January 4, 2018 at 8:30 AM - Regular Meeting

Call to order at 8:30.

Staff:  David M Ludwig, Deb Hericks, Beth Kabes, Priscilla Quintana, Colleen Lentz, Scott Isaacson, Craig Peterson

Guests:  Matt Hastings, Dean Folkers, Janine Theiler, Russ Masco, Joan Wade, Craig Hicks, Tina Sauser, BJ Peters, Dave Patton

Approval of minutes from November 2017.  

ESU 3 Administrator shared that they will be building a new data center.  They will start within a coupe of weeks, done by July 2018.  Nebraska Court Improvement Project which provides professional development for those that work with students in the court system.  Dan Schnoes has been invited to help plan the training and conference.  Sites include:  Scottsbluff, Lexington, Norfolk, and Lincoln NE.  He has been asked to provide names for a panel discussion.  Conference to be held Fall 2019.  

Joan Wade, AESA Executive Director was present to share about AESA and to walk us through the redesign process.  There are approximately 530 members of AESA.  Their key focus is to share best practices, growing services within deeper in the organization.  Governed by Executive Council - 4 regions, 3 people from each regions.   Jeff West, ESU 13 is current President of AESA.  They are in the process of voting for new council members, election window will be open for four weeks.  Three main focus areas:  Leadership, Networking and Advocacy at Federal Leadership.  She shared the different conferences/meetings held by AESA.  Noelle Ellerson is the lobbyist for AESA at the federal level.  For networking they have created Affinity Groups.  They currently have 8-9 different affinity groups, these are interest areas and any member can join a group.  She discussed the redesign process that AESA went through last year.  Susan Leddick will be the facilitator of this process.  This is the process that the ESUCC Board will begin in February. If you could have what you want, what would you have?  We will set bold steps to work with this year and build off of next year.  The second year you review the process and build the next set of bold steps.  Sign up for communications on the AESA website.  AESA has three revenue streams:  membership dues, conferences, business partners.  

Matt Hastings, NDE was present to share an update on the ADVISER project.  The goal of the SLDS Grant was to create the statewide dashboard.  The term/acronym ADVISER is used to describe the overall program and stands for Advanced Data Views Improving Student Education Response. What was once NSSRS will soon become ADVISER.  Ed-Fi is the product/technology that NDE uses to collect data. Ed-Fi allows NDE to pull data from multiple systems with no uploading needed. This allows districts to see "real" time results.  The ADVISER Dashboard is an optional web-based view of student and staff data that gives educators the opportunity to make data-driven decisions that can be accessed with a single sign-on. Educators can also view student data updated daily.  The ADVISER Database is where state/federal accountability data lives. This data feeds the ADVISER Dashboard. NSSRS will be fully phased out on June 30, 2018.  All districts will use a Certified SIS Vendor for data reporting on or before Juy 1, 2018.  ADVISER meetings  are held monthly monthly meeting via Zoom.  NDE Bulletin is mailed ever Thursday afternoon.  NSSRS/ADVISER work days are schedule for help. Spring Data Conference (former AQuESTT) will be NSSRS to ADVISER on April 16-17, 2018 - this will solely be geared toward the transition to ADVISER.  It was requested that ESUs need access to schools information in order to help them get connected.  Request to make a plan of action, need help from ESUs to put that plan together.  NDE needs to know where the concerns and issue are within the ESUs to be able to create this plan.  There are 220 schools publishing data to ADVISER.  Some of those that are left are switching vendors, etc.  The dashboard work that needs to be done, NDE will shift their work towards the dashboard work in July 2008.  NDE needs to have everyone working to get everyone connected to ADVISER.  Dr. Hastings encourages everyone to contact him if there are concerns/issues.  It is also advised to use the talking points each month to ask your questions so everyone will receive the same communication.  What about the possibility of buying a vendor to run the dashboard.  In order to get everyone statewide needs to be in a data store that can can utilized by an interoperable standard??   The new system will open doors so that schools can do more in the data space, in a more real time way.  Will the teachers be able to use the Dashboard to direct instruction?  Vendors will need to write their applications to the Edfi standards.  Is it more feasible for ESUs/Schools to purchase their own dashboards?   

Craig Hicks presented the Nebraska Portal, a comprehensive teaching and learning environment.  Nebraska Portal:  https://portal.nebraskacloud.org.  The ogal is for each ESU, or regional consortium, to assist their member districts in completing the process.  Suggested to create a committee for Portal/Adviser to continue to communicate this process.  Concerns of hackers but you can put in place some type authentication, ie:  two point authentication.  Also, when they have one place to go, it is easier for security to shut off access to accounts if something should happen (retire, leave, fire.)  

Tina Sauser gave a presentation on the Dashboard.  She shared the ADVISER website that are videos and tutorials to help getting started.  There are early warnings that you can create for your DashBoard for instance, grades, tardies, etc.  The administrators can each create their own warnings, watch lists, etc.  She gave a tour of the look of the dashboard and information there for the different views for administrators, schools, teachers.  Can schools customize the reports of what they want to see?  Most needs to be standardized so that everyone is seeing the same information, but plan to have some customizable fields on what they can see.  

ADVISER site:  https://goo.gl/unPtex 

ADVISER: Submit questions to the ADVISER Help team at ADVISERHelp@nebraskacloud.org   Send questions on errors and others concerns to the Help Desk.  The Help Desk can help you verify where your errors are coming from such as SIS, Actively Directory, ADVISER wherever the location.  

The Data Conference will be as much hands on so that they can be walked through the process.  The conference will focus mainly on the transition from NSSRS to ADVISER.  

Janine Theiler shared that she will update the talking points sheet and send to Executive Secretary to share out with ESUCC/PDO.  Feel free to share with your superintendents.  Also we have attached some reports on feedback from ESSA.  Please feel free to share questions on the talking points.  

President shared discussions in committee.  The committee discussed about the redesign process:  engaging, envision, enacting.  Shared how we will go through the process.  February 7-8 are the first dates.  There will be no DL for February.  It is important for all to attend in person.  Committee will meet only as needed prior to the meetings, then have a short condensed ESUCC meeting just to approve finances and other things needed to be approved.  The questions is if you have if you could have what you want.  Will be a lot of context work regional, state, and national level.  It is a fluid process.  Executive Committee will decide who else will need to be involved in the process from outside:  staff, affiliates, etc.  May 7-8 will be the follow-up day.  We will be adding May 7 to calendar so to be able to do the work needed.  Discussion to move January ESUCC Board meeting to the same time as PDO.  Possibility to move everything to the second week.  

There was no Public Comment.

Committee Chair shared budget reports.  

Committee Chair shared that there will be some bills to be paid in January prior to Febraury meeting

Committee Chair shared discussion in committee.  Check with schools to join the 2nd BlendEd Co-hort applications due January 15, 2018.  OER will begin soon after January PDO.  Discussion regarding the involvement of Parochial Schools.  

Committee Chair shared the consent items that need approval.  

Committee Chair discussed the annual buy bid awards and thanked the Coop staff for their work on bid awards.  

Committee Chair shared discussion out of committee.  BrightBytes proposal by Rob Residori, Rob Residori is no longer with BrightBytes.  Executive Director has not had the opportunity to meet with his replacement.  Discussion regarding continuation of ESU part of BrightBytes.  EdReady discussion regarding to identify the areas of needs for this personalized platform.  They will discuss with NDE Career and Technical to see if we can work with them.  Possibility to work with other Innovation Grants on their Pathways projects to see if we could help support with NROC.  At the Affiliates meetings will share/discuss on how we can reach schools.  Continue discussion with NDE stakeholders.   A statistic Accelerate NE have identified that 80% jobs in NE would not require a two year degree.  Are we properly preparing our students for success?  Executive Committee met with NCSA to discuss roles and responsibilities as related to Professional Development for Administrators.  Decided that if there was a statewide training need for statewide NCSA affiliates, it will be ran through NCSA.  Regional events are the responsibility of those regions.    

Committee Chair shared discussions in committee.  NDE was not able to be present for discussion.  Behavioral Health continues to be discussed and working with Senator Walz on a bill  that would include a service provider in each ESU and ESUCC, the money would come from private funding for the first three years and then ownership passed on to ESUs.  Tele-therapy continues to be discussed.  SRS is onto ADVISER.  Discussion with IllniCloud on our SRS application.  There will be a meeting on January 26 to discuss the HHS Medicaid Training and the Fairbanks Group.  

Committee Chair shared discussions in committee.  Bromm and Associates were available for updates.  Committee hearings will begin on January 16.  There were 118 bills introduced yesterday.  The State of the State by Govenor Ricketts  will be on January 10 at 10:00 AM and General file that afternoon.  Speaker Priorities will be on February 14.  February 23, 2018 will our legislative day at the Capitol.  There has been quite the turnover in Senate staff, so need to educate/communicate with them.  Executive Director shared the ESUCC Data spreadsheet. Staff is working on updating the data.  NASB Legislative Conference will be on January 22.  

No public hearing for Tech Plan.  If you filled out McRel Survey for Tech Plan do not have to fill out Tech Plan again.  

Adjourn meeting at 11:55 AM.