Teacher Education Scholarship Programs (TESP)

What’s New?
(last updated September 17, 2009)

2009-10

• Payment - Effective, September 17, 2009, TESP Payment is available at My Zone. Payment request rosters for IFTC, MTI and Golden Apple Scholars of Illinois can be completed online and submitted electronically to ISAC. To learn more about the TESP Online Payment process and how to submit a payment request roster, refer to the TESP Payment Request Roster page within this section.
• Awarding - 2009-10 Golden Apple Scholars of Illinois Program awarding took place on August 21, 2009 and 2009-10 TESP [Illinois Future Teacher Corps (IFTC) and Minority Teachers of Illinois (MTI) Scholarship programs] awarding took place on August 24, 2009. TESP award notifications have been mailed to eligible students and new eligible award information, including funded or unfunded status, is available to colleges online at My Zone as of August 25th. Due to previously-announced budget reductions, it is anticipated that no subsequent awarding will take place for these programs for the 2009-10 academic year.
• Legislation - Recent legislation reserves some IFTC Program awards for participants in the Golden Apple Scholars of Illinois Program who, based upon their commitment to teach in approved shortage disciplines, are requesting a $10,000 award (rather than the $5,000 award made to qualifying recipients who commit only to teaching at a hard-to-staff school). Included with the 2009-10 TESP initial certifications at My Zone are records for Golden Apple Scholar (GAS) applicants for whom colleges must certify eligibility.  

Overview of TESP Certification, Notification Payment Request Roster and Payment Authorization

The TESP system at My Zone is available each Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. (CT).

To learn more details about each function, select one of the section titles below or select one of the links from the right-hand menu.

To access TESP Certification (academic year), TESP Notification, TESP Payment Request Roster or TESP Payment Authorization at My Zone:

• select the My Zone Log On link in the left-hand menu,
• select Teacher Education Scholarship Program TESP from the My Zone Program Selection screen,
• select a TESP Certification (academic year), Notification, Payment Roster or Authorization from the My Zone TESP Program Selection screen

Certification

Colleges can access current year TESP Certification or select a prior academic year in the drop-down box next to the Certification link to access the historical view. The academic year in the drop-down box next to TESP Certification link defaults to the current academic year.

• Current Year Certification
  
  When the TESP Certification link for the current academic year is selected, the Student Certifications: List screen displays. The left margin includes Student Certification and Report options.
  
  Initial Certifications for the IFTC, MTI and Golden Apple Scholars Program, must be completed online and submitted electronically to ISAC with results returned in real-time. In addition, complete and incomplete certifications reports can be generated and viewed online, printed or saved in MS Excel format or Portable Document Format (PDF). My Zone is available to enter certification information each Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. (CT).

Important Reminder:

All Initial Certifications available in My Zone must be completed, regardless of whether the school certifies a student as eligible or ineligible and regardless of whether the student is currently enrolled. The only way that TESP applicants will receive notification regarding their eligibility status is if  their schools have submitted the Initial Certifications via My Zone. The Golden Apple Foundations communicates directly with Golden Apple Scholars.

Be sure to continue completing and submitting Initial Certifications throughout the year, in order to ensure that your students will be included in any subsequent rounds of awarding that might take place and that ineligible IFTC and MTI applicants will receive a Notice of Ineligibility.

• Historical View Certification
  
  The TESP Certification Historical View can be accessed by selecting a prior academic year in the drop-down box next to the TESP Certification link on the TESP Program Selection screen. The Student Certifications:Historical (academic year) List screen displays only those students who had a complete certification in the prior academic year selected. The certification detail for a particular student in the prior academic year can also be viewed. The data available to view and the sort and filter functions of the screens is the same as for the current year screens but are view only. The Reports and Student Certification options are not available on Historical View screens.

Notification

TESP and Golden Apple Scholar award notification information for eligible applicants, including funded or unavailable funds status, is available within My Zone. Each time ISAC goes through the awarding process (as funding is available), new eligible applicant information will be added online. By the end of the academic year, a cumulative list will be available of all students who were eligible for a Golden Apple Schoolarship or TESP award at a particular school.

Payment Request Roster

Payment claims for IFTC, MTI and Golden Apple Scholars (GAS) of Illinois can be completed online at TESP Payment Request Roster at My Zone, a secure, electronic method of transmitting claims data. A cumulative list of payment request rosters is available for the entire fiscal year. After each round of awarding, colleges will be notified when new payment request rosters will be available at TESP Payment Roster at My Zone.

TESP Payment Request Rosters can be viewed online, printed or saved in a Portable Document Format (PDF).

Payment Authorization

Payment results for claims submitted via TESP Payment Request Roster are available at TESP Payment Authorization after ISAC processes the claim and assigns a voucher number and voucher date via the My Zone portal.  The voucher number and date on the report allows colleges to match data with TESP payments received from the Illinois State Comptroller’s Office. Payment Authorization reports, provided in a Rich Text Format (rtf), can be viewed online, printed or saved. Reports for the GAS, IFTC and MTI Scholarship Programs will remain available for the entire academic year.

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