July 11, 2011 at 7:30 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

Rationale:  If any board member is absent, there will need to be a  motion to excuse the absence.

Rationale:   

It is the vision of the Norfolk Public Schools to actively engage all students in learning
through a relevant and comprehensive standards-based curriculum that integrates
 21^st century skills, tools, context, and assessments.  

• Goal #1:  All students will succeed at each grade level and graduate from high school well-prepared for a variety of post-secondary pursuits.

• Goal #2:  All students will feel connected with the school and the learning process.

• Goal #3:  District resources, programs, and departments will be aligned to attain high levels of student achievement and instructional excellence.

• Goal #4:  The community will be engaged to support high levels of student achievement.

  The mission of the Norfolk Public Schools is to prepare studentswith the skills and knowledge to meet the challenges of a complex, global society.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rationale:  June 13, 2011 -- 4:30 Study Session Minutes
June 13, 2011 -- 7:30 Regular Session Minutes
June 23, 2011 -- 2nd Meeting of the Month Minutes

Rationale: 

Approval of teaching contracts for the 2011-2012 school year for:

1.  Jessi Roggatz - Elementary
2.  Brent Jarosz - Business Education, High School

Rationale:  Mr. Witte's office has approved the application as meeting all of the district requirements.

1. Zhazgul Zhanybekovna of Kyrgystan. Host family is Troy and Jennifer Brooks and sponsor is Rotary Exchange. 

Rationale: 

The following bills were approved tonight:

 

General Fund:  $488,505.84

Cooperative Fund:  $3,542.60

School Lunch Fund:  $19.95

Special Building Fund:  $173,205.87

Bond Fund:  $524.00

Qualified Capital Undertaking Fund:  $524.00

 

We are paying several bills this month relative to the next school year.  Also included in the General Fund expenditures was $84,128.50 to Prime Communications for a partial payment for the District wireless project.  Included in this amount is $33,573 of the remaining IDEA ARRA dollars.  We must expend this grant by the end of August and will also be requesting reimbursement.  The total general fund expenditure amount includes textbooks orders, central supply orders, custodial supplies, summer school supplies.  We will have approximately $40,000 in concrete repairs throughout the district during the summer.  We paid half of this in this month’s bills.  Another big ticket item was the technology equipment supply using our federal grants; which include Migrant, Title I, Part C and Early Childhood monies.  As of the end of June, we have expended approximately 70% of our general fund budget.  This puts us in a good position to finish the year.  Whether we will be able to transfer to funds to the Depreciation Fund in August has yet to be determined.  Generally, we would do so; however we may need to keep the cash flow in the General Fund this year.

 

We now have all the budget documents and pertinent information to proceed with completion of the 2011-2012 budgets.  We will begin to finalize the numbers and prepare for the budget workshop in August. 

Rationale: 

Staff Development

 

In preparation for the Wednesday PLC times, the district has sent an additional nine staff members from the Junior High and High School to be trained in the Professional Learning Communities process.  Two administrators and seven teachers have attended a national PLC training and will work to continue to develop capacity throughout their buildings during the upcoming school year. 

 

The first early release day will be Wednesday, August 24^th and all staff will come together in the Carson Theater to learn an overview of the new evaluation process the district will be implementing.  Building-level meetings will then begin on August 31^st.  A PLC meeting schedule is available from my office for those who may be interested.

 

 

 

Technology

 

Installation of the infrastructure for our wireless network is beginning.  PRIME Communications has generated a schedule and timeline for installation that shows major completion of the project by approximately August 15^th.  Further updates will be brought to the board at our August meeting.

Rationale:  Mr. Witte will give an oral report.

Rationale: 

The Finance Committee met at noon today in the Central Office board room.  The following agenda items were reviewed and open for discussion:

1.       Questions/Concerns regarding the Bills for July.

2.       Preliminary Budget figures were reviewed.  State Aid, Property Tax Requests and District valuation growth was discussed based on historic trends.

3.       Review of the Certified Budget Authority and resulting unused Budget Authority for the 2011-2012 year.

4.       Chamber of Commerce proposal was discussed by Dr. Uhing with the Finance Committee.  This proposal was asking that the District make a commitment to purchase locally.

5.       Interlocal Agreement with the City of Norfolk for the School Resource Officer.  This was a 5-year contract and will term at the end of this fiscal year.  City of Norfolk is proposing an addendum that would cause this to be a continuing agreement unless either party wished to term.

Rationale: 

This is a resolution to approve NPS continued participation in this consortium.

Program Description

This program was created to help school districts access federal dollars for services they were already providing to Medicaid eligible students.  School districts regularly provide certain services that are termed administrative in nature, as well as some transportation services for Medicaid eligible students.  These costs for services are reimbursable by federal funds through the state Health and Human Services Agency (HHS).  For public school districts to access these funds, state and federal rules and laws must be followed.  NASB assisted in the creation of an interlocal agreement called the Nebraska Association of School Boards Medicaid Consortium (NASBMC).  The consortium contracts with a third party administrator (TPA) to train member school districts on the proper claiming procedures and to file said claims on behalf of NASBMC.

 Member school districts pay a fee of 9% of their claim to the third party administrator (TPA), plus 3% to the State of Nebraska, HHS, for administration of the program. The TPA collects all consortium data quarterly and submits the information to the State.  The State claims this amount from the Federal Government and electronically deposits the total amount claimed by the school districts for the quarter to NASBMC.  Once the monies are wired to NASBMC, checks are cut for each member of the consortium for their respective amounts, and to the TPA and NASBMC.  The State reclaims their 3% fee electronically from the NASBMC account. 

Rationale:  This is an addendum to renew the contract with the city for a school resource officer. This addendum will allow the agreement to automatically renew each year unless action is taken by the city or the school district to terminate or change the agreement.