September 12, 2016 at 5:30 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

Discussion of the NPS Superintendent Evaluation Form

Listed below is the link to the draft of the NPS Superintendent Evaluation Form.  To access this link, you must be signed into your NPS Google email account. 

https://docs.google.com/a/npsne.org/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfCq0FSABhAQ9yHdqgjiXsSowc1ldjF8uIAlKjdd9LLZ2T4Zw/viewform

Welcome to the Budget Hearing for the 2016-2017 school year. The purpose of this hearing is to give taxpayers the opportunity to provide support, opposition, criticism, or suggestions and observations regarding the budget.

There will be a review of budget items and the board will provide an opportunity for public comment. The adoption of the budget will take place by a vote during the board meeting and not at the hearing.

This year's 2016-2017 General Fund budget, when including all of the cash reserve, estimated county treasurer balance, and any unused budget authority comes to $65,170,051.31.  The district's budget of actual expenditures for 2016-2017 when excluding the cash reserve, estimated county treasurer balance and unused budget authority is $43,137,459.29.  This budget will allow the district to continue its current programs and goals for 2016-2017 without the need to use existing cash reserves or increase our overall tax levy.  Dr. Thompson will be providing a summation statement on this upcoming budget year and things to consider in future budgets when the budget comes up for approval during action items later this evening.

All of the district's other funds represent adequate cash flow with those total balances being budgeted as expenditures for 2016-2017.

Welcome to the Tax Request Hearing for the 2016-2017 school year. The purpose of this hearing is to give taxpayers the opportunity to provide support, opposition, criticism, or suggestions and observations regarding the proposed tax request.

There will be a review of the tax requests and the board will provide the opportunity for public input.  Official action and voting on the tax resolution for the school district will take place during the regular business meeting.

This year's overall tax request for 2016-2017 is detailed in the attached document.  This request represents the essential needs for our district's General and Special Building Funds as well as the principal and interest obligations in our different bond funds.  As always, we are mindful to our taxpayers when developing budgets and tax requests, so I am recommending a slight levy decrease of $.004706 which would make our overall levy $1.205124 compared to $1.20983 in 2015-2016.

Taryn Retzlaff--Norfolk High School Language Arts Teacher, Head Drama Coach, and Sponsor for the One Act Play, the Drama Club and Publications

Curriculum & Assessment

• The biggest piece of news comes to us from the State Board of Education. They voted unanimously to authorize the commissioner to enter into a contract with ACT.  ACT will be administered in spring 2017 to all 11^th grade students, with the exception of the 1% alternate assessment students in Nebraska Public Schools.  The subjects to be tested in spring 2017 are English, Mathematics, Reading, Science and Writing.  You will note that ACT test offerings are similar to the subject areas that have been tested for many years in the Nebraska statewide assessment system. Scores for alternate assessment students will be reported based on the alternate assessments administered in spring 2017, not the ACT.

• While the assessment of writing is an optional section of the typical ACT Saturday administration, ACT writing is being included for all students in 11^th grade for the spring 2017 ACT Nebraska statewide testing, and will be included in the statewide assessment reporting for 2016-2017.  In subsequent years, the inclusion of writing in the high school statewide assessment will be re-evaluated, based on student and school district experiences and input about ACT Writing.

• School sites (high schools) are given the option of paper/pencil or online administration.  However schools that select online may also have students accommodated with a paper/pencil test. Specifics regarding the time and location are not determined.

• NeSA testing will remain for 3rd-8th grade in Reading, Math and Science. The longstanding writing test in 4^th and 8^th grade will not occur like prior years. The Reading assessment is transitioning from solely Reading to include Writing within the same test, making it an English Language Arts test. We have adjusted our district writing expectations to prepare students.

• On September 16^th the 2015-16 NeSA results will be published publicly.

• We are currently in the Fall MAP testing window. Each building has scheduled and are currently administering the MAP assessments. The Fall MAP window is important because it provides us with a starting point of measurement to assist our teachers in making purposeful instruction decisions.

Parent-Teacher Conferences are scheduled for Monday-Thursday, September 19 - 22 as follows:

September 19th K-12 normal dismissal.  

K-8 parent-teacher conferences from 5:00-8:00 p.m.

September 20th K-12 normal dismissal.

K-4 and 9-12 parent/teacher conferences from 5:00-8:00 p.m.

September 21st K-12 students dismissed at 2:00 p.m.

5-12 parent-teacher conferences from 5:00-8:00 p.m.

September 22nd K-12 students dismissed at 11:30 a.m.

K-12 parent-teacher conferences from 1:00-4:00 p.m.

September 23rd No school for K-12 students

Homecoming week begins the week of October 3rd at Norfolk High School. We hope you will be able to attend the football game on Friday night between Norfolk and Omaha South. Coronation will be on Saturday, October 8th at 7:30 p.m. with the Homecoming Dance to follow at 8:00 p.m.

APL Training:

• Beginning on Tuesday, September 27th we will send twelve teachers to the first of five days of intensive training on APL. APL is our district instructional model and the training provides “in depth” information and practice on consistent instructional strategies implemented across the district.   
• There will be another APL training for more teachers this spring.

“New to the District” Teacher Meetings:

• On Monday, September 12th our “New to the District” certified staff had their first Teacher Mentor Meeting since school started. The “large group” topics for the afternoon were Parent / Teacher Conferences and PLC’s.
• “New to the District” certified staff will continue to meet with their district mentors monthly throughout the school year.

Safety Training:

• All “frontline” office support staff will participate in crisis response training on Wednesday, October 19th from 3-5 p.m.
• Personnel from the Norfolk Police Division will conduct the training.
• All of our school buildings are regularly practicing the various safety drills (fire, intruder, etc.) to start the school year.

Substitute Teacher Training:

• We had 40 teachers attend the sub training on August 9th.
• We had an additional 16 teachers attend the sub training on August 23rd.
• Teachers that were unable to make these two dates received information individually.
• Currently, we have 66 substitute teachers in our sub pool.
• We are continuing to increase our substitute teacher numbers by advertising in many different venues this school year.

1. Preliminary Enrollment Numbers

Official enrollment numbers are based upon the last Friday in September. However, our preliminary first Friday in August enrollment numbers indicate that our enrollment continues to grow.  Our K-12 enrollment on August 19th was 4182, which is 63 more students than we had a year ago, when our enrollment was 4119.  Our K-12 enrollment has grown by 335 students since 2009.

As of Sept 2nd our K-12 enrollment had grown by three more students, to reach 4185. Our total PK-12 enrollment was 4307. To put this in perspective, our all time high enrollment was 4308 in 2001.

We will have a more in-depth discussion regarding enrollment, including updated enrollment projections, once official enrollment data is available.

2. Foreign Exchange Students

Norfolk Senior High has accepted three foreign exchange students this year. They are:

Martina Careddu - Italy

According to Board Policy 5007, Norfolk Public Schools recognizes the benefits of participating in foreign exchange programs, because they increase mutual understanding between the students, staff and citizens of the District and the people of other countries.

3. Nebraska Loves Public Schools loves Norfolk Public Schools

Nebraska Loves Public Schools will choose two Nebraska Public Schools to be “featured schools of the month” each month throughout the school year, and I am very excited to announce that they have chosen Norfolk Public Schools to be one of their first featured schools!  They were very impressed by the stories that we shared with them this summer and want to help share those stories across the state.

Throughout the month of September, Nebraska Loves Public Schools and Nebraska Advantage will highlight the great things happening in our district online (via their website, Twitter, FaceBook, etc.). This is a great opportunity for us to showcase the many outstanding things that we have going on within Norfolk Public Schools.

You can follow the excitement here:

Twitter: @NElovesPS  or #ilovepublicschools

Facebook:NElovesPS

Website:nelovesps.org

The committee reviewed all claims for the month of August and September 2016 as well as the August Activity claims. The committee received a facility update and then discussed the following items:

• 2016-2017 Budget and Tax Request
• Necessary code upgrades to the elevator at Lincoln School
• Permission to sell staff desk at Middle School
• Review of the traffic flow at Lincoln School

Our next scheduled meeting is October 7, 2016 at 10:00 a.m..

The Policy and Government Relations Committee met at 1:30 on Monday, August 29th to review policies 6200-6282.  

* Significant changes were made to Policy 6200 (Objectives of the Instructional Program) to make it more reflective of our district's philosophy and practices.

* Policy 6210 (Curriculum Development and Adoption) was revised to include the Curriculum and Americanism Committee in the curriculum review process.

* Policy 6211 (Curriculum-Assessments) was revised to reflect current assessment terminology. The term "standardized assessments" was replaced with "state, national, and norm-referenced assessments," and the term "coursework assessments" was replaced with the term "classroom-based assessments."

* Policy 6260 (Instruction-Guidance) was revised to include "assistance with the completion of post-secondary and financial applications" as a service of our guidance program.

The Policy Committee also reviewed Policies 6020 and 6021, Policy 8153 and Policy 2320.

* Perry Law Firm had suggested that we add "copyright piracy" information to policy 6020 (The Program of Instruction), but we decided to make a separate policy, 6021 (Copyright Piracy), for this purpose.

* Policy 8153 was reviewed and revised to reflect the changes made to Policy 6210, regarding curriculum review by the Curriculum and Americanism Committee.

* Policy 2320 (Evaluation of Superintendent) was reviewed because the ad-hoc Superintendent Evaluation Committee suggested changes to this policy to reflect the new process they recommended during the Study Session this evening.

No certificated positions to approve.

FYI: Chance Buss, AfterShock Coordinator, is resigning at the end of the month to pursue other opportunities.

Details of this action will be read publicly as an official resolution which is attached and detailed below.

A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE DISTRICT TO CONTINUE ITS PARTICIPATION IN AN INTERLOCAL COOPERATIVE WITH ONE OR MORE NEBRASKA PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND/OR EDUCATIONAL SERVICE UNITS; AUTHORIZING SUCH COOPERATIVE TO ISSUE BONDS ON BEHALF OF THE DISTRICT IN A PRINCIPAL AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $100,000 TO FINANCE THE COST OF ANY ITEM OF HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE USED BY THE DISTRICT IN PROVIDING FOR THE DELIVERY OF INFORMATION, INCLUDING THE PURCHASING OF UPGRADES OR RELATED IMPROVEMENTS TO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR THE OPERATION OF LIBRARIES OPERATED BY THE DISTRICT; DELEGATING THE AUTHORITY TO DETERMINE THE PRINCIPAL AMOUNTS, MATURITY DATES, INTEREST RATES, REDEMPTION PROVISIONS AND OTHER TERMS OF SUCH BONDS; IMPOSING A TAX TO PAY THE PRINCIPAL OF AND INTEREST ON SUCH BONDS; DESIGNATING THE BONDS AS QUALIFIED TAX-EXEMPT OBLIGATIONS; AUTHORIZING CERTAIN ACTIONS AND DOCUMENTS; PUBLISHING NOTICE OF INTENT TO ISSUE SUCH BONDS; AND PRESCRIBING OTHER MATTERS RELATING THERETO.

Public notice was given at least five days in advance of the district’s Special Public Hearing called for the purpose of discussing and approving or modifying the District’s Tax Requests for the 2016-2017 school fiscal year for the General Fund, Bond Fund, Special Building Fund, and Qualified Capital Purpose Undertaking Fund of Madison County School District 59-0002.

The Special Public Hearing was held before the Board of Education of Madison County School District 59-0002 at the time, date, and place announced in the notice published in a newspaper of general circulation, a copy of which notice and proof of publication of which is attached hereto as Exhibit A, all as required by law.

The Board provided an opportunity to receive comment, information and evidence from persons in attendance at such Special Hearing; and, the Board, after having reviewed the District’s Tax Requests for each said fund, and after public consideration of the matter, has determined that the Final Tax Requests as listed below are necessary in order to carry out the functions of the District, as determined by the Board for the 2016/2017 fiscal year.

NOW BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that (1) the Tax Request for the General Fund should be,and hereby is set at $23,806,858.35 (2) the Tax Request for the Special Building Fund should be, and hereby is set at $228,909.09; (3) the Tax Request for the Bond Fund K-8 should be, and hereby is set at $1,236,772.71; (4) the Tax Request for the Bond Fund 9-12 should be, and hereby is set at $877,368.68; (5) the Tax Request for the Technology Bond Fund K-12 should be, and hereby is set at $106,060.61; and (6) the Tax Request for the Qualified Capital Purpose Undertaking Fund should be, and hereby is set at $1,080,808.07.

I recommend to the Board of Education to make a motion to pass the tax levy and property tax request for Madison County School District 59-0002 as stated in the publicly read resolution that just took place. This request was reviewed by the Finance and Facilities Committee and also reviewed at the last board meeting on Aug. 25th.  Details of this official resolution is attached.

The Policy and Government Relations Committee is recommending the approval of the Following Policies:

6000: General Policy Statement re: Instruction

6010: Scope of Instructional Program

6110: School Instructional Hours

6112: School Day for Students

6113: Limitations on Class Size

6114: Emergencies

6115: Fire Drills and Crisis Plans

6116: Emergency Dismissal or Cancellation

6117: Ceremonies, Observances, and the Pledge of Allegiance

6118: Attendance Area Boundary Line Review

6119: Attendance Districts

6120: Safe Schools Policy

Please note: Policy 6020 will remain as it is currently written. The recommended changes to this policy have been moved to Policy 6021.

State statute and the ESSA require that schools teach students and staff about the harms of copyright piracy. The Policy and Government Relations Committee felt that this information should be separated from the information in Policy 6020.  

The Policy and Government Relations Committee reviewed these policies and is recommending them for First Reading tonight: 6200 (Objectives of the Instructional Program), 6210 (Curriculum-Development and Adoption), 6211 (Curriculum - Assessments), 6212 (Assessments - Academic Content Standards), 6220 (Experimental/Innovative Program), 6230 (Curriculum Guides), 6240 (Homework), 6260 (Guidance), 6270 (Field Trips), 6271 (School Activity Trip Drivers), 6280 (Activities), 6281 (Activity Fund Management), and 6282 (School Colors).

* Significant changes were made to policy 6200 (Objectives of the Instructional Program) to make it more reflective of our district's philosophy and practices.

* Policy 6210 (Curriculum Development and Adoption) was revised to include the Curriculum and Americanism Committee in the curriculum review process.

* Policy 6211 (Curriculum-Assessments) was revised to reflect current assessment terminology. The term "standardized assessments" was replaced with "state, national, and norm-referenced assessments", and the term "coursework assessments" was replaced with the term "classroom-based assessments".

* Policy 6260 (Instruction-Guidance) was revised to include "assistance with the completion of post-secondary and financial applications" as a service of our guidance program.

* Policy 2320 (Evaluation of Superintendent) was reviewed, because the ad-hoc Superintendent Evaluation Committee suggested changes to this policy to reflect the new process they recommended during the Study Session this evening. This process now includes a self-reflection by the superintendent, where he/she provides supporting evidence related to each standard for the Board to review as they evaluate him/her.  A goal-setting component was also added to the evaluation process.

The actual evaluation instrument is an Administrative Rule, so it only requires one vote by the Board. Therefore, it is not included on the agenda this evening.

* Policy  8153 was reviewed and revised to reflect the changes made to policy 6210, regarding curriculum review by the Curriculum and Americanism Committee.

The next meeting of the NPS Board of Education is scheduled for noon on Thursday, September 22nd in the Conference Room at the Junior High School. Please note that this is a change in venue due to construction at Central Office.