July 10, 2017 at 5:30 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

This is the time during the meeting when the public may request to address the Board. If you wish to comment, we ask that you identify yourself and the topic that you wish to address. Each individual's comments will be limited to five minutes.

 Please note that  the Board cannot discuss or act upon matters that are not listed on the agenda. Therefore, Board  members will not respond to your comments or questions.  If you wish to request that an item be placed on a future Board agenda, you may contact the Superintendent or her assistant during normal business hours.

Also note that concerns related to school personnel need to be addressed to the Superintendent using the approved district protocol.

Total amount of claims to be approved in the consent agenda for the month of July, 2017 by specific fund are as follows:
General Fund = $869,045.33

Nutrition Services Fund = $25,856.90

Cooperative Fund = $8,847.95

Depreciation Fund= $41,503.00

Special Building Fund = $591,933.75

Student Fee Fund= $36,121.61

The total amount of claims for the month of June, 2017 in the Activities fund are as follows:
Activity Fund =$121,797.67

All of these claims were reviewed earlier today by the Finance and Facility Committee.  Finalizing of the 17-18 budget continues.  I am currently in the process of starting to input information into the state documents and preparing for the upcoming board and public meetings concerning the 17-18 budget and tax request.

Curriculum, Assessment & Technology:

• Our consistent and persistent work toward meeting the Strategic Action Plan: Curriculum Goal is still in full force. I have shared a lot of documents with board members, particularly with the Curriculum Committee to review. The largest push this year was in the areas targeting Career Academies, which supports a different goal, yet remains very closely related. I’m pleased with the accomplishments. According to the timeline in the SAP, we are in alignment with designated timelines of renewal and updating in most areas. We were able to get ahead in a few areas but slightly behind in Math only because we purchased a new math program and we need to get more intimately involved with it first. Please let me know if you have questions.  Another batch of curriculum, not quite as extensive as this one, will be shared for next month.
  
  
• We held a robust work day with administrators after our attendance to the Assessment in Action Conference. Administrators were able to complete some detailed strategic planning for the next school year and set dates, deadlines and most importantly, goals for progressing the district next year.  Our focus for that day was increasing PLC capacity.
  
  
• After Administrator Days, I should be able to report some more specifics regarding state assessments for next year.
  
  
• The technology department has collaboratively worked with the maintenance crew to get ready for the summer sale. By this meeting, you should have seen the ads in the paper and heard about it on the radio. 

The second session of high school summer school ends this Thursday, July 14th.  Students in grade levels K-8 ended June 30th.

Monday, August 14th, certified staff will report for the new school year. In the first days, I will be meeting separately with Special Education and ELL (English Language Learners) staff to discuss program plans for this school year.

Open Houses for the start of the 2017-2018 school year have been scheduled for the following dates:

Tuesday, August 15th

• High school- 6-8pm
• Jr. High- 7-8pm
• Middle School- 5:30-6:30pm

Wednesday, August 16th

• Elementary Buildings - 5:30-6:30pm

Instructional Model:

• Work on the district Instructional Model continues and we just had another very productive meeting with a small group of teachers on Tuesday, June 27th to discuss more details for moving forward with this process.
• The NPS Instructional Model will help facilitate more consistency for essential instructional practices across the district. The model will also align with our district certified staff evaluation instrument and our district staff development planning objectives.
• The Instructional Model Task Force will meet several times during first semester to continue planning for future implementation.

New Teacher Training:

• On August 8, 9, 10, and 11 all newly hired teachers will be reporting for new teacher training and orientation. We have hired another excellent group of educators this year and we are excited about them working with our students.

Beginning of School Information:

• All certified staff return to duty on Monday, August 14th. School resumes on Thursday, August 17th.

Substitute Teacher Training:

• We have our substitute teacher training workshops scheduled for Thursday, August 10th from 1:15 - 2:15 p.m. at Central Office and Tuesday, August 22nd from 9:00 -10:00 a.m. at Central Office.
• We greatly appreciate our substitute teachers and they do a great job of meeting the needs of our students when our regular teachers are absent.
• We are still looking for quality substitute teachers and individuals interested in subbing for our district can apply online at www.norfolkpublicschools.org

Personnel Information:

• Listed below are the current openings for various staff positions.

Current Classified Openings:

• Activity Drivers
• General Maintenance
• Delivery Driver/ Maintenance
• Substitute Custodians
• Senior High School Night Supervisor Custodian
• Media/Library Paraprofessional

Current Certified Staff Openings:

• (Anticipated) Kindergarten Teacher - Bel Air Elementary
• Elementary Resource Teacher at Bel Air

Current Coaching Openings:

• HS Boys Track
• HS Assistant Girls Track
• HS Assistant Track
• JH Intramural Volleyball
• Cheer Sponsor
• 7th Assistant Football

Budget-Contract Positions

We currently have two very valuable positions that are paid through grants. Our Career Academy Coordinator position is paid for via Revision Grant funds, and our AfterShock Coordinator is paid for via 21st Century Learning Community Grant funds.  

We are eligible to apply for one more year of Revision funds, which we have done, but it is unlikely that we will know if our grant is approved until after school starts.  Therefore, I have directed Mr. Robinson to build this position into our budget for 2017-2018. If we receive the Revision grant, we will reallocate these funds to another area, knowing that this position will be our responsibility for the 2018-2019 school year.

Our 21st Century Learning Community grant will drop to 80% funding for the 2017-2018 school year and 60% funding in 2018-2019. The initial grant will be complete at that point, but we will be eligible to apply for a Continuation Grant that covers up to 40% funding for five years.  Austin Castleberry is actively seeking Club Sponsorships to help offset this loss in funding. This will help with club costs, but will not be sufficient to cover Austin's salary.  We do not need to bring this position into our budget this year, but may need to consider this in 2018-2019 or 2019-2020.

Our Career Academies and Aftershock Programs are both extremely valuable and well worth this investment. 

The committee met today at 12:00 noon and reviewed all claims for July, activity claims for June and current fund balances.  We also discussed the following facility items:

• Facility Updates (Career Academy, Middle School Access Road, additional sidewalks at Sr. High)
• Shared discussions that have started with the city concerning recreation facilities
• Woodland Park Playground project

We then moved into some finance topics that included:

• Changing providers on vision insurance
• Sub pay increases
• Future funding of key grant positions
• Funding for the purchase of property

Our next meeting will be on August 14th at 12:00 noon.

The 2017 legislative session may have ended, but our work has not. Sandy, Patti, and I hosted the NASB Legislative Luncheon on Wednesday, June 28, 2017. John Spatz, the NASB Executive Director encouraged us to begin preparation now for the 2018 session, as it is expected to be even more difficult that the past session. Charters, vouchers, retirement plans, school funding, administrator salaries, reading and retention are just a few of the topics we can expect to debate. John Spatz complimented Norfolk on our Board's presence and voice at the Capitol. This is imperative, as many Senators prefer to hear from other elected officials. 

The ESU 1 & 8 Legislative Committee also met recently. We covered many of the same topics and reached the same conclusions.  

Carissa Batenhorst - Bel Air Kindergarten

Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education Grades K-8 from Wayne State College

Currently a Kindergarten Teacher at Arnold Public Schools in Arnold, Nebraska

Based on our on-going substitute shortage and feedback from area schools, I am recommending that we increase substitute pay from $110/day to $124/day and that we offer a $150 dollar bonus each semester for substitutes that work the equivalent of 20 days.

During the 2016-2017 school year, we only had 7 subs that worked 20-29 days, 5 substitutes that worked 30-39 days and 13 substitutes that worked 40 days or more. We are hoping that the the bonus will encourage the substitutes that we have to work more days.

In support of our continued work to meet the goals and objectives of the Strategic Action Plan of Curriculum, several courses have been updated and revised to meet our district timeline and/or Career Academy development. Documents were shared with Curriculum Committee Members and the rest of the board member via the google drive for review. As you can see, there are several courses that underwent review and updating. I provided a summary page to help with key concepts regarding changes. Please accept the updated curriculums in the areas of Skilled and Technical Sciences and Business. There will be more to come in the next month.

A tentative meeting has been scheduled for 12:00 noon on Thursday, August 3rd.

Our next Business Meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 14th. The Study Session will begin at 5:30 and will be followed by our Business Meeting at 6:30. All components of the meeting will be open to the public unless an executive session is necessary to protect the interest of the district or to prevent needless hard to the reputation of an individual.