January 11, 2021 at 5:30 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

Rationale:  The Norfolk Public School District's board of education meeting is called to order.  

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

Rationale:  This is a legal meeting of the board of education, as advertised by the means specified in board policy. A complete copy of the Open Meetings Act is posted in the board room for your review. A copy of the agenda is available at the desk of the recording secretary.
 

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

Rationale:  Brenda Carhart and Jenna Hatfield

Rationale:  This is a legal meeting of the board of education, as advertised by the means specified in board policy. A complete copy of the Open Meetings Act is posted in the board room for your review. A copy of the agenda is available at the desk of the recording secretary.
 

Rationale:  See attachment

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It is customary for the District's Business Manager to serve as the Board Treasurer.  Therefore, I am recommending that Dr. Bill Robinson be appointed as the 2021 Board Treasurer.

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It is customary for the district's Superintendent to serve as the Board's Secretary. Therefore, I recommend that you appoint me as your 2021 Board Secretary.

 

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For numerous years, the district's primary legal counsel has been provided via the attorneys at Perry Law Firm.  We continue to be satisfied with their advice and performance. Therefore, I recommend that we continue to use their services on an as needed basis.

Other legal firms may be used from time to time for special cases with extenuating circumstances.

Rationale: 

RESOLVED, that the official depository of school funds for Madison County School District 59-0002 is hereby designated to be at Bank First, Elkhorn Valley Bank & Trust, Midwest Bank and Nebraska Liquid Asset Fund, and that the designation of any other institution as the depository of school funds is hereby withdrawn.  Bank First will be the primary depository for the General Fund; and Elkhorn Valley Bank & Trust will be the primary depository for all other district funds except the Bond Fund which Midwest Bank will be the primary depository.  Nebraska Liquid Asset Fund will serve as a depository for cash reserves in the General, Bond, QCPUF, Special Building, and Depreciation Funds.This resolution specifically recognizes the financial institutions where district and taxpayer's dollars are deposited.  This resolution also meets the requirement of full public disclosure of financial institutions used by the district.

I am recommending that we use the following financial institutions:  Bank First, Elkhorn Valley Bank and Trust, Midwest Bank, and the Nebraska Liquid Asset Fund. All of these institutions provide banking services to the district at no charge, while also fully securing district funds.

Rationale:  According to Policy 3130 the Board of Education shall be presented annually the list of recommended administrators and staff who have the authority to use school district issued credit cards and purchasing cards.  The credit cards are issued through Elkhorn Valley Bank and have the school districts name and card number on them, not individual names. The district Voyager fleet cards for fuel can only be used by organizations that qualify for the state fuel rate. These cards are also numbered with the school district name on them.  All cards are initially checked out through the Business Office and returned to the Business Office when they expire or a listed employee leaves the district.

Rationale:  This is the newspaper that we utilize to post official Board notifications, such as bids and meeting notices.  I recommend that we continue to use our local newspaper, the Norfolk Daily News.

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State statutes require that School Board members disclose any Conflicts of Interest that they may have related to contracts and employment issues, as well as any other matters that may have a financial impact on the Board member or his/her family.  The procedures for conflict disclosure and reporting have been provided to all Board members for their review.

All Board members understand their duty to disclose potential conflicts of interest and refrain from voting on such items.  Potential items that may be a conflict include: reimbursement of expenses and the payment of wages for activity workers. Our Finance Office will notify Board members if such items appear on the monthly claims and assist them in preparing a conflict of interest disclosure statement.

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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.

Rationale: 

Total amount of claims to be approved in the consent agenda for the month of January, 2021 by specific fund are listed below:

General Fund = $461,840.91

Nutrition Services Fund =$202,723.60

Cooperative Fund = $2,018.82

QCPUF = $275,045.16

Student Fee Fund = $3,528.67

The total amount of claims for the month of December, 2020 in the Activities Fund is listed below:
Activity Fund =$76,849.35

All of these claims were reviewed earlier today by the Finance and Facility Committee.  Payroll is currently working on end of the year tax documents for our employees so they can begin their individual taxes after the first of the year. We hope to have all W-2's out by the end of this month and 1095 C's by early February.  1095 C's are not required to file individual income taxes but are still required to be given to all employees for their records.  All 1099's have also been sent to vendors for verification

Rationale:  Remote Learning:
In December, my report contained details surrounding our development of the remote learning program for second semester. I had mentioned the various moving parts that were in motion. Due to the hard work of central office teams and the remote learning teachers, those moving parts have become more in sync and steady. We are successfully up and going second semester. January 5^th - 7^th was dedicated to zoom meetings for students and parents to meet their teacher, learn about remote learning processes, log into the online curriculum and ask questions.  Like mentioned in December, the remote learning program is essentially a school within a school so there were a lot of details that were covered during the orientation sessions. We’ve gone to great lengths to implement a program that addresses learning and attendance. The remote learning program is set up for students to be successful but it is nothing like the experience that students had last spring during the emergency shut down. It has been mentioned before and I’ll mention it again; student success in remote learning education is dependent upon the dedication of students to their school work and the dedication of parents/guardians to support their children in this unusual environment. 

Now that we are past the first phase of development and implementation, we will be moving onto the next phase of operation and maintenance.   We believe it will take one or two weeks for students, parents and teachers to become comfortable with remote learning school and operations. The design of the remote learning program is intentionally organized to keep the remote learning teacher as the main person of contact to keep communication centralized.

Student attendance and progress will be closely monitored during 3^rd quarter to ensure they are not falling behind and are meeting program goals and expectations. Building administrators will be notified if there are concerns. The Teaching and Learning Team will be keeping a close eye on the remote learning program for the remainder of the year.
 

Rationale: 

ELL-  The window for the ELPA test is February 8, 2021 - March 19, 2021. As I shared earlier, students who are learning remotely this semester, will still need to come on campus to complete the assessment. This will be a total of 5 students we will be testing in a smaller setting. 

Special Education-  I will attend the Nebraska Association of Special Education Supervisors legislative virtual conference on February 4th.  We typically have opportunities to set up meetings with our senators at this conference, this year is different.    

Nurses- Our nurses and health techs, if they choose to, are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccination in Tier 1 of the vaccination phases. 

Rationale: 

With the start of 2nd semester we begin thinking about Kindergarten registration and Round Up for next school year. The application process for Kindergarten students to enroll in our Montessori program at Lincoln elementary opened on Jan 1st. There will be a drawing on April 1st to fill our 2 kindergarten sections in that building. We have also begun taking registration information for kindergarten students at their neighborhood elementary school. Parents must have a birth certificate and a copy of immunization records to begin the enrollment process. As some of you may remember Kindergarten Round Up was postponed till August last year due to Covid. We tentatively have it scheduled for the end of April this year but will be making adjustments as necessary depending on where we are at with Covid as a community.

Reminder that Parent Teacher Conferences are scheduled for February. Monday Feb 8th will be k-8 from 4pm-7pm, Tuesday Feb 9th will be k-4 & 9-12 from 4pm-7pm, Wednesday Feb 10th will be 5-12 from 4pm-7pm and then Thursday Feb 11th students are dismissed at 11:30 and Conferences will be k-12 from 1pm till 4pm. Individual buildings will be sending out information to parents as we get closer so they can schedule those meetings.  

Rationale: 

January 18 was originally scheduled as a Professional Development Day and the ESU #8 Winter Workshop, but will be utilized as teacher work time instead, due to the cancellation of the Winter Workshop.  A training will be held for the first two hours of the day for any staff that drive NPS vehicles to transport students.  This is an NDE requirement that is new for the 2020-2021 school year and is now an annual requirement. 

The certified staff hiring season will begin in the near future.  We are currently busy updating job descriptions and will be posting some additional positions for the 2021-2022 school year.  The virtual teacher job fairs are under way and our district is committed to positively promoting our district and hiring the best staff possible.  

Job Postings Update:

Certified Positions: 

• Elementary Special Education Teacher-Bel Air Elem. (2021-2022)
• Speech Language Pathologist (2021-2022)
• Psychologist (2021-2022)
• Substitute Teachers

Classified Openings: 

• High Needs Para/Driver (Full-Time) - Senior High
• Classroom Para - Bel Air & Grant elementary schools
• Aftershock - Club Facilitators (Part-time)
• Aftershock - Partnership Specialist (Contracted/Part-time)
• General Maintenance Worker-Full-time
• School Bus Activity Drivers 
• Evening Custodians (Part-time)
• Electrician (Part-time) - Maintenance
• Substitutes - Deaf Education/Sign Language Interpreter 
• Substitute:  Paraprofessional, Health Tech, Secretary & Nurse
• Substitute Custodians

Coaching Opportunities (‘21-’22):

• Head Volleyball Coach
• JH Boys Intramural Basketball Coach
• JH Boys Track Assistant Coach
• ???????HS Assistant Theater - Technical Director

Rationale:  NPS and NPERS Retirement Notification:
This is my annual reminder that NPS does NOT have an early retirement/separation incentive policy, nor are we considering one.  Staff are encouraged to notify us ASAP if they are planning to retire so that we can obtain suitable replacements.

In addition, the Nebraska Public Employees Retirement System has notified schools that:  they are backed up due to the COVID pandemic, they will only be offering a limited number of in-person retirement meetings, but on-line videos are available for assistance.  Staff need to contact NPERS right away if they are considering retirement and they want to schedule an in-person meeting. 

Legislative Issues:
The 2021 Legislature is now in session.  Senator Lynn Walz is our new Education Chair.  Our NPS Legislative Committee will need to meet soon to begin discussing bills, which are already piling up.  The Chamber Govt Affairs Committee meets virtually with Senator Flood each Wednesday and the GNSA will meet virtually on January 20th

Rationale:  The committee met at 12:00 today.  The claims for the month of January and Activity claims for December were reviewed.  Banking resolution and credit card designations were reviewed as well as staffing for 2021-2022.

The next meeting will be February 8th. 

Rationale:  Attached are the minutes from the January 5, 2021 Student Health and Nurses meetings.

Rationale:  Minutes of the December 14, 2020 meeting are attached.

Rationale:  Attached are the claims for the month of January, 2021.  These claims were reviewed earlier today by our Finance and Facility Committee.  There are no conflict statements for this month.

Rationale:  The following nominations have been submitted for NASB Legislation Committee Member #10.
 

• Heather Johnson, Ralston Public Schools
• Marla Grier, South Sioux City Community Schools

Rationale:  The 2nd monthly meeting of the Board of Education has been tentatively scheduled for noon on Thursday, January 28, 2021.

The next regular meeting of the Board of Education will be held on Monday, February 8, 2021. The Business Meeting will begin at 5:30 PM. All components of these meetings will be held at the NPS Central Administration Offices and will be open to the public unless an Executive Session is needed in order to protect the interest of the district or the reputation of an individual.