November 12, 2018 at 6:30 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting
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I. Call Meeting to Order
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 |
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I.A. Pledge of Allegiance
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I.B. Declaration of Open Meeting
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 back of the meeting room. Nebraska Open Meetings Act: http://nitc.nebraska.gov/documents/statutes/NebraskaOpenMeetingsAct_current.pdf |
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II. Approval of Consent Agenda
Rationale:
Discuss, Consider and Take Action on the consent agenda
Recommended Motion(s):
Motion to approve the consent agenda Passed with a motion by Board Member #1 and a second by Board Member #2.
Action(s):
No Action(s) have been added to this Agenda Item.
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II.A. Agenda
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II.B. Minutes
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II.C. Acceptance of Claims
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II.C.1. Bills of $5,000 or more
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II.D. Financial
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II.E. Other Listed Reports
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III. Public Forum - We ask that all presentation be limited in their length.
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III.A. Recognition of visitors and guests
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III.B. Other topics (limited to 5 minutes - subject to guidelines of the Board Participation Policy)
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III.C. Student Representative's Report
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IV. Action Items
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IV.A. Budget, finance, negotiations, and personnel
Rationale:
This committee is responsible for budget, finance, and contract negotiations with administration, certificated staff, and support staff.
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IV.A.1. Consider, discuss, and take action to approve the 2017-2018 District Audit and Annual Financial Reports.
Rationale:
The finance committee met with Pekny and Associates to discuss the 2017-18 AFR and Audit Report. In the past, Pekny's attended the meeting and went through the documents at that time. Again, this year members of the finance committee met at Pekny and Associates to review both documents. If other members of the board would like to have a more formal review, we will arrange a time to meet and review this information. The two reports were reviewed and submitted by November 1st and 5th as required by law. The board should go on record as accepting the reports as filed. See the attached electronic copy of the AFR, the audit report, and the ADA/ADM agreed upon procedures.
Recommended Motion(s):
Motion to accept the 2017-18 District Audit and Annual Financial Reports as filed. Passed with a motion by Board Member #1 and a second by Board Member #2.
Action(s):
No Action(s) have been added to this Agenda Item.
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IV.A.2. Consider, discuss, and take action to approve the 2019-20 certificated staff Master Agreement.
Rationale:
The board negotiations committee met on October 22nd to begin the negotiations process on the 2019-20 Certificated Staff Master Contract. The Educators Healthcare Alliance released premium rates which reflected a 4.9% increase. The SEA and board negotiations team met a second time on Monday, November 5th and reached a tentative agreement. The 2019-20 Master agreement was approved by the SEA. The 2019-20 Certificated Staff Master Agreement and meeting minutes are attached below.
Recommended Motion(s):
Motion to approve the 2019-20 Certificated Staff Master Contract as presented. Passed with a motion by Board Member #1 and a second by Board Member #2.
Action(s):
No Action(s) have been added to this Agenda Item.
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IV.A.3. Consider, discuss, and take action to approve the 2018-19 teacher incentive program.
Rationale:
The board of education and the teacher's negotiations team have reached a tentative settlement on the 2019-20 Master Agreement. Included as an addendum is the 2018-19 teacher incentive program.
The incentive plan is not a negotiable item, but since it does impact teacher pay, it is mutually supported document. The board of education and teachers’ association either agree to the provisions, or agree to discontinue the program. Attached is the updated proposal. The only changes for the 2018-19 school year is to increase tuition reimbursement from $150 per credit hour to $200 per credit hour. See attached proposal.
Recommended Motion(s):
Motion to approve the 2018-19 Teacher Incentive proposal as presented. Passed with a motion by Board Member #1 and a second by Board Member #2.
Action(s):
No Action(s) have been added to this Agenda Item.
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IV.A.4. Consider, discuss, and take action to approve new hire recommendations.
Rationale:
Rachel Folda: SMS Family and Consumer Science Teacher (2nd Semester) Deborah Zuelow: Head Start Teacher (Nov 26th Start Date)
Action(s):
No Action(s) have been added to this Agenda Item.
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V. Discussion Items and Reports
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V.A. SCHS Priority Schools Report
Rationale:
See attached information.
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V.B. Review 2018 Strategic Planning Report
Rationale:
Attached is the 2018 Strategic Planning Report. Staff will review this document on November 21st and begin the process of identifying focus areas and priorities for our 2019 plan. See attachment below.
We will be using Thoughexchange this year as a tool to engage our staff, parents, and community leaders in this process. The link provided below is a one-minute overview that highlights the process. See link provided below. https://youtu.be/aQRUmjHQ6x8
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V.C. Principals Reports
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Preschool and SES 3-5 Principal's Report: Mr. Comley Program/teacher Spotlight: This month I would like to spotlight Rachel Wood. Ms. Wood teaches 3rd grade at SES, but that is just the start of what she does. Ms. Wood again and again has worked with admin to bridge communication and trainings with staff. She is always willing to do what it takes to make things better for our children. Ms. Wood has again and again shown not only myself, but parents, administrators, and students why she continues to be one of the best at SES. Notable Topics: 1. November 2nd Dr. Gibbons held a training for Star 360 2. Parent teacher conferences were very well attended at SES and Preschool 3. Teacher Observations continue and I am seeing some really great things. SES Grades K-2 Principal's Report: Mr. Kovar I would like to spotlight Karrie Healy preschool teacher. Mrs. Healy was the head teacher at the preschool, and the leader of that building. She has touched the lives of thousand of students here in Schuyler, and has had a lasting effect on their lives. She was so warm and welcoming to everyone, that students and adults alike were drawn to her kind spirit. Mrs. Healy was an outstanding teacher and person, and I would like us all to remember how lucky we were to have her as a part of the Schuyler Community Schools family. Dual Language/Fisher's/Richland Principal's Report: Ms. Bebout Staff/Program Spotlight: This year is the first year of the Dual Language Program in Schuyler. With just finishing the 1st quarter I would like to highlight the program and the hard work my two teachers are putting into making this a successful program. Both teachers teach Kindergarten and 1st grade half of the day. Students learn content in both languages each day. Guadalupe Ramirez teaches content in Spanish and Rhonda Sellentin teaches content in English. Ms. Ramirez has spent many hours creating and searching for items to use in Spanish and Ms. Sellentin has been an amazing mentor to Ms. Ramirez. It is exciting see these students learning ALL content in two languages. Each week the teachers do an activity to teach about different cultures. We have students with the home language of Spanish, English and Somali. What an advantage these students will have as they go through school and life. Rhonda Sellentin was born in Fremont and moved to West Point when she was 12 years old. She attended Wayne State College for her bachelors, UNO for her ELL endorsement and Doane College for her Masters and Early Childhood Education endorsement. She is married to Russ Sellentin and has three children; Amber Lingle, Tiffany Sellentin, and Brett Sellentin. Her first job was at a country school for one year by Wisner (in Cuming County), one year as 1/2 day Kindergarten teacher at Wisner Public School, two years as a 1st Grade Teacher at Howells Community Catholic Schools, and finally 21 years in Schuyler! Guadalupe Ramirez grew up in Schuyler. She obtained her Associates of Arts degree at Central Community College-Columbus and graduated from Wayne State College in December 2017 with her Bachelor's degree. Her parents are Noelia Encarnacion and Victor Ramirez. She has two sisters Lizbeth Ramirez and Jacqueline Ramirez. She subbed for the district from December-May last year and is a first year teacher this year! Upcoming Events: Fisher’s & Richland: December 13th - Christmas Program 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. SMS Assistant Principal's Report: Mr. Zavadil Program Spotlight: SMS Student council that attends every home athletic event in the middle school building. This group works very well raising money for school activities through the concessions stand as well as working well to promote student leadership. Staff Member Spotlight: Mrs. Ladwig is in her first year in Schuyler as an 8th grade English Language Arts program and has worked very hard to ensure a very quality education program for our students. She collaborates well with Mrs. Rocheford in the department and has already stepped up into a leadership role within the English department at SMS. SMS Principal's Report: Mrs. Burton Program/Staff Spotlight: 8th Grade Level Team! This team is made up of Bobbie Rocheford, Bill Policky, Jenna Saalfeld, Samantha Ladwig, and Jennifer Hanna. This group is led by Mrs. Rocheford and has demonstrated extremely high functioning behaviors. Their cross curricular learning activities, positive student-centered conversations, and focus on personal and group professional learning strategies creates a positive launching board for students to leave 8th grade before they move on to SCHS. I am thankful to have them on our staff at SMS! Notable Topics: SMS is busy with activity as we seek to strengthen the following areas of our practice: 1. State test scores have been unpacked with our curriculum teams. With the scores being delivered so late, our grade and building level learning goals for the year will be sent out in the December Board of Education Report and shared with our parents via the SCS App and email. 2. Unpacking our lessons to ensure the highest level of cognitive growth continues to be a major focus in learning. Mr. Zavadil and I are performing formal and informal observations focusing on the essential question to all teacher, "How does the teacher know that the students know the content at the expected levels?" 3. Targeting intervention groups to bring students up to grade level on prioritized learning content. 4. The use of the new ELLEVATION program for our ELL students. Our ELL teachers have done a terrific job preparing and training our teachers for the implementation of the program. SCHS Assistant Principal's Report: Mr. Kasik Program/Staff Member Spotlight: Our music program is led by Mr. Ben Coatney. Mr. Coatney is in his 2nd year here at Schuyler Community Schools. He attended High School in Lincoln and received his teaching degree from UNL while participating in the UNL Band. Mr. Coatney continues to build our program along with Morgan Semerad and Troy Ehmke. The best part about being in Schuyler getting to work with our students who enjoy the arts, work hard and are very humble. Notable Topics: Mr. Grammer and I have made over 100 visits to classrooms this fall and continue to coach our teachers. We just completed hosting the Nebraska Supreme Court and it was a huge success. Our next large event will be hosting the NDE for our first reVISION meeting on November 15th. SCHS Principal's Report: Mr. Grammer Program Spotlight: Our high school has for the past two years have been planning and preparing to implement a new program at the high school. The new program, which we started this year is ‘WARRIOR NEWS’, Schuyler Central High School On-line Newspaper. In the newspaper class, students develop multimedia skills in relation to digitally producing a Newspaper. Mrs. Robbi McKenney is the teacher for the new Digital Newspaper class at Schuyler Central High School. The purpose of developing this program was to report on school/local news and trying to increase communication with our students’ families and the community. The newspaper can be found on WarriorNews.Org our website. We can also canbe liked on Facebook at Schuyler Warrior News and followed on Twitter @SWarriorNews. This is the first year we are running the class at the high school and has had success so far this year. Staff Spotlight: The staff member to be recognized for their work in the high school this year is Mrs. Robbi McKenny. Mrs. McKenny has been a Business Teacher in our district for the past three years and specifically, in education, for the past seven years. She has taken on the challenge of starting a newspaper class and producing a newspaper at the high school. Mrs. McKenny has taken on the responsibility of producing a digital newspaper, as mentioned above, with energy and enthusiasm. The students in this class produce the newspaper and then it is loaded on our website. She has helped to grow this program and bring fun to the classroom of SCHS. Students are lucky to have her as a teacher and staff are lucky to have her as a colleague. Event Spotlights: I would like to highlight a couple events that have taken place in the last couple of months a SCHS. First, is the ‘NDE School Improvement Grant (SIG) fall visit at SCHS. The SIG grant is what is used to fund our work with Discovery Education. The meeting went well and the NDE team was happy with our progress and that we are progressing in the right direction. The Hispanic-Latino Summit was on October 30th in Columbus at CCC’s campus. We sent 20 students. Last year, we had three students receive scholarships at this event and this year we had one student receive a scholarship. I want to thank our staff sponsors (Mrs. Zavadil, Ms. Beltran, and Dr. Lefdal) for taking our students for a great experience. We are continuing our work with the state priority team, UNL EL team, DE, and PBL through DE. On Friday, November 2nd we were honored to host the Nebraska Supreme Court at SCHS. The court heard two oral arguments and then they had a time for question and answer for students and patrons. It was a great opportunity for our students to have a real life experience about our judicial system. It was a great event for school. |
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V.D. Directors Reports
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Youth Activities Director's Report: Mr. Kovar Staff/Program Spotlight: I would like to highlight 2 parents who volunteered as coaches for the Youth Volleyball season. Bill Petersen, father of Lexi Petersen, 3rd grade, and Susana Oliva, mother of Eileen Barahona, 4th grade. Thank you for putting in the time and effort to help our girls improve their skills and knowledge of the game of volleyball. Notable Topic: Flag football has started for 3rd - 6th grade. Basketball will be starting after Winter break. We are going to add a introduction to football night for 2nd graders this year to introduce them to vocabulary and rules of football. SMS Activities Director's Report: Mr. Zavadil Staff/Program Spotlight: I would like to recognize the work that Mrs. Hoppe is doing as our new SMS Girls volleyball coach. She is working very hard to help build skills in the offseason and get our girls information about camps and clinics. She has brought a definite spark to middle school volleyball and is working really well with Mrs. Saalfeld at the High School. Notable Topics: Middle School started practice for our two 2nd quarter sports, Girls Basketball and Wrestling on October 22nd. We have been competing for the past week with our wrestling team earning a 2nd place finish at the Wayne Invite. Our own SMS Wrestling Invite will take place on 12/1/18 and we are really looking forward to it. SCHS Activities Director's Report: Mr. Kasik Program/Staff Member Spotlight: Our Girls Cross Country program is led by Lauren Burkey. Ms. Burkey is in her 4th year at Schuyler, second year as our Girls Head Coach . She grew up in Fort Calhoun and attended Midland University where she ran Cross Country. She has been developing our Girls CC program by increasing the size of our squad. They also won a runner-up team plaque at the Raymond Central Invite this year, along with Edith Oliden qualifying for state, these are things that have not happened in a long time with our girls program. The best part about being in Schuyler is seeing our students from all over, come together and work together. Notable Topics: Our boys FB team finished their season winning two of their last three JV games as well as the last Varsity game over South Sioux City 35-20. Our girls VB just completed their season losing to Columbus High in district VB. November 12th officially starts BB and WR season as well and Play Production competitions are currently underway. Go Warriors! Afterschool Program Director's Report: Ms. Bebout Program Spotlight: On November 1st we held our 4th "Lights On" family night for the after-school program! It was a great success. We had around 250 people attend. My staff planned hands on fun activities for the students and parents to participate in. We also had Egerton ExplorIT come and do two presentations on electricity. It was exciting to see electricity travel through people! Parents and students all enjoyed the fun times and the dinner! Looking forward to next year. Looking Ahead: 1. Ruff House: Nov 16th 5th - 8th grade SCHS Student Services Director's Report: Dr. Lefdal Program Spotlight: I would like to spotlight Kelly McClintick in our alternative education program. We have kicked off our program and Kelly and I have been working on programming and rules and regulations with our students. We have taken some students who haven’t been able to find their purpose or place at SCHS and have started working with them on goal setting, and some basic coursework. It is great to see some excitement from them. Kelly has done an excellent job of helping our students find success!! Notable Topics: I can’t say enough about the work by Mr. Kasik and Mr. Grammar in regards to the State Supreme Court. The planning of the program was the reason the day went so well. Congrats! Looking ahead: This is an exciting time of year in regards to Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is also a time where we will usually see an increase in behaviors. Although most people find having a day off, or multiple days off, exciting. Some students and staff members do not. This can be a trying time on many students and staff and emotional struggles can show during this time. I look forward to working with our counselors to set programming and brainstorm ways to help all of our people at SCHS. Special Education Director's Report: Mrs. Vrba Program Spotlight: The whole Special Education staff has been busy with MDTs/IFSPs/IEPs along with working with the classroom teachers to ensure accommodations and modifications are being used on a daily bases. Our staff has done an excellent job of being open-minded and flexible since the beginning of the year. We have gone through many, many changes! Staff Spotlight: Kari Weihl has an extreme passion for teaching her students. She is willing to pull out every "tool she has in her teaching kit" and/or take any suggestions to ensure her students success. Kari's classroom and teaching assignment has changed the most at the elementary. She had her set 17 students exclusively for all core subjects and is now co-teaching 3rd grade with Megan Holub. Yes, she was a little reluctant to give up her classroom and her students but has plunged into this position with both feet. When I think of Kari, some of the descriptive phrases that pop to my mind are: her positive outlook, her excitement for teaching every day, her tenacity-she is like a little bulldog-her determination, her unconditional love for all students, and unending dedication to ensure her students experience success no matter what their challenges may be!! Director of Curriculum and Assessment: Dr. Gibbons Staff/Program Spotlight - I would like to spotlight the work that Mindy Perrin and Kim Powell do for this district. Mindy assists me in the curriculum department and does a fantastic job taking care of things for me such as making sure data is in place and state and national assessments are ready to go. Kim manages our Infinite Campus database which includes connecting student and staff data to the state. Much of the work they do is in the background but they keep many of our district systems running smoothly. Notable Topics: 2017 - 2018 State Assessments - We did finally receive the data from statewide assessments recently. We are building data displays and will be engaging the staff in data discussion protocols during their Collaboration times. According to state department website, the information will be made public December 21, 2018. Past results for the state assessments for every school in the state can be viewed at http://nep.education.ne.gov Professional Development - The APL Workshops October 9th, 10th and 11th were well received. Teachers were excited for reminders of specific strategies that they could use right away in their classrooms. New staff members had initial training on the 9th, 10th and 11th while all staff members had a refresher training on the 10th. New staff members will finish their training on December 4th and 5th at the Schuyler Public Library. |
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V.E. Superintendent's Report
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Staff/Program Spotlight: Crisis Team
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V.F. Board Member/Committee Reports
Rationale:
1. Foundation Monthly Meeting Update - Copy and paste address: https://www.schuylercommunityschools.org/Domain/13 2. NASB Monthly Update - See attachment below 3. NASB State Education Conference: Pre-Conference: November 14th Conference: November 15-16
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VI. Correspondence Items
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VII. Adjournment
Recommended Motion(s):
Motion to adjourn Passed with a motion by Board Member #1 and a second by Board Member #2.
Action(s):
No Action(s) have been added to this Agenda Item.
Discussion:
Meeting adjourned at 7:42 PM.
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