PILOT: Online Statewide Training Courses

Updated 9/16/25

This article gives planning tips for students referred to an Online Statewide Training Course offered by another ABE program.

The Online Statewide Training Course is a pilot training program. Successful completion of coursework will lead toward college credit and/or a credential or certificate.

Selected courses offered by Metro East, International Institute, and Central MN ABE have been approved by MDE for the pilot. If your ABE program is not part of the pilot, follow guidance in Career-Focused Online Statewide Classes for setting up statewide classes.

Discussion Points

Here are some things to discuss between the program offering the statewide class and the site referring the student: 

1. Who will do the student intake, counseling, and pre- and post-testing?
2. What process will be used to pass student time from the site offering the class to the site claiming the hours?
3. How will programs communicate student intake info, progress, and certificate or credential attainment?

For this pilot project, the "home consortium" is the local ABE consortium that referred the student to the online statewide class. Contact hours will be entered into SiD by the home consortium and will be included in their NRS reporting like any other in-person or distance learning class.

The "host consortium" provides the teacher who will facilitate the class and shares the attendance hours for online, statewide students with the home consortium.

NOTE: Asynchronous hours can be recorded monthly. Synchronous hours should be recorded on the day they occurred and ideally entered by the end of each week.

Entering data in SiD

For this pilot, the referring ABE program - the "home" consortium - will count attendance hours for their students.

- For the HOST consortium

1. Determine how you want to track referred student hours. Since you can't count them for funding, you can just track them outside of SiD. Or if you want to use SiD to take attendance, create separate non-NRS classes.
2. Create a class for the online statewide training course. Under Additional State Content, check "Career-Focused Open Statewide" and other items that apply.
   • When a class has synchronous and asynchronous hours types, create two classes, one for each hours type.
   • To make attendance tracking in SiD a little easier, you can create synchronous and asynchronous classes for the referred students only. On the class setup screen, choose a Student Hours Type of “Not NRS Reportable.” Enroll the referred students and enter attendance as usual. The non-NRS hours will not be reported on the host program’s state and federal reports
3. Confirm student intake info with the referring program (Tennessen, student’s current name and contact info, work status, public assistance, education level, and education location).
4. Add referred students to your site via Person Search. Use the info from step 3 to complete the Add as Student to Site form.
5. Enroll students, including referred students, into the appropriate class(es).
6. Manage attendance hours, adding hours to the appropriate class for local or referred students.
   Do not enter the hours for referred students into the class for local students. Inform the referring site of their students' hours via email or a shared document.

- For the HOME (referring) consortium

Create a class in your site for each statewide class. When a class has synchronous and asynchronous hours types, create two classes, one for each hours type.

1. Confirm the class days, times, and all other class setup info with the program offering the statewide class. The class(es) in your site should mirror the hosting program's class setup with the following exceptions:
   Pick a room in your site that makes sense. You can't select a room in another site. 
   • It's OK to leave the Primary Instructor field blank if you don't want to associate it with a teacher from your site.
   • Check the box for "Do Not Display on Hotline."
   • Under Additional State Content, do not check "Career-Focused Open Statewide"
2. Using the statewide class info from step 1, follow the regular instructions for setting up a new class. (See Create a New Class.)
   • Synchronous and asynchronous hours cannot be counted in a single class, so you may need to create 2 classes, one for each type of hours.
   • Be sure to check the Do Not Display on Hotline box.
3. Enroll your referred student into the newly created statewide class(es) on your site.
4. Retrieve classroom attendance hours and enter on the student records in a timely manner.