December 13, 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 annual review of board policies, handbooks, and crisis/safety plans.  This committee is also responsible for the support and development of support programs(nursing, food service) in the district.

Rationale:  The leadership team worked with their staff on recommendations and concerns to be addressed on the 2nd Semester Return-To-Learn Plan.  After review of the ThoughtExchanges, the leadership team has no recommended changes to the plan.  However, we will make some adjustments to cleaning/sanitizing recommendations and district reports:
1.  Illness Report: We currently report staff COVID positives on our administration weekly meeting agenda.  We will add a column to our daily report reflecting staff absences due to illness.
2.  Disinfecting/Sanitization:  Review protocols with custodial/maintenance staff on daily/weekly disinfection and sanitization in all building.

See Return-To-Learn Plan on the District Website:

https://www.schuylercommunityschools.org/browse/249757

 

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

Rationale: 
    The board of education and the teacher's negotiations team have reached a tentative settlement on the 2022-23 Master Agreement.  Included as an addendum is the 2021-22 teacher incentive program. 
          The incentive plan is not a negotiable item, but since it does impact teacher pay, it is a mutually supported document.  The following three items were removed from the 2021-22 agreement:
1.  Workforce Housing Incentive:  All workforce houses sold
2.  SIG Incentive Payment:  School Improvement Grant Ended
3.  Remote Learning:  We no longer support the option for remote learning offered during the 2020-21 school year.
Additional Incentive Consideration
1.  Guaranteed Extended Contract:  The only addition to the program is to offer an extended contract to new teachers at 1.16 factor or less not to exceed 18 days in alignment with their college debt.  This would be retroactive to September 2021.

*See attached Teacher Incentive Plan
 

Rationale: 
1.  Crystal Melgar:  Preschool Admin. Asst.
2.  Victoria Butterfield:  Head Start Para Educator
3.  Jovimor Obando:  SES Para Educator
4.  Maria E. Arciva:  Food Service
5.  Kathy Moran:  Afterschool Asst. Coordinator

Rationale: 
1.  Sarah Ihrig:  SCHS Language Arts Teacher

Rationale:  See Strategic Plan documents on the district website.

https://ecriss.ecragroup.com/strategy/Home/Index?Dashboard=SCH001

https://www.schuylercommunityschools.org/page/scs-fmp-modules



Suggested ThoughtExchange Questions

 

Rationale: 
Preschool and SES 3-5 Principal's Report:  Mr. Comley
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  This month I would like to highlight Megan Holub. Mrs. Holub is a 3rd grade teacher at SES. Mrs. Holub is an outstanding teacher that gives 100% to her students. She has a very welcoming and kind approach which draws you in and makes you want to learn. Mrs. Holub has and continues to do so much for SES and Schuyler. I would like to say thank you Mrs. Holub for all you do!

SES K-2 Principal's Report:  Mrs. Neesen
Spotlight Staff: I would like to highlight our ELL Program and the phenomenal people who run it at SES. Our ELL Program takes an extraordinary amount of time working with students either new to the country and/or English as a second language, to get them acclimated to our school and proficient within the language. This program also helps the building out whenever asked of them. They are always willing to give a helping hand and it has been especially helpful in this month. Thank you so much!

DO Dual Language, Fisher’s, & Richland Principal's Report:  Ms. Bebout
Spotlight Program:  I would like to highlight two performances the rural schools have coming up!
On Monday, December 13th, Fisher’s School will be presenting their Christmas Concert at 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.  "THE GREAT BIG HOLIDAY BAKE-OFF" will be performed in the lunchroom.
On Thursday, December 16th, Richland School & the District Office Dual Lang Program will be presenting their Christmas Concert at 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.  "THE GREAT BIG HOLIDAY BAKE-OFF" will be performed in the gym at Richland.
We would love to have you attend and see this amazing program!

Middle School Asst. Principal's Report:  Mr. Banahan
Spotlight Staff/Program: The spotlight program I would like to highlight is the Schuyler Middle School MTSS team, which consist of April Becker, Bobbie Rocheford, Amanda Richards, Troy Schlueter, Angie Wemhoff, Tyrell Reichert, Cindy Beebe, Jill Domina, and Paula Kment. This team has been meeting once a month to help create and establish a MTSS culture at Schuyler Middle School. They are currently working to establish our non-negotiables for how the MTSS team will run at Schuyler Middle School, and what must be included to ensure there is shared leadership amongst all the teams at SMS. They have also been meeting to establish the norms, as well as establishing common practices that will allow more consistency between teams and teachers at SMS, which will allow us to provide our students with structured support that has equality regardless of where the support for our students is coming from. The building process is very tedious and this team is doing an amazing job of always making decisions based upon what is best for the students and not what is easiest or the best for them.    
Spotlight Upcoming Events: Our students have just finished up taking the newest form of the state NSCAS assessment which is the NSCAS Growth test. After talking to students, staff, and looking at data, we are excited to see what types of information this assessment will provide us as educators to continue to use data to make informed decisions for our students. Our students are wrapping up their first semester, and they are excited for winter break as well as the opportunity for some different classes at the semester break!

Middle School Principal's Report:  Mr. Zavadil
Program Spotlight:  This Month at Schuyler Middle School we have had a strong focus upon our new NSCAS Growth Pilot.  The state NSCAS system has a new assessment tool and Schuyler Community Schools is piloting the test in order to be better prepared for the official debut of the testing next year as it will become a three time a year testing system as opposed to a singular testing event in the Spring.  SMS finished piloting both the ELA and the Math assessment this last week and the testing process went very smoothly with only an isolated few technical hiccups.  Mrs. Kment and Mrs. Perrin put a lot of time in this year preparing for the testing and it showed.   The Middle School recently completed our Capturing Kids’ Hearts external visit and our consultant Mrs. Janet Kingsley was very impressed with what she saw from our staff.  She spent the afternoon speaking with myself and Mr. Banahan as well as doing classroom observations and talking with our process champions team.  Mrs. Kingsley gave us great feedback on next steps and we look forward to working hard to implement some work to make sure that we are implementing this culture piece as well as we possibly can.
Staff Member Spotlight:  This month I would like to recognize the work of Ms. Semerad.  Ms. Semerad has been working tirelessly to prepare for both the winter concert that is taking place tonight at the High School as well as the State One Act competition.  I know that there has been a lot of work done in order to be prepared for both of these events and it was not simple.  Ms. Semerad went above and beyond in the past few weeks for our students and we greatly appreciate her work.

High School Assistant Principal's Report:  Mr. Steinhoff
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  In this month’s staff spotlight I would like to recognize Melanie Gustafson.  Melanie recently became the English department head and has taken on a leadership role in strengthening our English department team, curriculum, and overall performance.  She has been a team player and is an asset to our school. 

High School Principal's Report:  Dr. Sams
Spotlight Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  I would like to highlight Ms. Elizabeth Lickei for her work on organizing an extremely successful blood mobile at the high school on December 8, 2021.  Ms. Lickei has put in a tremendous amount of time to plan, organize, and coordinate all pieces to make this a successful event for the community.  Additionally, Ms. Lickei organized student volunteers to assist with the blood mobile, providing the students an excellent opportunity to volunteer and learn numerous skills throughout the process.  Great work Ms. Lickei!

Rationale: 

Warrior Academy - After-School Program Director's Report:  Ms. Bebout
Spotlight Partnership: I would like to highlight our partnership with Beyond School Bells.  Beyond School Bells has partnered with Warrior Academy again this year with a grant of $15,000!!  Our partnership with Beyond School Bells has helped us create the successful program we have today.  Their financial support helps with building other partnerships in our community, staffing our program, and having quality professional development with our staff.
          Their mission is working with afterschool programs to build successful programs. Here is a statement from their website.  "Locally developed and sustained school-community partnerships, built on generally accepted quality principles, are at the core of how we view Expanded Learning Opportunities (ELOs).
          Beyond School Bells works to build partnerships at the state level between public agencies and private partners and support similar systems building work at the local level. We also concentrate on building partnerships between Nebraska initiatives and national organizations committed to providing more youth with access to high-quality ELOs. Locally we build partnerships that bring new energy into the ELO space - uniting schools, youth serving organizations, higher education, museums, businesses and other stakeholders in a common effort to create rich expanded learning environments that will benefit us all."

K-6 Youth Sports Director Report Name: Mrs. Neesen
Spotlight Program: The boys basketball season has wrapped up and 54 boys have earned their great attendance basketball! Huge thank you to Dana Schultz and all of the other volunteers for making this season a success. 
Youth Sports: Wrestling has started the season along with Club Wrestling. Approximately 40 female and male athletes have signed up with Youth Wrestling, with hopes that these athletes continue on to wrestle in the Club Season.
 

Middle School Activities Director's Report:  Mr. Banahan
Staff Member Spotlight: My staff spotlight for this month is Bernice Maxwell, Geralyn Shannon, Paula Kment, and Caitlyn Becker. They all helped out with our biggest event of the first semester, which is the Schuyler Middle School Wrestling Invitational Tournament which had over 315 wrestlers from 15 different schools competing on Saturday December 4th. They all then came back on Monday to help run a Wrestling Quad at SMS on Monday the 6th. They all helped it run smoothly, and efficiently. I am so appreciative of them and all their help with running scorebooks, taking gate, and helping do the little things to make our events shine for our school and community. Program Spotlight: Currently we are currently wrapping up our winter sports seasons of Girls Basketball, and Wrestling. While our teams may not have finished on top on the scoreboard, our students are Warriors and always go out and compete, giving their all to represent Schuyler in the most positive way possible. Highlights from the season include a 2nd place team finish at the Wayne Wrestling Invite, and a number of wrestlers having top finishes at the meets they are competing in this school year. As for girls basketball, our coaches have praised our girls for never giving up and always giving 100% of their effort in the games and practices. These girls have made tremendous growth this season, and we hope they continue to work on their skills and continue to improve as they move forward.

Spotlight Upcoming Events: We start off next week with our 6th, 7th, and 8th grade choir and band Christmas concerts starting at 6 PM in the Schuyler Central Auditorium, and our students are excited to be able to perform for their families and friends once again this semester. Then we head into our final wrestling tournament of the season at Boone Central on Saturday 12/11, and both Wrestling and Girls Basketball have their final competitions of the season on Tuesday 12/14 with the girls heading to Clarkson-Leigh, and the grapplers taking the mats at Norfolk Jr. High for their final quad meet of the year.

High School Activities Director's Report:  Mr. Steinhoff
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  This month at Schuyler High School I would like to spotlight the play production team.  The play production team won the district B-2 and made it to state.  At state they competed well and were recognized with the Outstanding Technical Team award. The coaches and their competitors have worked extremely hard all year and are well deserving of making state and being awarded.  They are often the last coaches and competitors to leave the school, as they practice after fall and winter sports.  It was exciting to see the progress they have made throughout this year.  Congratulations!

Student Services Director's Report:  Dr. Lefdal
Program/Staff Member Spotlight: I would like to spotlight our one act performers and coaches.  The coaches and students put on an amazing program at conference and districts and are headed to state.  It is exciting to see so many children be part of the program as well as see other students find a place to shine.  Congrats to all that are participating and leading this program. 
Notable Topics:  Our priority school meetings have been very good this year.  We have had some great conversations as well as excellent planning.  We will work with our consultants on a midyear score for our school in January.  I believe we have some areas of our priority plan that we need to celebrate!  I am also excited to see the improvements that we can achieve during the spring semester as well. 
Looking ahead:  I am excited to begin work on our strategic planning session in January.  It is always an interesting process and I love to have discussions on the future direction of our district.  I appreciate the work that Dr. Hoesing has done to help inform administration as well as our staff on past, present, and future strategic planning.

Special Education Director's Report:  Mrs. Vrba
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  With Brenda Klein's retirement, Caitlin Becker had big shoes to fill as the SMS Life Skills teacher. As only Caitlin would do, she hit the challenge head-on! She has recreated and rebuilt the instructional programs for each student. Her new course of studies has raised the bar of expectations for each of her students along with allowing them to develop their own set of independent skills. For the first quarter, I was receiving copies of her "new plans weekly" for helping her students grow academically and independently. As the first semester unfolded, Bailey Svoboda, our SMS speech pathologist, and Caitlin built real-life scenarios for our students to enjoy. (My favorite was pretending to go to a movie theatre. They had their tickets, comfy chairs, popcorn and a fun movie to watch!!) One of our 7th graders mastered eating chocolate pudding with a spoon...a "true priceless" moment. Caitlin is a true team player. She made herself case manager for some additional students so that the caseloads wouldn't be so overwhelming for others. Earlier this fall, she completed interviews and wrote some of the transition pieces for her colleagues' students. Caitlin has a natural ability with her huge heart to make everyone laugh, handle chaos with a smile and stay determined to do what is best for "our kids".

Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction Director's Report:  Dr. Gibbons
Spotlight Program/People: The Winter NSCAS Language Arts and Math Pilot started December 1st.  Mindy Perrin, Meridith Riha, and Paula Kment have done an outstanding job at the district and building levels to make sure that our students have the best testing experience possible. 
         Also, I have attached the report that I shared with you and I’m prepared to answer any questions you may have.
Since Last Board Meeting: We had Albert DuPont of Discovery Education here working with administrators as a part of the K-8 STEM Grant.  We met as a group one day and then he visited each of the schools with the principals. Thank you to Mrs. Becky Lefdal for your leadership and coordination of Discovery Education PD across the district.
          We also had Janet Kingsley, a consultant with Capturing Kids’ Hearts, come visit our schools to audit our implementation of the Capturing Kids’ Hearts processes. She will provide us with ideas and next steps to make us even more successful.
Spotlight Upcoming Events: The Language Arts Curriculum Team and I will begin the process of prioritizing the new standards and building curriculum around those standards during our PD meetings in January.  A few members of the team and I met at the ESU on November 18th, with the NDE Language Arts Director, Marissa Payzant, to learn the key instructional shifts called for in the new standards.  I have attached an example of some of the changes in standards that demonstrate those shifts.

Rationale: 
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  The District Leadership Team:  Dr. Gibbons, Mrs. Vrba, Dr. Lefdal, Mr. Comley, Mrs. Neesen, Ms. Bebout, Mr. Banahan, Mr. Zavadil, Mr. Steinhoff, Dr. Sams along with building/program reps:  Mrs. Oehlrich, Mrs. Riha, Mrs. Zavadil, Mrs. Ladwig, Mr. Droge, Mrs. Perrin, and Mrs. Arps has provided leadership for the Return to Learn Plan, School Safety and Security, Professional Development, 2021 Tech Fair, ThoughtExchanges, and Strategic Plan Report and implementation during the first semester of the 2021-22 school year.  This group is now working on communication strategies and input for the 2022 strategic planning process.  Thank you for your work on this leadership team.

1.  State Education Conference:  Thank you to the board members who attended the NASB State Education Conference in November.
2.  January 17-18 Professional Development:  The District Leadership Team is working on the schedule for the 2022 Strategic Planning Workshop scheduled for January 17 and 18.  Board members are invited to attend the workshops.  We will present the schedule at the January School Board Meeting.

Rationale:  See Attached 2021 Evaluation

Following this meeting, the evaluation will be attached to the district website.

Rationale: 
1.  Foundation Meeting:  See Foundation Website for agenda, minutes, and finance report.
2.  2nd Quarter Outstanding Staff Recognition:  The Foundation and Chamber will be presenting the 2nd Quarter Outstanding Staff Awards at the All-Staff Luncheon on Monday, January 17th.