May 12, 2014 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:   

It is the VISION of Norfolk Public Schools to be a top-performing school that provides outstanding educational opportunities for every student and is a source of pride and an asset to our community.

The MISSION of Norfolk Public Schools is to prepare all students to pursue their goals for the future.

Strategic Goals:

• Goal #1:  By Fall 2017, NPS will implement and communicate a curriculum that is scoped, sequenced, and aligned with state and national standards.

• Goal #2:  By Fall 2017, NPS will expand career awareness activities and provide course offerings in all 6 (Nebraska Career Education) Career Cluster areas through partnerships.

• Goal #3:  By Spring 2015, NPS will implement a continuous and comprehensive integration of technology for all students.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rationale:  Facilities Update

Rationale:  Hearing agenda on Student Fees:
1. Review of student fee receipts in 2012-2013. 
2. Review of specific fees and waivers provided for in policy.

This time during the meeting will be opened as a hearing to discuss, consider, and receive input on the student fee policy.  

At this time, if any member of the public wishes to comment or give opinions on the student fee policy, we ask that you come up to the microphone and state your name.

Rationale:  Please stand and join us in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Rationale:  Cindy Brown, Title I Teacher from Grant Elementary

Rationale:  Arria Lakha, a senior from Norfolk High, will be sharing her State Champion speech about "stochasticity" (randomness) with us tonight.  Arria won the 2014 State Championship in Informative Speaking with this speech.  She also qualified for Nationals in Persuasive Speaking, where she received a trophy as a quarter finalist.  Hopefully, she will share a little bit about that experience after her speech.

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Arria, and her speech sponsor, Peggy Belt,  and her co-president,  Grady Weideman, will share information about the Norfolk High Speech Team and its recent growth and success.

Rationale:  None this month

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 approved in the consent agenda for the month of May, 2014 by specific fund are as follows:

General Fund=$341,708.52
Cooperative Fund=$11,474.19
Bond Fund=$113,995.55
Student Fee Fund=$3,830.37
Special Building Fund=$168.29
QCPUF Fund=$127,182.21
Nutrition Services Fund=$85,429.36
Employee Benefit Fund=$675.61

The total amount of claims for the month of April, 2014 in the Activities fund are as follows:

Activity Fund = $136,710.50

The Finance and Facility Committee reviewed all May claims for approval by the board. Activity account claims for the month of April were also reviewed. All Title and IDEA 3rd quarter grant reimbursements will be taking place this week.  Payroll will be reviewing all unpaid personal leave for our employees for 2013-2014 and will have those amounts paid out in our June payroll.  All classified employees will be starting their new hourly wages in August as well as their benefit increases for those who are full-time.

Rationale: 

With spring also comes the renewal of contracts and celebrations of retirements along with the urgency to fill opened positions. As of May 6th, we have had 7 retirements, 9 resignations and 9 transfers within the district. Many of these positions have been filled and a few are yet to be determined. The quality of applicants has been impressive and we are looking forward to continuing our push for excellence in all levels of NPS.

The NeSA window officially closed on Friday, May 9^th. With great relief, we are happy to be finished and with great anticipation, we wait for our results.

Summer school has been a thick topic in our discussions of planning for students as well as our planning for summer curriculum work and professional development. 

Rationale: 

Three of our elementary schools - Westside, Jefferson and Woodland Park - have received notification from NDE that they may operate as School-wide Title I buildings for the 2014-2015 school year.  This means that these schools qualify to use federal/state Title I funds to meet the reading needs of students who are skill deficit in their respective schools.  We are waiting to hear on the status of two additional Norfolk Elementary Schools at this time.

Our Johnson O’Malley (JOM) Native American Awards Banquet will be held on Wednesday, May 14th at Ponca Tribe of Nebraska beginning at 5:30 p.m.

TeamMates of Norfolk will be celebrating the graduation of 9 senior mentees on May 13th.  Mentors and Mentees will be meeting as a group at Valentino’s on this evening.  We also have three of our seniors who have applied for post-secondary scholarships.

I plan to attend the Migrant Directors meeting in Lincoln on Friday 16 May.  I anticipate seeing an evaluation of our program as well as possibly finding out our district allocation for the 2014-2015 school term.

Some important dates to remember:
- May 18th - Graduation
- May 21st - Last of school for students
- May 22nd- Teacher Work Day and staff check-out

Rationale:  Summer School:
We have expanded our summer school offerings this year.  We will be providing remedial reading and math services for students in grades K-8.  We will also be offering credit recovery and advancement at the high school.  Overall, we anticipate having close to 700 students attend summer school. This is an attempt to help reduce the learning loss (or summer slide) that can occur over the summer months.

Breakfast Expansion:
We will also be expanding breakfast options across the district next fall.  All schools will be offering breakfast for students, with most schools offering both a hot and cold menu option.  This is not only good for students' health and nutrition, but also their learning and development.  

Both Summer School and Breakfast Expansion are ways to increase student learning without incurring a lot of cost.  They are very good for students and do not have a large impact on our budget.

Summer Board Schedule:
Typically, it is not necessary for districts to meet twice per month in the summer unless unexpected issues arise.  Are you OK skipping the May 22nd, June 26th, and July 24th meetings?  We could leave these on our calendars, but only advertise and hold them if they are necessary in order to approve contracts or take care of other business.

Does July 14th work for our Board Retreat?  We could conduct a brief business meeting during lunch and begin the Retreat at 1:00.  Where do we want to hold this meeting?  NPS Central Office and the City Chamber Offices are not good options.

Rationale:  Tim & Tracy Jacobsen have made a formal request to be placed on the board agenda to discuss the possibility of NPS cooping with Wisner-Pilger Public Schools for Swimming.

Rationale:  The Facility and Finance Committee met today at 12:00 noon in the central office board room. The committee had an opportunity to review all claims for May, and fund balances for April, as well as the activity fund claims for April, 2014. The committee reviewed bids on the Jr. HVAC and roof projects and the proposal for relocating our district fuel tanks.  The committee then reviewed the bids on Milk, Bread, Pest and Sanitation services for the district in 2014-2015. Recommendation to the board on these bids are also in tonight's action items.  We also discussed the breakfast and lunch prices for 2014-2015 which is in tonights action items as well.  The meeting closed with a review of the tonights study session materials and a conversation about our workman's compensation insurance coverage for 2014-2015.

Rationale: 

The activities committee reviewed spring participation numbers, coaching/activity sponsor vacancies, and the winter activities budget.  

Mr. Dolliver indicated that it is time to renew our baseball coop with Lutheran High Northeast and Norfolk Catholic High Schools.  This activity continues to meet coop eligibility requirements, so it was recommended that Dr. Thompson sign the renewal form.

New activities, such as the Poetry Club and Junior High Speech and Debate were discussed, as well as the estimated annual costs to  maintain a greenhouse for FFA.

Our policy regarding cooping was reviewed, in preparation for the upcoming  parental request to coop with Wisner-Pilger in swimming.  Members of the committee agreed that this request did not meet our policy requirements, as our policy states that we will only coop with students who live within the boundaries of Norfolk Public Schools.

The Activities Committee will reconvene in the fall of 2014.  Summer meetings are not held.

Rationale:  The Policy Committee met at 5:30 on Tuesday, May 5th to review and discuss draft Policy Section 6000a, which includes policies 6000-6363 on Instruction.  Some revisions were made and placed in emeetings for the remainder of the board to review.  

No additional changes were made to draft Policy Section 5000 e-g related to Students.  This section is ready for Second Reading and Approval this evening.

Rationale:  May Nurse's Meeting Minutes
May Student Health Meeting Minutes

Rationale:  April 14, 2014 Regular Board Meeting Minutes
April 24, 2014 2nd Monthly Meeting Minutes

Rationale:  Paige Kimmerling - Senior High FCS and Cheerleading Sponsor
John Erwin- Senior High Dean of Students
Trisha Andreasen- Bel Air Principal
Melinn Young- 1st Grade at Westside

Rationale:  Catrina Winkelbauer- Kindergarten at Jefferson Elementary School
Anna Rosberg-Senior High Science 

Rationale:  Attached are the claims for the following funds, in the month of May, 2014

• General Fund
• Nutrition Fund
• Cooperative Fund
• Special Building Fund
• Qualified Capital Purpose Undertaking Fund (QCPUF)
• Employee Benefit Fund
• Bond Fund
• Student Fee Fund

 

Rationale:  Are there any questions or comments regarding the Student Fee Policy amendments and fees discussed earlier during the Public Hearing?  If not, I would consider a motion

Rationale:  I recommend to the Board of Education to make a motion to accept the bid from Western Roofing in the amount of $138,115 to complete partial roof replacement at the Jr. High this summer.  This is a QCPUF funded project.

Rationale:  I recommend to the Board of Education to make a motion to post for bids on replacing the doors at the High School gyms and also the two exterior doors on the south end of the small gym.  This will bring our doors up to code, help with controlling the air quality in the gyms, and provide safe entrances.  This would be funded through our QCPUF fund.

Rationale:  I recommend to the Board of Education to accept the Proposal from Stanley Petroleum Maintenance, Inc. for the amount of $93,933 to relocate our district fuel tanks to our current maintenance building location.  This will provide a safer location for our buses to re-fuel while also opening the Old maintenance building area for future uses.  The funding for this project will come from our QCPUF fund and also our Special Building Fund.

Rationale:  I recommend to the Board of Education to accept the bid from Rasmussen Mechanical Services, Inc. for the amount of $261,990 to complete Phase II renovations of the Jr. High HVAC system this summer. Funding for this project will come from our QCPUF fund.

Rationale:  I recommend to the Board of Education to accept the bid from Robert's Dairy for our district milk and also the bid from Bimbo Bakeries USA for our district bread in 2014-2015.  Price details on these bids is attached.

Rationale:  I recommend to the Board of Education to make the motion to accept the bid from Prime Sanitation for $43,380 to handle our district's sanitation services for 2014-2015.

Rationale:  I recommend to the Board of Education to accept the bid from Pest Tech, Inc. for $4,992 to handle our district pest control services in 2014-2015.

Rationale:  I recommend to the Board of Education to make a motion to approve all K-12 administrator contracts for the 2014-2015 school year according to the Compensation Framework that was discussed and approved at the April 14th board meeting.

Rationale:  The Second Meeting of the Month is scheduled for Thursday, May 22nd at noon at the Central Office/Administration Building in the Board Room.  It is anticipated that we will have some new contracts to approve, but likely will not have any other business.  Therefore, we will plan on a short, 10 minute meeting, without lunch.

The next Regular Board Meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 9th. The Board Supper will be held at 5:00 p.m., a Board Study Session will be held at 5:30, and the Regular Meeting will begin at 6:30.  All components are open to the public and are held at the City Council Chambers.