October 10, 2016 at 6:30 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

Rationale: 

STRIVE  •  COMMIT  •  SUCCEED  -  District Mission Statement

Schuyler Community Schools in partnership with parents, students, and the community is committed to educate students to become skilled, knowledgeable and responsible citizens in a global society - District Vision Statement

Notice of this meeting was given in advance according to State Law 84-1411, by giving notice of the meeting to the public.  Notice of this meeting was also given in advance to all members of the Board of Education

Rationale:  This meeting has been preceded by advance notice and is hereby declared to be in open session.  A copy of the Open Meetings Act is posted in the hallway outside the Media Center.

Rationale:  Discuss, Consider and Take Action on the consent agenda

Rationale:  This committee is responsible for annual review of board policies, handbooks, and crisis/safety plans.  This committee is also responsible for the support and development of support programs(nursing, food service) in the district.

Rationale:  I am attaching 3 policies, a redlined version, and an administrative regulation with this email.
 
Policy 201.02 is nearly the same as the version sent out on August 4 of this year, except I should have included the words “within 45 days” as shown on the first line of paragraph 3.  This time limitation remains in statutes but has been moved to statute 32-574.
 
Policy 509.03 has been completely rewritten from the previous version (which was only 2 sentences long) to provide more direction and situations to consider since spontaneous memorials have become more common in recent years.  You may wish to make significant modifications to 509.03 to fit the needs of your local district.
 
Policy 804.01 has been greatly revised to reflect the duties of the district in dealing with computer security breaches.  I’ve attached a redlined version to show the changes from the original, and have created administrative regulation 804.01R1 to provide more details about the process of notification of a security breach.  This material should be review with your computer systems administrator prior to adoption by the board.  Administrative regulations may be reviewed by the board for their information, but typically do not need board approval since they are delegated to administrators for creation and implementation.

Rationale:  This committee is responsible for budget, finance, and contract negotiations with administration, certificated staff, and support staff.

Rationale: 

1.  Robert Clayton:  Elementary maintenance/custodial (Retiring)

 

Rationale:  The SEA submitted a letter requesting recognition as the exclusive bargaining agent for the district's non-supervisory certificated staff for the 2018-19 contract year.  This is a formality that the NSEA recommends our local association get approval now for next year's negotiations process.  See attached letter.

Rationale:  1.  Adonis Lopez:  SES Maintenance/Custodial Position

Rationale: 

According to Nebraska State Statute, the first negotiations meeting must take place prior to November 1st.  We recommend: Monday, October 24th at 6:30 PM at SCHS Library Annex.

The teacher incentive program will need to be reviewed with our teachers and a recommendation made for the 2016-17 school year.  This should be one of the items discussed in our initial meeting.  See attached information.

Rationale: 

The purpose of this Early Retirement Incentive Program (“ERIP”) is to encourage eligible certificated employees of Schuyler Community Schools (“School District”) who are considering an early-leaving decision to accelerate their retirement plans effective at the end of the 2009-2010 through the 2015-2016 school years.  Objectives include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. To offer financial incentives that will assist long-term employees considering early retirement or early-leaving decisions to complete such decisions.
2. To reduce costs to the School District by replacing employees with lesser salaried employees or by eliminating positions.
3. To buy-out the tenure rights (i.e., continuing contract rights) of certificated staff, and in effect, make payments to secure the release of unexpired contracts of employment in exchange for permanent certificated employees giving up their constitutional and contractual rights to tenure and relinquishing such tenure rights.
4. To provide a better balance of staff experience.

This policy sunset in the Spring of 2016.  If the board elects to extend this policy, they would have to take action to extend or change the policy prior to adoption.  See attached policy.

Rationale: 

In the 2016-17 budget we made the decision to lower the bond fund request $100,000.  We also discussed our apprehension about doing with and opening the district to possible negative consequences in the future.  With bond rates as low as they are, I have visited with two bonding companies to see if there was a possibility of refinancing our bonds at a lower rate.  With the maturity of our bonds it looks like we may be able to consider refinancing for a considerable savings. 

I will ask Jay Spearman and one of the Reps from D.A. Davidson to visit with you about refinancing options and a timeline for making this happen before interest rates take a possible hike after the first of the year.

Rationale: 

Preschool and 3-5 Principal's Report:  Mr. Comley

Capturing Kids Hearts training at SES went great! I feel it was a great success thank you for bringing to us.

Playground at preschool is complete.

Observations are going well and seeing lots of great things.

Parent-Teacher Conferences are October 11th from 4:00-8:00 and October 12th from 8:00-4:00

Kindergarten -116        1st Grade -134              2nd Grade -161          3rd Grade -132

4th Grade -123            5th Grade -129              Total-  795                  Preschool - 103

Kindergarten -2nd Grade Principal's Report:  Mr. Kovar

As we near the end of the 1st Quarter, walkthroughs are well under way, and formal observations will begin starting at the beginning of the 2nd Quarter. We just completed the "Capturing Kids Hearts" professional development, and I feel that it went extremely well. Any time you have 3 days of training, and the whole group is engaged, you've done something worth while! We laughed, we cried, and we all became closer as a group. We are already implementing new things in our school, with more to come!!

Middle School Principal's Report:  Mrs. Burton

Enrollment:  October 5, 2015 Enrollment-379 total students

6^th Grade-141 students               7^th Grade-123 students                 8^th Grade-130 students

October 2016 Total-394 students   (Increase of 15 students)

SMS Professional Development:

-Discovery Education-We are continuing our learning opportunities with Discovery Education.  The SMS Administrative Team will complete the Administrative Leadership Coursework this year.  A group of eight teachers are also part of an intensive coaching cohort that helps invigorate new opportunity and advance rigor with the use of technology.  All staff members have also had the opportunity to be a part of continuous sessions and guided planning sessions that have made a direct impact on student learning at SMS.

-CTAC-CTAC will be here for the October Parent-Teacher Conferences.  Their main focus will be engaging parents in conversations regarding sources of both thankfulness and concern as we navigate through our third year of the School Improvement Grant and beyond.

-Cognitive Coaching-Mr. Zavadil and I are halfway through a course named Cognitive Coaching, which is provided free through ESU #7.  Our study has made a positive impact in reflective study and growth at SMS.  We are really looking forward to continue building our skills as we coach teachers, as well as ourselves, to their full ambition.

-AdvancED School Accreditation-  A team from SMS recently went to Omaha and Norfolk for a workshop on school improvement.  We will continue to examine and strengthen our practices, specifically in the area of parent and community involvement.

Parent-Teacher Conferences:

The fall conferences will take place on October 10^th from 4:00-8:00 p.m. SMS mailed home a letter inviting parents to sign up for conferences via the SMS website, via telephone, or in person at SMS.  Missing district paperwork and fee notices were also mailed out for parents.  We were fortunate enough to have 95% of required fees and paperwork turned in this year!  This is a great improvement, and the credit goes to our SMS Office Team and our parents!

I will not be in attendance at the meeting tonight, as I have initiation for a community group that I belong to.  Please feel free to contact me with questions or stop in to see the great things happening at SMS!

SCHS Principal's Report:  Mr. Grammer

1)    Enrollment: October 1, 2016: Total High School Enrollment= 533

       Seniors—            117               Juniors—          132      

       Sophomores—    142              Freshmen—       142                     

2)  Discovery Ed:  On September 28^th, we held the  Discovery Ed Launch Event for staff and community in the East Gym.  At the Launch Event Discovery Ed presented information on their organization, provided a speaker on digital use in education, and had hands on activities for the staff to participate in.  It was a great kick off event for Discovery Ed with our staff.  We begin meeting in February with our Discovery Ed representatives in the area of instructional coaching, Project Based Learning, TechBooks, and Leadership activities.

3)  SIG Visit:  On Thursday, October 6^th, the high school had their Fall NDE SIG Title 1 Monitoring visit.  Our state department representatives, associated with our SIG Grant make visits to the districts who have received SIG grant funding to ensure that they are using the funds for school improvement and what we are doing with the funds.  They met with our Leadership Team, visited classes, and met with randomly selected teachers to answer questions about the grant.  Mr. Gibbons is involved with this process as the IPM for our district.

4) School Improvement:  Member of our High School Improvement team attended a School Improvement Conference on Monday and Tuesday, October 3^rd and 4^th.  Great information was presented on how to prepare for an on site visit from the state and we are up for a visit next school year.  Also, good information on the changes at the state level in regard to ASSIST.  ASSIST will become E-Prove and the state hopes through the E-Prove process to be more concise and streamlined in regard to collecting and storing data.  Mrs. Yosten, Mrs. Thumann, Mr. Wilcox and myself attended the conference.

5) Homecoming:  Homecoming this year involved more of the student body throughout the district.  The Homecoming Candidates went to the Middle School on Tuesday and judged the SMS students dressing up for that day, on Wednesday, they went and ate lunch with the students at SES, and Thursday they went to Mrs. Hall’s video class and filmed their bios for the school.  One of the best events was the Middle School came and participated in the Friday Pep Rally.  They had their band perform and the pep rally was held at the football stadium in the stands.  It was quite a site to see the 6^th grade through 12^th grade completely fill the football stands, and then some.  Overall, it was a great week and congratulations to Cameron Harding and Lesley Velez for being selected as the Homecoming King and Queen for 2016.

6)  SCS Tech Fair:  Tomorrow on October 11^th will be our districts annual Tech Fair.  As last year, we will be having our Parent-Teacher Conferences at the same time as the Tech Fair.  Our Conferences will be in the teacher’s classroom because the Tech Fair will be using classrooms and both gyms to set up the displays for the students.  I want to commend our IT staff on working hard to make this a successful event for our students and staff.

7) Counselors:  The counselors held a college informational meetings for our parents on the evening of October 4^th and the morning of October 5^th.  All together we had 125 parents show up between the two meetings.  Good questions and discussion about information the colleges want from students and parents.  Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Bertrand, and Mrs. Guadalupe Marino did a great job of organizing and leading these meetings.

8) Sertoma:  I have the great pleasure of taking our Fine Arts Students of the Month, The Student Athletes of the Month, and the Students of the Month to Sertoma.  Every Tuesday at noon I take our students to the golf club to our community Sertoma meetings.  Also, this past month Aaron Thumann and Clarrisa Dunn spoke at Sertoma about their programs.  Received many positive comments about our coaches presentation.

9) Observations:  I have completed my walkthrough observation for the monthc of September and October.  It always makes me feel good when I can get into the classrooms.  Our teachers are teaching great lessons and using instructional strategies that will make our students successful.

Rationale: 

Special Education Director's Report:  Mrs. Vrba

The Student Assistant Team (SAT) process has been redeveloped to be more teacher-friendly and effective in catching students earlier that are struggling in school. This process really encompasses the collaboration of teachers with a variety of expertise and experience to generate interventions for our students! This process is a total win-win for our students. Our building SAT coordinators are: Richland & Fisher's 24: Denise Stevenson, SES: Doreen Gibbons, SMS: Paula Kment, and SCHS: Katie Beltrand.

Para-educator trainings will be giving by Amy Mazankowski during the first semester. Amy is ESU 7's Resource Coach. The topics that will be covered are: Role and Responsibility of a Para-educator, Behavior Management, Opportunities to Role Play through Various Behavior Scenarios and Disability Awareness. These training are happening on Friday afternoons!

We have been very busy with testing students for their re-evaluations before their IEP meetings along with testing a handful of new referrals! Team SPED is trying to broaden our services by doing additional classroom observations, meeting individually with struggling students and parents and collecting data on students that are in danger of failing. The Early Childhood Special Education Team has been meeting every Monday to ensure that our "coaching model" is being carried out in classrooms at our Schuyler Preschool and Head Start program.

Kindergarten - 6th Grade Youth Sports Director:  Mr. Kovar

In regards to K-6 youth sports, we obviously aren't where we want to be at this time. When the Field House/Rec Center does open, volleyball and flag football will  be my first priority, with girls and boys basketball starting after that. We will continue to focus on all sports throughout the year to help our kids with the fundamental skills that they need to improve.

Director of Curriculum, Instruction/Assessment and Federal Programs Report:  Mr. Gibbons

Curriculum/Instruction/Assessment - We have met with most teachers across the district to talk about identifying priority standards and then building proficiency scale.  A proficiency scale is a four-point scale that teachers create based on specific standards.  The purpose of the scale is to specifically enumerate what a student is to know and/or be able to do based on a standard.  This allows both the teacher and the student to track their progress on learning which leads to the student being able to take ownership of his/her learning.  It also allows for greater communication regarding what a student understands and is able to do. A scale has three critical attributes: a) distinct levels of knowledge and skills relative to achieving the standard; b) a progression of learning, and c) a focus on one measurement topic.

School Improvement and Accreditation Process - We will have our AdvancED Accreditation External Visit next year.  Every five years, AdvancED updates their system, so we will be visited according the the new protocol.  The NDE has held School Improvement Workshops across the state for the last month and we have been able to send a strong number of SIP Team members to the workshops.  Team members learned about data reporting, building google websites for the visit and many other school improvement topics.

School Improvement Grants - We continue to have an outstanding partnership with Discovery Education.  SCHS has had trainers in to help teachers with their Project Based Learning lessons and to work with Science teachers to learn about their Science Techbook.  Discovery Ed works with our staff to move from using the iPad to simply substitute for a printed textbook to redefining how instruction is done using technology.  The high school also held the Discovery ED Launch event Sept. 28.  DE brought in four consultants to meet with our staff and kick off the partnership.

SMS is continuing with using Discovery Ed to coach teachers in order to build capacity within   our staff to help coach other teachers in the years to come.  We have also started a “Battle of the Brackets” that Mrs. Burton will talk about in her report.

 

 

Rationale: 

1.  Segregation of Duties:  As part of the audit, we are required to address segregation of duties as it relates to handling of public funds.  Attached is our recommendation for segregation of duties as it relates to the responsibilities of board, administrators, and office personnel.  See attachment.

2.  Management and Discussion:  As part of the audit, we are also required to participate and provide information to the auditing firm a written discussion and analysis of the school district's financial performance during the fiscal year that ended on August 31, 2016.  See attached Draft.