December 12, 2016 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:  Please stand and join us in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Rationale:  Stand for Schools is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing public education in Nebraska. Its goal is to make our public schools stronger--combining community outreach and legislative engagement to support proven student achievement strategies like early childhood education, career education, and before- and after-school and summer programming--while opposing policies that would weaken schools. 

Rationale:  Dr. Thompson, Bill Robinson, Dr. Patti Gubbels and Bob Waite attended the State Education Conference, which is co-sponsored by the Nebraska Association of School Boards and the Nebraska Council of School Administrators. As usual, this was a great conference with an abundance of useful information and networking opportunities for school board members and superintendents.

Rationale:  This is the time during the board meeting when the public may request to address the board regarding an agenda item. If you wish to comment, we ask that you identify yourself and indicate the agenda item to which you will be speaking.

Rationale: 

Total amount of claims to be approved in the consent agenda for the month of December, 2016 by specific fund are as follows:
General Fund = $614,205.38

Nutrition Services Fund = $229,216.16

Cooperative Fund = $9,891.30

Depreciation Fund= $54,930.66

Special Building Fund = $137,910.55

Student Fee Fund= $835.51

The total amount of claims for the month of November, 2016 in the Activities fund are as follows:
Activity Fund =$104,753.79

All of these claims were reviewed earlier today by the Finance and Facility Committee.  The business office is in the process of finishing the calendar year with payroll.  W-2's and 1095 C's will be the big items coming up over the next several weeks.

Rationale: 

Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment

A group of 30 K-8 grade teachers and administrators listened to 2 companies present their Math Program information on Dec. 7th. Our current Saxon Math program has a copyright date of 2008. The updated standards have increased rigor and pace, therefore Saxon does not match up to current standards. Generally speaking, Saxon is one year behind in pacing. The two programs under review have sound research and pedagogy. The goal is to select a program and pilot with a handful of teachers to review its usability with implementation at 3-8^th grades in 2017-2018. K-2 grades will follow suit the next year. They are currently learning Wonders and need another year to become comfortable with the ELA program before expanding to a Math program.  

Technology

Our main focus in the area of technology right now is updating teacher laptops. They are in year five of functionality. With the update of Windows 10 and the older piece of equipment, we seem to be trouble shooting daily difficulties. Teachers will appreciate an updated laptop as soon as we can get it into their hands. We have a small pilot group using the updated version of the laptop and all systems seem smooth. We are very hopeful to help teachers make their work efficient soon.

Title I

The 2016-17 grant has been submitted, reviewed and approved. 

Rationale: 

Special Education- I wanted to share that South Sioux City started their own Achievement Center in their building this school year after visiting our Achievement Centers over the past few years. They reached out at the start of this year asking for some of our staff to assist them in implementing student led IEP’s within their district.  So on November 21st, three of our special education teachers trained South Sioux City special education staff on student led IEP’s.   

Schuyler Schools will be visiting our high school Achievement Center this week for the second time as they look to develop a similar model in their school.

School dismisses for winter vacation on Thursday, December 22.  This will mark the end of our first semester for the 2016-2017 school year.  Teachers and students return for second semester on Monday, January 9th.

The IDEA Consolidated Grant has been completed for the 2016-2017 school year. We are awaiting approval.

Rationale: 

Staff Kudos:

• As we quickly approach the end of first semester, our Central Office team would like to formally thank all of our district staff on an excellent first half of our school year.
• We are blessed to have such quality people on our school district team and the work our teachers and support staff do each and every day to ensure that our students have what they need to be successful is simply amazing. Keep up the great work!

School Accreditation:

• This school year is an accreditation year for our school district and we are scheduled to have an External Team review March 26-28, 2017.
• More details to follow as we get closer to the event.

Staff Development:

PLC Leadership Academy:

• On Wednesday, January 4 and Thursday, January 5, 2017 our district will be hosting a PLC Leadership Academy event for some of our teacher leaders. This two day training will be led by staff from the Professional Learning Community Institute (Solution Tree) and be held at Norfolk Middle School.
• In addition to our staff being at the event, we will also host a number of our colleagues from Columbus Public Schools. We are scheduled to have over 100 people attend the training.
• This collaborative event is a great way to continue to enrich our PLC process and develop leadership within our learning teams.

January 23rd Staff Development Day (ESU # 8 Winter Workshop):

• The Winter Workshop (a collaborative staff development day with a multitude of area schools) will take place here in Norfolk on Monday, January 23, 2017.
• This event is an excellent way to bring together area school districts for consistent and relevant staff development on topics designed to enhance educational effectiveness.
• The keynote speaker for the event will be George Couros. He is the author of the book The Innovator’s Mindset.
• Listed below is the link to the information for the Winter Workshop
  • http://esu8winterworkshop.weebly.com/

Safety Training/Information:

• There will be some changes to our district safety response protocols beginning second semester.
• These Standard Response Protocol changes are consistent with the new school safety standards developed by the Nebraska Department of Education.

Attached to this report is one of the documents we will be using beginning next semester.

Rationale: 

Annual Stakeholder's Report Highlights:

1. Our enrollment has grown from 3941 in 2006 to 4325, an increase of 384 students in 10 years.

2. We have an aggressive Strategic Plan in place to guide our district.

3. We have received several national awards in the last year.

4. Our graduation rate has risen from a mere 79% in 2011 to 92% in 2016. 

5. We have many great learning options available for our students, including one-to one technology, a Montessori program, career academies and early childhood services.

6. Our district NeSA Reading scores have increased 16 percent in 6 years and our district NeSA math scores have increased 11 percent in 5 years.

7. Our district MAP Reading scores have increased 21 percentile points since 2010, and our district MAP Math scores have increased by 25 percentile points.

8. Our ACT scores are consistently above state and national averages.

9. We have lowered our levy from $1.32 in 2010-2011 to $1.21 in 2015-2016.

10. Our cost per pupil is significantly below the state average.

Summary: We are doing outstanding things for kids...at a very efficient price!

 

Rationale: 

The Finance and Facility Committee met today at 11:30 AM, the agenda included the following: Review of December claims Review of November activity claims Review of budget and percent comparisons Facility update including Career Academy Sale of vocational equipment Discussion on selling the garage and other items of interest from the property at south 2nd street Update on hail claim Discussion on seeking proposals for certified laptop computers Discussion on obtaining bids for a route bus that qualifies under the diesel rebate program Update from Dr. Thompson on the Career Academy donations Reviewed language changes around cash-in-lieu with our current negotiated agreement The meeting then concluded with some early discussion on budget preparations for 17-18.  Our next meeting will be on January 9, 2017 at 12:00 noon in Rm. 301 at CO.

Rationale: 

The Policy and Government Relations Committee has not met since our November Board meeting.

Policy Review:

We reviewed Board Policy 9300: Regular Meetings electronically.  It has been updated to reflect our new meeting location.

We will resume policy reviews in January.

Legislative Meetings:

The GNSA held their Annual Meeting on Thursday, November 17^th. We are anticipating a very challenging legislative session due to the State’s $1 billion revenue shortfall and the Governor’s desire for tax cuts. Our legislative committee will meet on January 18^th and begin meeting weekly starting January 20^th.

The ESU 1 and 8 Joint Superintendents Group met on Monday, December 5^th to discuss the upcoming legislative session and finalize our brochure. Key areas of emphasis include: early childhood education, career and technical education, mental health issues, and infrastructure. We will meet in Lincoln on January 12^th, so that we can visit our Senators in the Capitol.

The Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Committee will meet on Thursday, December 15^th and begin their weekly meetings starting January 19^th.

Board members are encouraged to attend the monthly GNSA business meetings, which are scheduled for:

1/18/2017  9:30 AM  (Lunch with Senators)

2/15/2017  9:30 AM (Lunch with Senators)

3/15/2017  9:30 AM  (Lunch with Senators)

4/19/2017  9:30 AM (Lunch with Senators)

5/17/2017  9:30 AM (Lunch with Senators)

Rationale: 

The Activities Committee met at noon on November 28, 2016.  

Tony Brown & Justin Grey shared information with the committee regarding the Wrestling program, and Tony Siske shared information with the committee regarding the Boys Basketball program.

The Committee reviewed the Winter Participation Report and discussed media coverage at home events.

The Administrative Regulation related to our Cooperative Activities Policy was reviewed and updated to reflect current practice, and the committee reviewed Norfolk Catholic's request to coop for Girls Tennis in 2017-2018.  It was determined that we would wait to make a decision regarding this coop until next fall, when participation numbers for this year are available for review. 

Mr.  Ries informed the Committee that we are advertising for a Head Volleyball Coach, and we won the bid for Class A Girls State Golf for 3 more years. 

Our next Activities Committee meeting is scheduled for noon at Central Office on 1-16-2017.

Rationale:  12-6-2016 Nurses' Meeting Minutes

Rationale:  Board of Education meeting minutes from November 9 and November 11, 2016. 

Rationale:  None at this time.

Rationale:  Kayla Korth, Speech-Language Pathologist, effective at the end of the school year

Rationale:  Attached are the claims for the month of December, 2016.  These claims were reviewed by the Finance and Facilities Committee earlier today.

Rationale:  As we begin the process of renovating and adding on to our existing vocational and career academy areas at the high school we will be replacing a lot of aging and outdated equipment.  The district would like the opportunity to see if we could sell these items through a garage sell format to anyone in the public who may be interested. Any items that do not sell will be scrapped out for its value at that time, all proceeds from the sale or scrapping process will go back towards the cost of program.

Rationale:  I am recommending to the Board of Education to allow the district to seek proposals for the replacement of laptop computers for certified staff.  The specifications for the vendors that submit proposals are attached for your review. The funds used for this purchase will come through our cooperative tech bond, depreciation and general fund.  Our current machines are five plus years old and are up for replacement.

Rationale:  During the demolition process at the south 2nd street property there was some interest in purchasing the garage that was on the property and moving it.  The garage has been removed from the property and is on a trailer, for an interested buyer.  Proceeds from this sale will go towards the cost of developing the property into parking for Washington School.

Rationale:  The district applied for and was granted an opportunity to participate in the clean diesel school bus rebate program. This rebate program will reimburse the district up to 25% of the base cost of a new bus not to exceed $20,000.  The existing route bus which is a 1998 International (Bus #3) will need to be scrapped so it is no longer used before reimbursement on the new bus would take place.  Bus #3 is currently not in use because of brake system issues and some other mechanical problems.  Early estimates on repairs to get the bus back into our fleet are around $15,000. Since we have been approved for this program the next step is to obtain bids on a new bus then determine if this is a cost effective way to proceed before placing the bus order. Specifications on this RFP will reflect all of these details.

Rationale: 

The Nebraska Association for School Boards is working with local school boards to develop a new vision for the organization.  They asked each school board to discuss five questions:

1. What is the expectation for successful graduates of your high school system? What knowledge, skills and attitudes do they possess?

2. What are the top barriers to reaching this goal at the local level?

3. Are you engaging your local community partners? if so, who are those partners? How do you engage them? What local community partners are not participating that need to be there?

4. What traditional and non-traditional state-level partners need to be engaged?

5. What can your association do to help?

Norfolk Public School Board members had the opportunity to answer these questions and review each others' answers in Google.  Their answers are attached and will be sent to Matt Belka at the NASB for consideration during the vision development process.

Rationale:  Board Policy 9300 has been updated to reflect our new meeting location.

Rationale: 

We will not have a Second Meeting of the Month due to the holidays.

Our next regularly scheduled meeting will be held on Monday, January 9th. The Study Session will begin at 5:30 and will be followed by the Business meeting at 6:30. All components will be held at the Central Office Administration Office, located at 512 Phillip Avenue. Please use the main entrance on the south side of the building.

All components of the meeting will be open to the public, with the exception of the Executive Sessions.