety; Connie Beasley, NHTSA Region; Lisa Dawson, GA Dept of Human Resources.

Breakfast with State of Georgia Hosts, Welcome and Introductions: Pam Holt, Board Chair, welcomed the Board. Board members and guests introduced themselves.

Certifying Body Report: Kerry Chausmer reported. The renewal course is going on a hiatus as of 1/1/07 due to the new curriculum. Renewal course will be revised by NHTSA based on content in the new curriculum, and a new evaluation will be developed. Technicians whose certification is expired and wish to become certified again must take the renewal class by 12/31/06.

As of 8/1/06 there are new features on the website that people have requested. For example, you can now print your own wallet card. See "action item" on the website, then click and print your wallet card.

Re-certification is moving from an online test to CEUs in response to requests from the field. The Cert/Recert Committee is discussing definitions and requirements for CEUs. More detail about this will be in the September CPS Express. Continuing education will be audited. CEU educational content will need to be about technical issues. Documented information about the continuing education activity will need to be provided. The Board discussed ideas for how to acquire CEUs including continuing education activities via the Board website and national conference calls.

A question was raised, should there be an embargo on instructor candidacy in the interim before new curriculum? No, but new instructors should get the latest manual. We could suggest that new instructors sit through a class where the instructor has taught the new curriculum at least one time. Instructors will need to have 5 seat checks, 6 hours of continuing education and 20 teaching hours, and attend one event where they work with at least one other certified individual working with families and using a standardized checklist.

In 2007, approximately 18,000 people will be eligible for re-certification.

NHTSA Report: Carole Guzzetta reported. She noted that the new curriculum will affect other NHTSA curricula such as Moving Kids Safely, school bus curriculum, etc., so NHTSA will be updating other curricula.

The new NHTSA Administrator is Nicole Nason. She is interested in CPS as she has two young children, and she plans to go through the course under the new curriculum.

Bill Hall reported on a website traffic and usage report. The Board discussed hits and visitor data. The report shows traffic spikes after email alerts about technical information and also after the June 2006 call for reviewers. People are interested in obtaining technical information from the Board website.

Membership Issues: Pam Holt read a resignation letter submitted by Yvonne Holguin-Duran. Yvonne has had family and professional commitments that make it difficult to continue involvement with the Board. The Board regretfully accepts Yvonne's resignation.

Michele Mount, Membership Committee Leader, discussed filling the vacant Diversity position. Yvonne's position would have gone through December 31, 2007. The Membership Committee will recommend how to proceed. Marilu Montalvo, as Diversity Committee Chair, agrees with bringing a new Diversity member in mid-term. Michele wants to fill the position ASAP so the new member can attend the December meeting.

Curriculum Revision Update: Lorrie Walker reported on Curriculum Committee activities since June. The call for reviewer applications had to be closed after three days in mid-June due to excellent response. We have a richer product due to the review process. People loved being a part of the process. We want to continue the inclusiveness of the CPS community. There are more hands-on opportunities and activities due to their feedback over the years.

During this week's Curriculum Committee meeting, Board members taught the curriculum (except for the hands-on activities) to each other. Lorrie will soon send all activities and hands-on skills tests together so we can review and comment on flow of activities. There should be activities that correspond to the hands-on skills tests for assessment. The curriculum specialist will review the activities to be sure they will achieve our objectives from a learning perspective.

Pam and the entire Board commends Carole, Lorrie and Kerry for all the extra work they put into the curriculum. This summer, they continued to work on it while others had a chance to rest in between the deadlines for our responsibilities.

Curriculum Pilots: Lorrie Walker led a discussion about the pilots. The Board suggested various scenarios for testing the curriculum on diverse populations. One suggestion was to conduct a pilot for a population that has resources for the materials needed to conduct the course, and a population that has less access to resources. The Board discussed how to define diversity, which could include literacy level, education, occupation, age, economic, race, ethnicity, etc. Participants may need to be actively recruited in order to achieve diversity.

People who take the pilot course will be certified barring no major unforeseen problem. The curriculum and the assessment will be tested during the pilots.

The Board weighed pros and cons of whether class participants are selected, or whether the class is "marketed" to potential participants. Also discussed was pros and cons of very experienced versus less experienced instructors leading the pilot courses. One point of agreement was that the pilot should be just as much about testing the impact of the new curriculum on instructors and what they need, as it is about testing the impact on students.

Regarding class size, 15-20 is average class size and that could be a good size for pilot classes.

The Board discussed various options for evaluating the pilots, including using "clickers" during the class. This would allow the Curriculum Committee to know where revisions may need to be done. Another idea was to have an auditing team evaluate through observation. The Board discussed at length the various issues to improve the reliability and validity of an evaluation design, including minimizing student bias introduced by evaluation methods and minimizing variability between instructors.

Beyond the pilots, ongoing evaluation of the curriculum on a longitudinal basis will be important. And beyond knowledge-attitude-practice, can we assess whether technicians are involved in their community with education, seat checks and other involvement. The NHTSA research office had conducted a similar long-term evaluation. A long-term evaluation would assess whether the course is making a difference beyond knowledge level. On a basic level, the goal of the pilot is, are we teaching what we want to teach?

The Board discussed how pilot instructors are going to need a rollout before teaching the pilot. In addition, the Board discussed criteria for the instructors who will teach the pilot courses. Kristen Allen will be the pilot coordinator, and will work with Carole and the curriculum specialist on activities to accomplish.

Curriculum Timeline: Lorrie Walker presented a timeline for the curriculum rollout, and the Board discussed tasks and responsibilities to accomplish to meet deadlines over the upcoming months.

State CPS Contacts: NHTSA regional CPS coordinators will work with the states to roll out the curriculum. As discussed at the June Board meeting, states will determine how to best distribute curriculum within their states and how to best educate their instructors on using the new curriculum. State CPS coordinators need to start getting information now to plan for next year's budgets and timelines. They will need to plan for educating and distributing to instructors and plan budget for instructor trainings.

We will need to develop a standardized curriculum rollout presentation to present to state coordinators, and then state coordinators would present it to instructors.

Kristen will pull a committee together to plan pilot and rollout.

Marketing Plan: Due to the lengthy discussion about pilot, evaluation and state rollout issues, the Board did not discuss the Marketing Plan agenda item. This item is deferred to the December Board meeting agenda.

Committee Breakouts #1: Communication, Special Needs and Quality Assurance did not meet. Certification/Recertification met.

Committee Breakouts #2: Diversity did not meet. Membership and Certification/Recertification met.

Adjourn: The meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.

August 24, 2006: Day Two

Members Attending: Kristen Allen, Sharon Bilbrey, Marilyn Bull, Vicky Cassabaum, Kerry Chausmer, Sharon Conrad, Emilie Crown, Carole Guzzetta, Lori Haskett, Carol Helminski, Pam Holt, Artie Martin, Michele Mount, Paul Rizzo, Deb Trombley, Lorrie Walker, Eleanor Walters.

Members Not Present: Marilu Montalvo.

Guests Present: Robert Dallas

Committee Reports/Discussion -- Certification/Recertification: Artie Martin reported on the committee's draft requirements for CEUs. CEUs will need to be from technical content. There are five categories for CEUs. Safety seat check-ups are not formal educational opportunities therefore they do not qualify for CEUs. Plus they are counted for re-certification separately. The committee had discussed this issue extensively.

The Board gave feedback on the category configurations and discussed pros and cons of CEU requirements. Issues discussed included proof of attendance at conference sessions and teleconferences. The Board discussed needing to identify which Lifesavers sessions would qualify for CEUs to help people understand the difference between what counts and what doesn’t. For teleconferences, there is a definition for a teleconference that qualifies for CEUs. There is also a definition for newsletters and other publications that would be eligible. The Board discussed the idea of providing technical articles on the Board website with questions to answer to qualify for CEUs. For scientific journals, peer review is an important element of the definition for CEU applicability.

The Quality Assurance committee could review education options.

The Board discussed providing a worksheet to help technicians track their progress in meeting CEU requirements.

State CPS contacts could help educate CPSTs about the new CEU requirements. Information will also be communicated via CPS Express, listservs, Board website, etc.

Basic re-certification requirements and deadlines

1. Five (5) seat checks approved by a certified instructor (may use technician proxy option). These may be done at any time during your certification cycle.
2. Community Education – pick one
   • Participate in at least 1 two-hour check up event with at least one other CPS Technician where you serve families using any standardized checklist to provide documentation, if needed.
   • Provide at least 4 hours of community education. Examples include presenting to parents, educators, kids, organizations (PTAs, law enforcement).
3. A minimum of 6 hours of CPS technical continuing education (CEUs) must be obtained and reported during one’s current certification cycle (two years). They may be entered at any time during your certification cycle. CEUs must fit into one of the approved categories and meet content requirements.
4. Register and pay fee by the end of the certification expiration date.
5. In addition to the above requirements, instructors must also log 20 teaching hours of CPS course instruction. This has not changed. Details are available in the policies and procedures manual and on the certification Web site.

Committee Reports/Discussion – Membership: Michele Mount will work on finding an applicant for the Diversity position that Yvonne held. The Bylaws include guidelines for filling positions that become available mid-term. Then the Selection Committee will have a conference call to discuss the open Diversity position. The Selection Committee will also make recommendations for the 2007 open positions. The slate of 2007 candidates will be presented to the Board for a vote via email.

Communication, Diversity, Quality Assurance, Special Needs, Future Development: These committees did not report because they did not meet.

June 2007 Board Meeting & NHTSA's Eastern Region CPS Technical Conference: This conference will be June 12-14, 2007 in Buffalo, NY. NY, NJ, PR & VI comprise the Eastern Region. 450-500 techs attend this conference. It would be ideal to hold the June 2007 Board meeting in conjunction with this conference. The Board meeting is tentatively scheduled June 12-13 with travel on June 11. Kerry Chausmer makes motion to approve. Seconded. Board accepts. Curriculum Committee meeting is possible on the afternoon of Monday, June 11^th.

Adjourn: The meeting adjourned at 1:00 p.m.