November 9, 2015 at 7:00 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

This agenda contains a list of subjects known at the time of its distribution.  A copy of the agenda reflecting any changes will be available for public inspection during normal business hours in the District Office.  Except for items of an emergency nature, the agenda shall not be altered later than twenty-four hours before the meeting.  The Board reserves the right to alter the order of items, as it deems necessary.

Information concerning the Open Meeting Law, Chapter 84, Article 14 of Nebraska State Statutes, is posted on the bulletin board in the back of the meeting room.

This is the public’s opportunity to speak to items on the agenda. This is also the public’s opportunity to speak to any topic concerning the school district – since it is not an agenda item the board cannot discuss or take action on the matter at this time. Future discussion can be requested as an agenda item. To be recognized, all participants must complete the Request to Address the Milford Board of Education Form. No complaints regarding specific staff members will be heard during a public meeting. The District has established separate procedures for complaints against individual employees. Thank you for your participation.

General Fund for $83,356.26
Payroll for $514,517.58
Total $597,903.84

Some items to point out:

1. $750 to Ahern is for our quarterly fire sprinkler inspections.
2. $12,582 to Cornhusker is for a lot of bus repairs.  $9,000 of it was for a fuel tank replacement and a bad computer.  Others were miscellaneous items from inspections.
3. $4,165 to Rasmussen was for boiler repairs at the high school.  Our annual inspection found a crack in one and so to pass inspection we needed to repair the crack.  We also had a bad valve and meter.
4. $595 to Kyle Rubeck is for the removal of all the old materials on the elementary playgrounds in prep for the new surfacing.  We had 4 students from SCC do most of the work.  Great group of young men.  We also provided pizza while they were working.  TJ and I thought we could do the work over a period of a few days - not a chance!  They showed us up pretty quickly and so we go out of the way!

The remaining bills are yearly items or are not out of the ordinary.  Call or email with questions.

K-6 is at 356 (1 less than last month)

7-8 is at 101 (same as last month)

9-12 is at 229 (2 less than last month)

K-12 is at 686 (3 less than last month)

The 2nd grade class is our largest at 63

The 5th grade class is our smallest at 37

Our average class size is 57.2

I shared a couple of meetings ago that I would put this on a future agenda for further discussion/action.  Now is the future.

I have this written as track resurfacing and not replacement after our last full discussion.  Jim brought up the possibility of just resurfacing and only addressing the base where needed or if at all.

I have this on here again as I feel we need to get the study completed. Jon Carlson's fees, like on other projects, is in that 10% range of total project.  This is for planning, designs, drawings and follow through of the project.  He said he could bill us hourly if we just want some preliminary planning but not sure of those numbers.

I would really like to get a plan in place so we truly know what we are looking at.  We looked at numbers a while ago for the track if we do the base and all, but need numbers for moving of runways, pits, etc.  Not sure where all of these will be located until they do some drawings and planning.

NDE's Mathematic Standards

The above link will take you to the Department of Education's website so you can see the standards.  Mark will discuss some of the changes with you.  These new standards will replace the standards the state adopted in 2009.

Here is some basic information for you from the website:

Nebraska’s standards organized with three levels of specificity:

• K-12 Comprehensive Statements - Identify broad, general statements that are not grade level specific and cover big ideas in mathematics. (Number, Algebra, Geometry, and Data)
• Grade Level Expectations - Statements that identify what students should know and be able to do by the end of each identified grade/band. These are organized into categories, but not course specific.
• Curricular Indicators – Specific information to distinguish expectations between grade levels. They are no longer simply examples but are considered an integral part of the standard to be taught.

A few highlights are:

• Mathematical processes, located at the front of the document, were identified to enhance proficiency across all standards at any grade level.
• The four broad strands (Number, Algebra, Geometry, and Data) remain the same.
• Grades K-5 have an even stronger focus on building a solid foundation of number sense.
• The standards were streamlined by removing the duplication from grade to grade.
• The high school grade band has changed to Grades 9-11 and “Advanced Topics” appear at Grade 12. All students are expected to master the K-11 standards, and the NeSA Math assessment is given at the end of 11th grade.  Many colleges and universities require four years of high school mathematics for admission, and some of the content reflected in the Advanced Topics (Grade 12) standards may be recommended for particular majors in postsecondary education.  Therefore, students entering postsecondary education are encouraged to take additional math courses that will help them become college and career ready through the Advanced Topic standards. 

Nebraska has historically been a local control state with no mandated curriculum or textbooks. The standards are not meant to be a curriculum. Rather, districts are expected to align their local curriculum to the Nebraska Standards to add more specificity. Nebraska's draft standards are written using verbiage that describes the knowledge and skills students are expected to master at the various grade levels rather than using performance expectation language. Districts also have the choice to adopt their own standards only if they are more rigorous than the state standards.

You will notice it states we can develop our own standards that are more rigorous than the State's but we are not interested in that process.  As I said at the beginning, Mark will share more information with us at the meeting.

I have attached an option for our 2016-17 Calendar - yes - 16-17!  I have this as a discussion item.  Figure we can vote next month after discussions.

Obviously days can be moved, but just remember that any changes will affect other parts of the calendar.  Here are some highlights.

1. The Seward County Fair has already been set for the weekend of August 13th.  They usually work with the school districts, but this year we were told when the fair would be held due to the dates the carnival company was available.
2. October 24th is our scheduled day off in the fall.
3. I have three days scheduled off at Thanksgiving (Nov. 23-25) like we do this year. 
4. Christmas break is shorter.
5. I have a 4 day weekend scheduled in February.  We only have a three day weekend this year due to how the 15-16 calendar worked out.
6. The March days off are our usual.
7. April has a day off for district music contest and a couple of days for Easter.

We could move the end date up some by doing the following:

1. Wednesday, November 23rd could become a student day.
2. We could start back a day earlier in January.
3. Friday, February 17th could become a student day.

• These three changes could have the last staff day fall on Friday, May 19th with last student day on the 18th.
• We could keep the Christmas break the same length as this option and then do items #1 and #3 above and have the last student day on Friday, May 19th and last staff day on Monday, May 22nd.

Those are just some ideas. Just thought I would share this with the Board in case any of you would have some input.

We have attached 79-724 and it breaks down the requirements of this law.  I did not get the committee (Larry, Tony and Dave) together to review this item, thought we would do it as a whole board as we have not reviewed this as a group. 

The administrative team feels we are meeting these items or the intent of the law.  We did have to add under item (3) (b) the singing or memorization of the song America by every student.  That was not taking place with every student.

The item I want to discuss in more detail is section (1).  We do not ask the Board to do this step.  We do bring textbooks to meetings in case you want to review them, but we have always relied on the administrative team, after review by our staff, to inspect and approve textbooks.

I would like to have the board make a motion that assigns the duties of Section (1) to the administrative team. That is the main item I would like to discuss.

The Board of Education reserves the right to enter into Closed/Executive Session for 1) the protection of the public interest, or 2) the prevention of needless injury to the reputation of an individual, and/or the individual has not requested a public meeting. When making a motion to enter into Closed/Executive Session, the member making the motion should be as specific as possible as to the reason(s) for executive session.

The Board President will restate the reason for Closed/Executive Session after the motion has been acted on.