October 12, 2015 at 6:00 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

Rationale: 

1. The Board of Education reserves the right to enter into Closed/Executive Session for 1) the protection of the public interest or 2) the prevention of needless injury to the reputation of an individual, and the individual has not requested a public meeting. When making a motion to enter into Closed/Executive Session, the member making such a request should be as specific as possible keeping the previously listed stipulation in consideration.
2. If the Board is in agreement, a motion may be to enter into Closed/Executive Session to 1) discuss a personnel matter or 2) for the prevention of needless injury to the reputation of the individual, or 3) to discuss litigation and for the protection of the public interest.
3. Action Concerning Matters Discussed in Executive Session will be acted upon in open session.

Rationale: 

To verify that notice of the meeting was given by publication in the Benkelman Post, a legal newspaper for Dundy County Stratton and by written notice to each member of the board, the designated method of giving notice.

Rationale:  Approve the agenda of this meeting. The Board reserves the right to change the order of items within the agenda.

Rationale:  Approve minutes of previous meeting(s)

Rationale:  Discuss, consider and take all necessary action regarding:

Rationale: 

Presentation of the financial status of the district, balances in the various funds, recent/impending activity therein, anticipated expenses and planning for future considerations.

Rationale: 

The Statutory timeline is as follows:

By September 1 Association requests recognition (done). 
By October 1 the Board responds (done). 
By November 1 negotiations must begin. 
By Feb. 8 If there is no agreement parties submit to resolution officer. 
March 25 (or within 265 days of the certification of state aid) fact finding and mediation end. 
September 15th CIR must issue a decision. 

 The question is when do we want to have the first meeting.

 

Rationale:  Review the project, consider a possible change order

Rationale: 

We need to revise this policy to meet current statute.

 I am awaiting information from counsel.

Rationale:  The entire 6000 series is attached for your consideration. Remember we now require two readings and the second must be passed without any changes. This aligns our 6000 series with the indexing from our legal counsel and updates all of those policies. All necessary existing 6000 policies are included in this as it is presented. This will eliminate some policies from the series. 

Rationale:  We need to change our formal evaluation document to a Marzano based instrument. We have adopted the Marzano frameworks, but the principals do the final evaluation write up on the old forms. The Marzano forms are research based and match the items we are looking for in the evaluation process. This form must be sent to NDE for approval after your approval.

Rationale:  Mike and Adam will present some general information on our testing from last spring and how things are unfolding for this year.

Rationale:  Mike and Adam will discuss the RTI initiative and how we are progressing on that.

Rationale:  I would like to guage the interest in selling the property south of the school gymnasium in Stratton.

Rationale: 

Part of the new AQuESTT system put into place by NDE includes a section called Evidence Based Analysis. Mike and Adam have been collecting information on our district initiatives and we are preparing to fill out our information along with the Rule 10 Accreditation Assurance statements. I say collecting because we have a lot of things going on and the three of us can certainly name off several but the teachers and staff will inevitably come up with some that we overlook.

We will discuss/share at the meeting.

Rationale:  I have attached the annual area enrollments sheets for your information.

Rationale: 

As you already know, Stacey Waters applied, interviewed and was hired for the bookkeeper position. She and JoAnn are already working together on stuff and from my vantage point that seems to be going well. She has helped with portions of this month's packet and financial work.

I had hoped to have her position filled by this meeting and a pretty solid direction on the revamping of duties. We do have two (at this writing) completed apps and have had a couple more inquiries. I will have some discussions on the 12th and 13th with our auditor regarding his thoughts of best practices given our current staffing. 

One side note is that we may be getting some files cleaned out during the transition.

Rationale:  Right after the last board meeting where we passed the tax request, the county assessor changed the districts valuation. This does not change the amount of tax dollars we requested but will affect the levy amount set by the commissioners for the school district. This is a clerical issue, it affects the numbers by less than one thousandth of a percent therefore it requires no action on your part but I did want you to know. 

Rationale:  Just a reminder that we will be having a District 117 Foundation meeting at 5:45 Monday night. We are required to have quarterly meetings.

Rationale:  Everyone is registered. I regret to inform you that we are not staying at the convention center complex. The rooms are at the Regency in the Old Mill neighborhood.

Rationale:  We need to pick a date and decide what we want to cover. We can also discuss changing the format or adding additional sessions. Goal setting is always on the agenda. 

Rationale: 

It would be in our best interest to have a policy in place regarding the participation of transgender students as well as how we will be handling facility and other things for these students. It is far better to have the policy in place and get sued than to have no policy in place and get sued. If you have a policy and follow it you are far more likely to win in court. 

This issue is controversial enough, as we all know, that the NSAA Board enticed Dr. Tenopir to stay on for two  years to help them work through the issue. His savvy and experience should be a benefit and help pave the way to a better start for the permanent Executive Director.

We will have a choice of policies that will run the gamut of very restrictive to wide open. This item is discussion only as I would like some idea of how to proceed with the policy development.

Rationale:  Then NSAA is working toward sponsoring unified sports for students with disabilities. In particular they are looking at pairing disabled students with non-disabled students and sponsoring interscholastic competition. There are issues to be addressed as with any new endeavor. Among them is allowing students who are participating in the regular slate of NSAA activities to participate in Unified Sports initiative. There will be people who don't like it but it will be good for both groups of kids.