Federal Program Insights

Have you ever wondered how federal education funding actually reaches classrooms and impacts students? Dr. Molly Killingsworth, Director of Federal Programs for the Alabama State Department of Education, pulls back the curtain on this process in our illuminating conversation recorded at the Alabama Federal Programs Conference.

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Episode Transcript

Devin Pintozzi (00:06):
Welcome to Spotlight for Success by
American Book Company.
I'm Devin Pintosa, your host.
We are here at the AlabamaFederal Programs Conference with
the Director of FederalPrograms for ALSDE.
This is Molly Killingsworth.
Thank you, Molly, for joiningus today.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Absolutely, you're welcome.

Devin Pintozzi (00:22):
All right.
So Dr Molly Killingsworth, tellusa little bit about what's
going on here at the conferencethat you can share.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Sure.
So at the conference we'reupdating, giving updates,
federal updates, state updates,different things that are going
on in Washington withlegislation, what to expect, and
we're also having anopportunity for the school
districts to share with eachother bring, challenges,
questions that they have,sharing ideas and information.

(00:49):
We want everyone to leave witha better understanding of the
federal grants and being betterable to implement, you know, for
the kids in.

Devin Pintozzi (00:57):
Alabama.
Oh, that's wonderful.
So a lot of buzz about thathere at this conference, trying
to make sure everybody'sinformed on the best way to get
those forms filled out and makesure everything's straight.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, that's great.
Dr Killingsworth, can you tellus a bit about your journey to
get into this role and specialexperiences you had during that

(01:20):
process?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Sure.
So I actually started teachingmath and I went from math to
guidance counseling.
I was a guidance counselor atthe elementary, middle and high
school level actually, and thenI got into administration at the
school and district levelbefore coming to the State
Department.
The majority of my experiencein the public schools was in

(01:42):
Elmore County and we actuallyused some of the products
American Book Company productswith our students that were
struggling passing thegraduation exam, that math and
the social studies they just hadso much difficulty with them.
But we had remediation sessionsafter school and then we
actually had a built into themaster schedule sessions where

(02:04):
they had could use primarilythose books as resources to help
them remediate for the test.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Thank you for watching Spotlight for Success.
I am Devin Pintozzi, chiefOperating Officer of American
Book Company.
We are located here in ourheadquarters in Woodstock,
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All of our materials areprinted in USA.
We have course books, ebooksand online testing in grades K

(02:34):
through 12 in mathematics, ela,science and social studies.
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We guarantee score improvement.
You can get free samples of ourmaterials either in print or in

(02:55):
electronic formats atabck12.com.
We look forward to hearing fromyou.

Devin Pintozzi (03:02):
That's wonderful .
And did they see scoreimprovement?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
with that.
Actually, yeah, yeah, actually,yeah, they did.

Devin Pintozzi (03:07):
That's awesome.
That is so great to hear andI'm so happy that you were able
to have.
What a wonderful career you'vehad as well reaching so many
students.
Is there anything you'd like toshare with the federal programs
community or anything regardingnext year you could share with
us?

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, just that.
You know, in the state ofAlabama we are always looking to
see what we can do to improve,to make sure our programs are
effective, and what we can do towork more efficiently.
So our job is to support theschool district, so they can
support the schools and,ultimately, the students.
So we want to do what we can doto make it easier for them.

Devin Pintozzi (03:43):
Okay, wonderful.
Well, thank you once again, DrKillingsworth, Director of
Federal Programs with the ALSDE.
Thank you for joining us today.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Thank you, bye-bye.