November 11, 2013 at 5:45 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

Rationale:  The Norfolk Public School District's board of education meeting is called to order.  At some point in the meeting, the Board of Education will briefly adjourn for a meal and will reconvene the meeting immediately following. No school board business or discussion will be conducted during this time.

Rationale:  Please stand and join us in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Rationale:  Arnie Robinson notified the board of his absence tonight.  We need a motion to excuse his 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:  The November Award For Excellence goes to Cher Moore, Special Education Para at Norfolk Junior High.

Rationale:  Students from Jefferson Elementary will provide a short patriotic presentation on Veteran's Day.

Rationale:  This is the time during the board meeting when the public may request to address the board regarding an agenda item. If you wish to comment, we ask that you identify yourself and indicate the agenda item to which you will be speaking.

Rationale:  Angie Hausman shared data and information regarding Jefferson Elementary School.

Rationale:  The total amount of bills approved in the consent agenda for the month of November, 2013 by specific fund are as follows:

General Fund=$573,874.42
Cooperative Fund=$8,576.43
Student Fee Fund=$389.62
Depreciation Fund=$203.04
Special Building Fund=$202.69
QCPUF Fund=$679,774.12
Bond Fund=$1,257,110.67
Nutrition Services Fund=$124,334.42
Employee Benefit Fund= $3,131

The total amount of claims for the month of October, 2013 in the Activities fund are as follows:

Activity Fund = $57,505.37

The Finance and Facility Committee reviewed all November claims for approval by the board.  The committee also reviewed the Activity Account claims for the month of October.  We are well into our 13-14 budget year and all budgeted revenues and expenditures by line item was shared with the committee today for review.   We also reviewed the official audit of the 2012-2013 fiscal year of all district funds.  The committee and myself went through the audit which is posted for the public in e-meeting.  The audit and AFR will also be posted in our district website by next week for anyone to access and review.  Form 470 was filed this past month, this enables our district to receive e-rate on our telecommunication services.  This is a reduced rate for certain entities that qualify under federal and state guidelines.

Rationale: 

Local Substitutes:

As the Board of Education designee to approve local substitute teachers for the Norfolk Public schools, I am informing you of two recently approved applicants for this school year:

Garrett Reimers - currently a student teacher in the district
Benjamin Rodenborg - police office for the city of Norfolk

Technology:

The school district was scheduled to increase our bandwidth on Oct. 25th. This was not able to be complete. The technology department is working to get that accomplished. This is necessary for our district with the increasing number of devices we are using and the amount of internet we use for instruction and assessment. The functionality and access of the internet has a lot of influence on our current and future decisions on technology expansion.

PLC & Curriculum:

Science 5-12 grades met and will continue to meet for collaboration and curriculum work.

Check 4 Learning (C4L):

NDE has established an online testing system that connects specifically to state standards and can be used in countless ways by teachers to ‘Check 4 Learning.’ Claudia Olsen, Carol Pflueger and I attended training as well as watch webinar training to understand its functionality. The program is not difficult, but just as with any program or system; it takes a little time to maneuver around to learn the intricacies. It can grow to be a very useful tool in the district.

Adequate Yearly Progress-AYP & Graduation Rates:

You probably read the article Andrea Larson published in the paper with regards to AYP. You will be getting a news release from me later in the week that reports on the district’s graduation rate and ranking of graduation rate. Graduation rate meets the ‘other academic’ indicator for meeting AYP.

Northeast Nebraska Career Academy Partnership (NENCAP):

Jake Luhr, Mickie Mueller and I attended the November NENCAP meeting which is the board that oversees and directs the career academies that have been developed through NECC. A portion of our Perkins grants dollars support our membership to this group. We are currently involved in the Business Careers Academy and are looking forward to expanding to more opportunities for our students.

Rationale:  Monday, November 18th:
- All Norfolk Public Schools 4th grade students will be attending a performance of “Peter Pan.” This play is a presentation by a touring agency sponsored by the Norfolk Arts Center, the NebraskaArts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment organization.
- This is also the first day for organized winter sports activities.

Friday, November 22nd:
- This date marks the middle of our second quarter. - K-4 mid-quarter grades are sent home.

Wednesday, November 27th- Friday, November 29th - Thanksgiving vacation- NO School

Title III AMAO (Annual Measures of Achievement Outcomes):
- NCLB requires an annual determination of the progress of English Language Learners for all districts that receive Title III funds for Limited English Proficient students. There are threeobjectives to this grant:
- AMAO I - The number of ELL students making progress in learning English
- AMAO II - The number of ELL students becoming proficient in English, and
- AMAO III - The number of ELL students making AYP (Annual Yearly Progress)
- (Annual Yearly Progress for the 2012-2013 year was established at an 84% proficiency level inthe areas of reading and math).
- The 2012-2013 assessment results indicated that English Language Learners attending the Norfolk Public School district did not reach this AYP goal as a group of learners for two contiguous years. Therefore, we will notify parents of our English Language Learners of these AMAO results. Then as a school district, we must work to develop a “plan of improvement” to help our English Language Learners meet proficiency in the reading and math areas. Our district ELL staff and I have met to review the ELL students’ performances on our reading and math assessments, as well as their language proficiency in speaking, reading, listening and writing. Instructional staff will be developing an “improvement plan” of specific goals and objectives that will help us strive toward meeting proficiency levels next year.

Building and Grounds Update:
- Fall spraying, fertilizing and ground aerating has been completed on all school properties.
- Snow removal equipment has been repaired and is “ready” when winter arrives.
- The heating system is complete and operating at Grant Elementary.
- All planned cement work/repairs are complete.
- The FUME hood replacement in the high school chemistry lab is nearing completion.
Parent Teacher Conference Results
- The attached chart reports the attendance at Fall Parent Conferences over the last couple ofyears in our district schools. Parent attendance and participation remains strong at the elementary level with percentages in the upper 90’s, then trails off as our students reach senior high school level, where nearly 70% of our 1170 families attend.

SCHOOL	FALL 2011	FALL 2012	FALL 2013
Bel Air	100%	99.6%	98.8%
Grant	97.7%	98.7%	98.3%
Jefferson	99.6%	99.6%	98%
Lincoln	100%	100%	100%
Washington	98.1%	95.9%	97.6%
Westside	96.1%	96.4%	96.8%
Woodland Park	100%	99%	99%
Middle School	84.7%	82%	85.7%
Junior High	69.4%	67.7%	71.3%
Senior High	73.2%	68.4%	69.7%

Rationale:  I have two main topics to discuss: The Superintendent Survey  Results and an Update from the Legislature's Education Committee related to School Funding.

The Superintendent Survey conducted at the beginning of the school year identified respondants' perceptions of the districts' strength and weaknesses.   Areas of Strength included: our dedicated staff, our athletic and activities programs, and the support that we receive from our parents and community.  Areas for improvement included: communication, increased technology integration, staff morale, curriculum, and finances.   These strenghts and weaknesses were shared with the SAP Committee last week during our Current Realities discussion.

The Superintendent Survey also indicated that many people felt they understood the definition of 21st Century Learning.  However, when they were asked to define 21st Century Learning in their own words, a large majority indicated that they believed this was the increased use of technology, rather than the incorporation of critical thinking skills, collaboration, communication, creativity and problem solving skills.  This confirms what many other sources have said...that our current mission and vision is not clearly understood by our constituents.  This will be discussed further during our SP presentation with Dr. Dlugosh.


I have attached two documents related to recent actvity from the  Legislature's Education Committee related to School Funding: The Minutes from their Executive Session held 10/29/2013 and a letter sent from the Education Committee to the Chair of the Tax Modernization Committee. 

If you look at the Minutes from the Executive Session, you will see that the committee is now saying that our current state aid formula is "generally OK".  However, they also recognize that the formula is not working for certain school districts.

The committee believes that many of our current issues are related to the state's recent revenue crunch, rather than the formula itself.  They advocate putting addtional dollars into the sate aid formula for areas such as special education, poverty, ELL, and mobility issues.  

They also advocate for making the formula more stable and predictable by implementing a leveling fund or trust fund that would give them more flexibility during economic downturns.  

The idea of providing a basic level of funding to each school was also discucssed, as well as the importance of early childhood education.  

Unfortunaley, the committee is not certain where these additional funds will come form. They have dicussed local sales and income taxes, and they sent a letter to the Tax Modernation Committee indicating such.  In that letter, they specifically ask the Tax Modernization Committee to explore sales tax exemptions and a tax on intangibles, in addition to exploring how local sales and income taxes might be incororated into the school funding system.   They also urged the Committee to consider the possibility that a tax cut may not be in the state's best interest at this time.

It is important that we continue to advocate for our district to Senator Scheer and others on the Legislature regarding our funding needs.  It is also important for us to thank them for their efforts to revise the formula and adovate for additional funding for schools.

Rationale:  Dr. Larry Dlugosh, Strategic Planning Facilitator, summarized the activities of our Strategic Planning Process, held October 27-29th and outlined the next steps involved in this process.

Rationale:  The Facility and Finance Committee met today at 12:00 noon in the central office board room. The committee had an opportunity to review all claims for November and fund balances for October as well as the activity fund claims for October, 2013. The committee discussed the district policy 3540 and the scoreboard project which is being financed through activities boosters and dollars generated through the High School concession stand.  The scoreboard project is being led by Mr. Dolliver and will be a nice upgrade in all of our competition gym areas.  Special thanks to our boosters for their generous support on this project.  We also spent some time reviewing the annual audit and discussing the report on our 2012-2013 fiscal year.  Special Education Final Financial, Maintenance of Effort, CDC reports, and NCLB application were all turned into the Dept. Education this past month.  Unclaimed property and our 2012-2013 audit was submitted to the State Auditors office and our AFR was submitted to NDE.  Our committee's final discussion dealt with some possible contract changes we may have with Pay flex, EHA, and the possibility of adding some college savings plans to our benefit offerings menu.  The next meeting is scheduled for Monday Dec. 9th at 12:00 noon.

Rationale:  The activities committee has not met since the last board meeting.  Our next activities committee meeting is scheduled for November 25th at noon.

Rationale:  The policy committee met on November 5, 2013 to review Section 4000a (Personnel).  This section will be presented to the board for first reading tonight.  

Dr. Thompson also provided clarification to the committee regarding policies 3210 (Bonds) and 3540 (Procedures for Bidding Construction Projects).  These polices will be included in the Second Reading of Section 3000 (Business Operations) tonight.

Are there any questions or comments regarding any of the policies in section 3000 or 4000a?

Rationale:  - November 2013 Nurse's Meeting Minutes
- November 2013 Student Health Meeting Minutes

Rationale:  - Minutes for October 14, 2013 Regular Board Meeting
- Minutes for October 17, 2013 Special Board Meeting
- Minutes for October 24, 2013 Second Monthly Board Meeting

Rationale:  Mr. Ben Ries will serve as Interim High School Assistant Principal for the remainder of the 2013-2014 school year. Mr. Ries will continue to serve as Head Boys Basketball Coach during this time period.

Rationale:  Section 4000a (Personnel) of our revised Policy manual is being presented for first reading.  Board members have had an opportunity to review this section prior to this evening.  Do you have any questions or comments regarding the policies in this section?

Rationale:  The Policy committee has reviewed policies in section 3000 (Business Operations) and are presenting them for second reading and approval.  No changes have been made since the first reading.

Rationale:  discuss negotiations

Rationale:  There will be no second meeting of the month in November due to thee NASB State Education Conference. 

The next regular meeting of the board of education is scheduled for Monday, December 9, 2013 at 5:45 at the Norfolk City Chamber Office. This meeting will be proceeded by the board supper at 5:00.   No school board business or discussion will be conducted during the board supper.