March 8, 2021 at 6:30 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

Rationale: 

STRIVE  -  COMMIT  -  SUCCEED  -  District Mission Statement

Schuyler Community Schools in partnership with parents, students, and the community is committed to educate students to become skilled, knowledgeable and responsible citizens in a global society - District Vision Statement

Notice of this meeting was given in advance according to State Law 84-1411, by giving notice of the meeting to the public.  Notice of this meeting was also given in advance to all members of the Board of Education

Rationale: 

This meeting has been preceded by advance notice and is hereby declared to be in open session.  A copy of the Open Meetings Act is posted in the front of the meeting room.

Nebraska Open Meetings Act:  http://nitc.nebraska.gov/documents/statutes/NebraskaOpenMeetingsAct_current.pdf

Rationale:  Discuss, Consider and Take Action on the consent agenda

Rationale: 

Rationale:  This committee is responsible for reviewing curriculum recommendations, textbook selection, requisitions/inventory, and instructional programs.

Rationale:  Attached is the 2021-22 Master Contract for special education services from ESU 7.  We only pay for the services we use.  The services outlined on the estimates are based on our use for the 2020-21 school year and anticipated services for the 2021-22 school year. 

Rationale:  This committee is responsible for recommending the annual district calendar, strategic planning process, technology, and promoting positive public relations and communications program.

Rationale: 
Attached is the 2021-22 school calendar recommendation.  The SEA, administration, and board committees have met and discussed calendar options and are recommending the attached Calendar  Draft  #4.  See attached

Rationale: 
Attached is the 2021 Strategic Plan presented to the board committees over the past two weeks.  Staff and community members have been given an opportunity to participate in providing input on priorities for 2021 and members of the Strategic Planning Team compiled the recommendations for your consideration.  See attached plan.

Rationale:  This committee is responsible for budget, finance, and contract negotiations with administration, certificated staff, and support staff.

Rationale:  According to the early retirement policy, the board of education may approve up to 4 requests for early retirement annually.  The early retirement policy is attached below.

Attached are three early retirement requests.  We have no fully eligible requests so all three requests are for partial (2/3) early retirement benefits.  See attached requests below.

1. Pat Cuda:  2 yrs:  Meets Service and Degree, but beyond 4 yrs eligibility
2. Laurie Schlautman: 2 yrs:  Meets Service and Degree, but not age
3. Brenda Klein: 2 yrs: Meets Age and Service, but not degree

Rationale: 
1.  Taylor Rae Bennett:  SES 2nd Grade Teacher
2.  Leigh Schnoor:  SES Special Education Teacher
3.  Joel Carrillo:  SCHS New-Comer Teacher
4.  Kassandra Broman:  SMS Family/Consumer Science Teacher
5.  Miranda Mally:  SMS Science Teacher

6.  Luis Lucar:  District Maintenance/Custodial
7.  Jeanette Burnett:  Food Service
8.  Jan Gall:  SES Para Educator

Rationale: 
1.  Paula Stormberg:  SES Teacher
2.  Jazmyn Flores:  SCHS ELL Teacher

Rationale: 
The board negotiations  committee met to review the salary comp  study with our Established Array of Schools.  The following positions are compared in salary and benefits to similar positions.  Attached are the  committee recommendations for 2021-22.

1.  Penny Janousek:  Business Manager
2.  Ronnie Mundil:  Director of Facilities, Maintenance, and Transportation
3.  Jeff Droge:  Director of Technology
4.  Jamie  Rameriz;  Food Service Director
5.  April  Becker:  School Psychologist

Rationale: 
The high school principal's position had 18 completed applications.  After review and screening, 9 candidates were brought in for in-person interviews on Wednesday and Thursday, March 3rd and 4th.   The 8 teachers and 5  administrators conducted the interviews and  independently  scored each candidates interview and character traits.

Following  the interviews,  the two committees ranked the top four candidates in the same order.  Both committees recommended Dr. Jodie Sams for the position.

The  board finance/personnel committee reviewed the recommendation and came to consensus on a contract, reviewed comparability with  our array of schools and agreed to a con with an annual  salary of $120,000  for the 2021-22 school year.  See attached resume.

 

Rationale:   

In December our focus was continuing the work we did in November. We have continued preparations for ACT planning,  preparing for our teaching study groups in February and remain dedicated to getting in the classroom to help support instructional techniques.  We also have a number of priority discussion points that we will address during our January professional development.  We will also  continue working on attendance and "failure isn't final" mentality. 

This past month we worked with KLK to rate each unit of the plan to see if we have had any growth over the course of six months. I have attached a link to the scores.  The admin team thought that the conversation we had with KLK went well and believe that we have a number of areas that we have made substantial growth in yet found areas where we still need to focus our attention.

We still continue to make our EL and newcomers program a focus, as we continue to iron out the kinks in the programming.  We are excited for the elpa21 testing that will occur in February to see how our students have grown. 

Below is a link to our priority plan, as well as our SCHS newsletter.  Again, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t be afraid to contact one of the high school administrators.

https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/908802/Draft_2018-2021_Schuyler_Priority_Plan__1_.pdf 

https://5il.co/nlww

 

Rationale: 
Preschool and SES 3-5  Principal's Report:  Mr. Comley
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  This month I would like to highlight Adam Robinson. Mr Robinson is a 4th grade teacher at SES. Mr. Robinson has a great rapport with all students and staff and shows exemplary teaching in his classroom. Mr. Robinson also coaches many things for Schuyler. He most recently purchased a home here in Schuyler and is making Schuyler home. I would like to thank Mr Robinson for all he does for our students and community!

SES K-2 Principal's Report:   Mrs. Neesen 
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  I want to spotlight the efforts of Mrs. Kelly Kort. Mrs. Kort is a dedicated teacher who focuses on the academic growth of her students while also supporting their social-emotional needs. During walkthroughs, Mrs. Kort  can be seen supporting her student’s academic needs on a wide spectrum from differentiating her instruction on the fly, checking with each of her students individually, to reading a funny story dramatically to emphasize punctuation (Oh, my!). Outside of her strong capabilities in educating our students, her ability to make relationships with her students creates a sense of community in her room. Walking down the hallway, it wouldn’t be uncommon to see Mrs. Kort having a conversation with one of her students or holding back from wanting to give her students hugs. Thank you Mrs. Kort for educating our students on a holistic level. 
 

Fisher’s & Richland Principal's  Report:  Ms.  Bebout
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  I would like to highlight Aimee Sigler.  Aimee was born in Fairfax, VA and grew up in Short Pump, VA.  She also lived in Oak Hill, West Virginia and Lyons, Kansas before moving to Schuyler.  Aimee received her Bachelor's Degree from Longwood University in Therapeutic Recreation, with emphasis in Physical Disabilities.  She received her Master’s Degree from Mountain State University in Elementary and Christian Education.  Before moving to Schuyler she taught for three years in WV and eleven years in KS.  Aimee has been with Schuyler for the last three years.  She is currently working at Fisher’s in the morning teaching 6th-8th Science/Social Studies and at Richland in the afternoon teaching 2nd-8th Science and MS Social Studies.  Aimee has been married to Darin Sigler for three years.  She has one daughter and two bonus daughters; Kaylee(25), Bailey(28) and Riley(26).

Aimee is a delight to watch interact with students.  She has a positive attitude that students are drawn to!  Aimee has taken the new science standards and aligned her curriculum to be phenomena driven and three dimensional learning.  While teaching she poses a problem that the students will solve using information they know, doing research, and trying out their hypotheses with hands-on activities.   It is amazing to see what students come up with to solve the problems presented to them!  Aimee is also a coach for the Speech Team.  She enjoys working with the high school students teaching them ways to improve in their different categories.  We are lucky to have Aimee in our district!!

Middle School Assistant Principal's Report:  Mr. Banahan
Program/Staff Member Spotlight: The program I would like to highlight is our Vocal Music and Band programs. Miss Semerad, Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Niedbalski have done a really good job working with our students all year in both the vocal and instrumental music classes. They have also done a great job of getting concerts lined up for our students and their families this year despite the obstacles that have gotten in the way with Covid. They have been able to get some concerts lined up for the end of the year with a concert on March 4th in our new Performing Arts Auditorium, and they are currently working on setting up an end of the year concert that will include various grades performing.
Program/Staff Member Spotlight: The staff member I would like to highlight is Mrs. Angela Wemhoff and Mrs. Evelyn Recinos who are the Middle Schools ELL department. They did an amazing job of getting all of our students tested on the ELPA 21 test last month. They worked extremely hard to ensure that every student was tested. Due to some weather conditions they had to make adjustments to the testing schedule, but they were able to fight through those issues to get every student tested. So thank you for all of your hard work on getting our students done with the ELPA 21 assessment.
Spotlight Upcoming Events: We will begin to get our students prepared for the end of the year testing that will be occurring. Here at the middle school we will be taking our Spring MAP test in the month of March. Students will be tested in the areas of Math, Science, Language Usage and Reading. Then in the month of April we will be taking our NSCAS Assessments for the state. We will be going through our last cycle of six week interventions and ACT Test Prep from John Baylor Test Prep, these interventions and enrichments will wrap up before the NSCAS assessments that our students will take. We are hoping to see lots of growth in both the MAP and NSCAS assessments this spring.
 

Middle School  Principal's Report:  Mr. Zavadil: 
Program//Staff Member Spotlight:  I would like to highlight our Vocal and Band programs this month.  Throughout this year many of our normal events have been either cancelled or had the format change entirely.  Since local counties have had lower cases of COVID-19 and restrictions have been eased our band and vocal teachers have finally been able to prepare for some of our normal events and have done a great job.  They are working hard to organize and prepare our students for these events.  The students are excited to get to show off their hard work
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  This month I would like to highlight the work of Mr. Gutierrez.  Mr. Gutierrez is our Skilled and Technical Sciences teacher.  His 6th grade class works with computer technical modules and Pitsco labs, his 7th grade classes work through our Discovery Education program STEM Connect and our 8th grade students work with a new robotics program.  Mr. Gutierrez also coaches Wrestling and Youth Soccer for the district and drives a bus when needed.  Mr. Gutierrez is a reliable member of our staff and works very hard for his students.
Upcoming Events:  We just completed our 1st in person concert at SMS on Thursday evening.  Our Band and Vocal students will be attending the Malcolm music Contest on March 18th in Malcolm Nebraska.  They are excited to be a part of this as they now get an opportunity to be judged on their performance for the 1st time in well over a year.  Next week the district has  parent teacher Conferences and our teachers have been working hard to schedule with families to make a great connection.  We will have our last round of MAP testing in March we use the Data from our MAP tests to inform our interventions and scheduling decisions in the Fall.  Our students are already starting to work on selecting their elective courses for next year and we are excited to start building our schedule for the next school year!

High School Assistant Principal's Report:  Mr. Kasik
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  I want to spotlight our Family Consumer Science teachers and their program.  Mr. Severson and Mr. Ankrah teach classes in this area and provide leadership for these students.  Mr. Severson has been settling in to his new facilities and working to expand his curriculum into the culinary arts area.
Staff Member Spotlight:  Kady Arps has played a very important role in this year’s events.  She has posted our home and away Covid protocols so those attending events know what to expect.  While we are still dealing with some of these restrictions, moving most events outside should make this easier.
Upcoming Events:  Our students are preparing for the end of third quarter and preparing for the ACT assessment in a few weeks.  There is still a lot going on here.

High School Principal's Report:  Mr. Grammer
Program Spotlight:  The program I would like to highlight and acknowledge at Schuyler Central High School this month is our TeamMates Program, especially the scholarship Program The scholarship program was created to give our students, who were in our TeamMates Program, opportunities to go college and try things they may not have considered trying without this scholarship. Our TeamMates organization did fundraisers throughout the school year, to raise funds for our TeamMates Scholarship program.  The members of the TeamMates program worked concession stands for activities throughout the school year and they sold baking pans during Christmas time. TeamMates was developed to address the many needs in our school, in regard to academics and mentoring.  It is a program which is truly developed and implemented with our students best interests in mind. We are fortunate to have teachers and staff, who have a passion to work with our students and the mentors in our community. Rosana Cristobal is this years recipient of a one time, $1000 TeamMates Central Office Scholarship to Southeast Community College.  Rosana will continue in the TeamMates Plus Mentoring Program at Southeast, where she will continue meeting with a mentor there.  Congratulations to Rosana!
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  As the Principal of SCHS, it is my honor to recognize Melanie Gustafson, the Speech team’s sponsor at Schuyler Central High School. The SCHS Speech Team competes during the winter season for athletics and activities.  Mrs. Gustafson is an integral part of the development and implementation of speech within our district. Mrs. Gustafsons’s passion for her student’s success is bar none, she works hard to ensure that her students are well prepared and ready to perform. She has a caring attitude, which enables her to develop a positive rapport with her students, and a dedication to her students academic well-being is unmatched. She strives to be a strong advocate for her students and ensure they have a positive school experience. With Mrs. Gustafson’s rapport and genuine caring for her students, her speech team will be a successful program at SCHS for years to come. Congratulations goes out to Mrs. Gustafson for making her program a positive experience for her students.
Event Highlight:  We are continuing our work with the state priority team, UNL EL team, DE cohort groups, with the SIG grant, and STEM through DE.  It is cumbersome at times to schedule and plan for all the groups.  But, it is worthwhile as we see growth and development of our students.
Our winter athletics and activities are coming to an end and we will begin working with our spring programs.   



 

Rationale: 

Warrior Academy - After-School Program Director's Report:  Ms.Bebout

Program/Activity Spotlight:  The elementary afterschool program will be hosting a family engagement night!  We are looking forward to having fun with our students and their parents!!!

***Bingo Family Night - March 16th at 6:00 - 6:30 - via Zoom & in person at SES - Winners will receive prizes!***

The middle school afterschool program will be hosting a STEM family engagement night in April!!!  We are really looking forward to this activity.  Please stay tuned for more information.

K-6 Youth Sports Director's  Report: Mrs. Neesen
Program/Staff Member Spotlight: This month I would like to highlight the work of Mr. Adam Robinson. Outside of his dedication of coaching multiple sports across the district, he also demonstrates his support of the Youth Sports program from his classroom. This is clearly evident with Mr. Robinson having a student participating in every sport so far this school year. During the girls basketball season, more than half of all fourth grade athletes came from Mr. Robinson’s room with eight of his students! For the softball season, exactly half of the fourth graders who have signed up came from Mr. Robinson’s classroom. When we ask teacher’s to hand out the sign up forms at school, we also ask them to spark interest in their students.. We can see that Mr. Robinson wants to create that spark for his student-athletes. 

Middle School  Activities Director's Report:  Mr. Banahan
Program/Staff  Member Spotlight: My program spotlight for this month is MS Boys Basketball, year our teams finished the season with the following records 5-7 (7th)  and 3-9 (8th). Seventh grade picked up wins over Madison, Clarkson-Leigh, David City, Twin River, and Madison again, while eighth grade picked up wins over Madison twice and Clarkson-Leigh. The boys really competed hard this season, and had a number of games that they were very close to winning. We are hoping they keep the momentum moving forward as we head into track season which will be a very interesting one, as none of our athletes 7th or 8th have competed in a track meet for Schuyler so this could make for a very exciting track season. 
Program/Staff Member Spotlight: For the program staff spotlight this month I would like to highlight Mrs. Renee Brabec. Mrs. Brabec does a great job of helping get workers lined up for all of our High School and Middle School sporting events as well as helping to arrange transportation to all of our Middle School and High School sporting events and activities. This past fall Mrs. Brabec was irreplaceable as she helped to get drivers for all of our events, with a smaller pond to fish from with COVID and many of our older drivers not wanting to drive due to health risk. With Mrs. Brabec’s help we were able to attend all of our events so far this sports season, so I want to make sure she gets the recognition she deserves for all of her hard work. Spotlight Upcoming Events: Our upcoming events at the middle school we will begin our Middle School track season on March 22nd with sign ups and starting our first practices. We have 7 track meets this season with our home meet on Monday April 26th. Hoping for a good season as it will be a first for both our 7th and 8th grade tracksters.

High School Activities Director's Report:  Mr.  Kasik
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  I would like to spotlight our Boys Soccer Program.  March 1^st is the start of spring sports and I know this group of young men is anxious to get rolling.  Last year, because of Covid, they were unable to compete and by all indications they were going to have another very competitive year.  They are led by Mr. Beebe and he will have them ready to compete for their 3/18 opener against Aurora here in Schuyler.
Staff Member Spotlight:  Brandi Zavadil has stepped in to a new role this year and has done a great job.  She wears many hats during the day helping to oversee our Newcomers Program, transporting students back and forth as well as student assessment and counseling.  She also ran a very successful Dodgeball Tournament as well as leading our FOCUS work.  Great work Brandi!
Upcoming Events:  We just finished hosting a Girls BB District Final game and now we will soon be hosting spring events in Soccer, Track and Boys Golf.  Speech also zeros in on its final weeks as it prepares for Districts and State. 

Student Services Director's Report:   Dr.  Lefdal
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  I would like to spotlight our physical education program.  Mr. Hlavac and Ms. Scheil have done an excellent job working to improve their instruction and programming in our physical education classrooms. Their ideas and suggestions have been excellent.  I also appreciate their classroom management and engagement strategies that each of them utilize!  Great work! 
Notable Topics:  The administrative team has once again been working on 30-second feedback with value add components during observations as well as increasing awareness of differentiation of instructions and engagement.  This allows for great communication and ideas to flow in a coaching type of system.  These have been great tools for me as an educational leader and are  more tools for my tool belt.
Looking ahead:  I am excited to see the spring sports season get under way.  My children are excited about the opportunities they have in track and golf.  I know a number of our students are excited about the upcoming soccer season as well.  Nice weather and great competition are only a short time away!

Special Education Director's Report:  Mrs. Vrba
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  In May 2020, Caitlin Becker graduated from UNK and began her teaching career at Schuyler Community Schools in the fall. Her teaching assignment is multi-faceted. Caitlin provides special education services for our students at Richland on Monday-Wednesday mornings and Fisher's #24 on Tuesday-Thursday mornings. Every afternoon she returns to SES to provide services for the 4th grade students. Tyler Petersen works side-by-side with Caitlin to plan interventions  for the morning time periods at SES. It has been a blast watching those two young educators collaborating together. They make an extraordinary team!
          Caitlin has done a phenomenal job of building a schedule in which all students are given the opportunity to work with her. Her instructional time is filled with various learning activities along with helping each child build his/her own toolbox to ensure his/her success in the classroom. Caitlin always challenges herself to build a rapport with each student, create lessons that might be covering difficult content material in a way that her students will be able to understand. Her lessons are very creative, meaningful and definitely hands-on. Even though her students might not admit it, she has their hearts...hook, line and sinker.
          For the 2021-2022 school year, Caitlin will be moving to the middle school to fill the huge void we will have with Brenda retiring. Caitlin is the perfect candidate for this position. She has a huge heart, an unstoppable drive to help her students and a dazzling sense of humor! (maybe)

Curriculum/Instruction/Assessment  Director's  Report:  Dr.Gibbons
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:   Across the district, our EL Department has done an outstanding job of scheduling and completing the ELPA 21.  They were able to reschedule testing dates after our days off a couple of weeks ago.  They are working diligently to get remote learners tested as well.

Spotlight Upcoming Events: 

• This year, state testing will take place during the following dates:

  • ELPA 21 - February 8 - March 19 (English Language Proficiency Assessment - given to all EL students).

  • NSCAS Assessments - March 22 - May 7 (All students in grades 3 - 8; Math, Language Arts and Science for 5th and 8th grade)

  • ACT - April 6 (All students in the 3rd year cohort; juniors)

• There are changes occurring in the state assessments so this year is being considered a pilot and will not be considered for accountability purposes.

• One part of our curriculum cycle has always been to review the implementation of our curriculum materials.  A focus this year has been to formalize that process.  We have been completing that process for many of our programs: APL Strategies, OnToCollege, Capturing Kids’ Hearts, Renaissance, and Language Arts.  The next step is to make action plans to improve implementation.

Rationale: 
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  Dr. Joey Lefdal is the high school student Services Director.  He is responsible for oversight of the ELL and guidance programs and works with our priority school and safety/crisis teams.  In addition, Dr. Lefdal works with students who struggle with attendance, truancy, family issues, and in and out of school behavior.  This past week, due to  tips from students and a teacher, along with his relationship with this particular student, Dr. Lefdal was able to respond to the tip, de-escalate the situation, and work with the student and law-enforcement to mediate a potential crisis situation.  While we were not able to release a lot of information, Dr. Lefdal followed district safety protocol, advice of legal council, and worked with the department of health and human services and law enforcement to resolve the issue.

Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  High School Interview Team (Drey  Keairnes, Brandi Zavadil, Nick Wilcox, Ashlie Stone, Michael Trotter, Staci Shonka, and Paul Niedbalski)  who agreed to represent our high school staff in the reviewing candidates, conducting interviews, and reaching consensus with an administrative team on the high school  principal position.   Thank  you to the teacher interview team for your professional service to the district.

 

Rationale:  1.  Foundation March Meeting
2.  NASB Zoom Meeting at 7:30 PM: The NASB and NDE are presenting a 15 minute zoom presentation on the proposed changes in school accreditation.  See attached information.