April 18, 2016 at 5:00 PM - Work Session Regular Meeting

Discussion:  Tim Pospisil was excused.

Discussion:  There were no recognitions.

Discussion:  Mike Grutsch, Director of Buildings and Grounds, said the maintenance department has been busy since last year. They have finished the spillway at the high school, removed dead trees and stumps around Duncan, and poured sidewalk on the north side of Duncan because the fire marshal said there needed to be additional exits. The paint crew painted Emerson last summer, and the sod put in last year has taken hold pretty good. The pine trees were removed from the north side of Lost Creek. A new playground was installed at West Park for the preschool. One of the best purchases was the new Bobcat Toolcat with attachments. Grutsch said this machine can mow and move snow. One unexpected expense was the replacement of the HVAC at the Administration Building. The district only ended up paying $1,000 out of the $46,000 total because it was caused by an electrical surge and insurance covered the rest. Plans for this summer include: pouring more sidewalk at Duncan; pouring a spillway at Centennial; pouring concrete at southwest corner of Emerson; replacing kindergarten floors at Emerson with sheet vinyl; and replacing the floor at West Park with carpet tiles. Grutsch said he has hired two possibly three kids for the summer, and their main job is to stay after the weeds and mow. He said the biggest unknown for next year will be the new CHS building. Grutsch said 10 years ago CPS used to sub all work out, and now the maintenance department can do most things themselves. Superintendent Dr. Troy Loeffelholz said Grutsch has done a nice job and with his background in construction he has asked a lot of questions about the building of the new high school. Transportation Coordinator Dawn Olson said last year busing roughly traveled 58,500 miles in town for door-to-door service for special needs kids. The average bus goes about 50 miles per day per route. There are students being transported in the morning, mid-day and afternoon. There are 123 students picked up daily. The buses have gone 52,500 miles for activities. In addition to sports the buses are also used for field trips, by the choir and band, and for various other reasons. The over the road bus has 614,000 miles on it. An OTR will do a million plus before it needs to be replaced. The oldest bus has 226,000 miles and doesn't travel out of town very often. Olson said she is looking at starting a defensive driving course for the transportation department to help keep people’s skills sharp. She said she would like to get a bus between the large and small buses. Olson said she has been one route driver short this year and has hired two new drivers. She said there are six activity drivers but four have other jobs. Olson said she is having trouble finding drivers. This year they also implemented a buddy system where someone beside the driver must check the bus when it returns to make sure nothing or anyone was left on it. Executive Director of Business/Human Relations Dave Melick said safety drills have improved since Olson has taken over. This year the high school had its first drill the day of registration. The second one will be done next week. CMS has already had two drills this year. The elementary schools drills are done during PE so no instructional time is lost. Olson said each driver also does a drill with students on the bus.

Discussion:  The Board toured the new high school.

Discussion:  The board did not go into executive session.

Discussion:  Tim Pospisil was excused by the board.

Discussion:  Theresa Seipel read the mission statement.

Discussion:  No one spoke to the board.

Discussion:  The CPS Foundation Educator of the Year Award was created to recognize teachers for their dedication, knowledge, and skill in the classroom; their ability to gain the respect and admiration of students, parents, and colleagues; the active and useful roles they play within the school and their community; and their talent for inspiring students of all backgrounds and abilities to learn. Applications were accepted from CPS staff, parents, students, school supporting organizations, and members of the general public. The Educator of the Year will receive $1,000 and the runner-up $500, which is sponsored by the Columbus United Federal Credit Union. The recipient and runner-up will be announced at the 2016 CPS Employee Recognition Banquet. The following were nominated this year: Christine Church, Deanna Hoffman, Celeste Ditter, Barb Leu, Kim Shevlin, Sherry Thompson, Megan Danner, Angie Luebbe, Judy DeNio and Dave Hiebner.

Discussion:  The CPS Foundation Operations Employee of the Year Award was created to recognize district employees who excel in their service to the teachers and students at Columbus Public Schools, for the contributions that they make to the betterment of the quality and the advancement of CPS. Applications were accepted from CPS staff, parents, students, school supporting organizations, and members of the general public. The Operations Employee of the Year will receive $500, which is sponsored by Bob Markham (CHS Class of 1976) and wife, Chris. The recipient will be announced at the 2016 CPS Employee Recognition Banquet. The following were nominated this year: Allen Rerucha, Amber Furby, Kerry Lassek, Tami Alstadt, Kandy Bos, Dennis McMeekin, Lynda Bowen, Ruby Miller, Judy Neil, Angie Andreasen. Sheri Husak and Beth Jones

Discussion:  The students shared with the board the highlights of their trip. Some of these included: meeting different people from all over; visiting the memorials; eating a wide variety of food; seeing Washington DC; getting a view on how everything in the government works; getting close to a group of people and sharing opinions; hearing different views from people from other areas; and gaining a new respect for how the government works. The sponsors said this was a great group of kids. This year one of the students from Columbus gave a speech to a group of 500 people. She was the first person from CHS ever to do this. The group also did a lot of fundraising this year for the trip.

Discussion:  No items were removed from the consent agenda.

Discussion:  There are 11 new certified hires. Dr. Loeffelholz said every school has someone on the list. There was one classified hire and four resignations. Dr. Loeffelholz said a tentative graduation list is also included. This list includes all the kids who are eligible to walk across the stage. This year’s class is one of the larger ones that have graduated in recent years.

Discussion:  Dr. Loeffelholz said Landon Wietfeld did a great job of converting the Foundations accounting to the software used by the district. He said Wietfeld will be missed. The CPS Foundation, Centennial PAC, Emerson PTO, North Park PTO, West Park PTO, CMS PAC and Sports Boosters contributed $10,498.57 back to the district. This year the Foundation along with the umbrella groups have contributed $80,241.94 so far.

Discussion:  Melick provided the board with explanation on several expenses incurred by the board the past month. In addition, Mr. Melick provided the revenue report to the board.

Discussion:  The board approved the $2,110.02 to Seipel’s Repair for a variety task and regular maintenance.

Discussion:  The board declared 14 books from CMS as surplus. Melick said these items are of no value or are falling apart.

Discussion:  Melick said he went to a school business officials meeting last week. Under a new bill, a Board of Education can vote electronically on an iPad or still do a roll call vote. Melick said there are districts doing this already, but the bill doesn’t go into effect until August. He said this still doesn’t allow board members to vote remotely. They must be at the meeting to vote. Melick told the board they can change to electronic voting in August if they want. At this meeting, he attended a session on credit cards. He said districts need to register with the department of revenue all credit cards. He said there are currently 19 credit cards through First National Bank. Melick said he also learned that the board must approve all users for the credit cards. He said he will begin working on this process. Melick said the district’s attorney is looking into how to handle the credit cards that can be checked out by anyone in the district and if all staff names must be listed. He said he also found out there is a state statute that says if a person fails to return a detailed receipt his or her credit card will be deactivated and the person will be suspended from further use

Discussion:  Executive Director of Operations/Technology Leonard Kwapnioski said in addition to the list, there are also routine things that are done every year. The West Park project will take most of the summer to complete.

Discussion:  Kwapnioski said they did start seeding around the pound area Saturday. He said a couple of trees are also going to be planted at the new high school. He said these trees are a few years old and will be planted by the lake. Kwapnioski said he wrote a grant to the Forestry Service and received $7,000 for additional trees. He also received a $20,000 grant for landscaping at the high school. He said the landscaping design should be finished soon, and it will look very nice. He said there will be no plants directly against the building. The majority of plants that are being considered are sustainable in Nebraska.

Discussion:  Dr. Loeffelholz said the drumline wants to make the Minneapolis trip an annual event. He said at this competition, CHS can compete with schools from a five state area, and the competition is tough. He said they will have the opportunity to compete against 32 other schools. Dr. Loeffelholz said the winter drumline group wants to start the fundraising process now.

Discussion:  CMS Principal Amy Hanyes said there were very few changes this year. She said there is no longer a school newspaper at this time because there's no staff available for it. Haynes said there are no new classes, but more descriptions were added to better describe the classes.

Discussion:  CPS and Norfolk Public Schools will be hosting a PLC Leadership Academy, which will run for two days in the summer and two days in January. Tim Brown has been hired to come to Columbus this summer and Norfolk in January to develop leadership skills. There will be 60-65 CPS people involved and 30-40 Norfolk people. There will be people from all three levels attending. Romshek said on the larger PLC teams, she tried to recruit two people to attend. She said this will be one of many trainings this summer

Discussion:  Executive Director of Student Service/Special Education Jason Harris said Playground Palooza raised $13,000 for the inclusive playground at Lost Creek. He said there were 50 volunteers and more than 800 people attended. Harris said there were more than 100 community donors. The total amount raised so far for the playground is $46,000. Harris said there was a great turnout. Dr. Loeffelholz said the group will be talking to the board about the districts contribution to the inclusive playground in May

Discussion:  The Board should contact Cherie VanDyke if they want to attend the Employee Banquet on April 29. Dr. Loeffelholz said the honors breakfast had one of the largest turnouts this year. He reminded the board that Mike Riley will be at the Chamber’s annual dinner. Tomorrow NPPD will have the mobile STEM lab available to look at. He said there will be a group of five or six people going to look at it. The lab will be at CHS on May 23 for teachers to tour. Dr. Loeffelholz said some parts of the new high school building are ahead of schedule and some are behind like the bricklayers. He said they are considering bringing in an additional brick crew to help finish things. He said this shouldn't be an added cost because the bricklayers are paid by the brick. The windows were supposed to be installed by May, but it won't be completed until June. Dr. Loeffelholz said Thursday he is going out of town to look at more field turf and he will also stop at Century Link in Omaha and see how the Columbus Skills USA kids are doing. NETA, the technology conference will also be going on at the same time. Four board members attended the National School Board Convention in Boston. He said there were several good sessions such as one on Google being more than a search engine and K-12 counseling to help students be career ready.

Discussion:  Doug Molczyk said he was impressed with the maintenance staff. He said he learned a lot at the National School Board Conference and has talked to Kwapnioski about implementing some of the safety things he learned. Most of the sessions he attended were on security and SROs. Molczyk said overall it was a great conference. Candy Becher said she has been in education for 39 years and has never attended a national conference. She said it was very eye opening. She said she enjoyed talking to people be from all over the nation. Becher said after these discussions, she realized CPS is in a lot better shape financially then a lot of other districts. Ken Curry said he appreciates what CPS does to support teammates. He said the CMS musical was also amazing and he thoroughly enjoyed seeing the kids perform. Curry told Kwapnioski that the maintenance department has a great team. Theresa Seipel also attended the National Conference. He said it was extraordinary, and she enjoyed seeing people from all over and visiting with them. Seipel said she also enjoyed getting to spend time with board members in a different setting. She said she is impressed with how much more efficient maintenance has become now. Seipel said she is looking forward to the last month of school. Mike Goos said maintenance/transportation are awesome. He said the National School Board Conference was great. He said he enjoyed Boston and seeing the history of our democracy and the first public schoolhouse. Goos said school boards are important, and it made him appreciate what CPS has as compared to others. Doug Molzycyk agreed. He said CPS has a very progressive board and staff.

Discussion:  The board went into executive session at 8:30 p.m. to discuss personnel and contract issues.

Discussion:  The board came out of executive session at 9:10 and adjourned.