April 19, 2021 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 front of the meeting room.

Nebraska Open Meetings Act:  http://nitc.nebraska.gov/documents/statutes/NebraskaOpenMeetingsAct_current.pdf

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

Rationale: 

Rationale:  This committee is responsible for recommending approval of building/grounds and transportation programs, vehicle replacement schedule, building and maintenance and upgrade schedule.

Rationale:  See attached information below.

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: 
We generally do a complete review of all board policies every 10 years.  The last complete review was in 2013 with annual policy updates.  With the new board members, it was suggested that we do a review of policies this spring.  

I contacted Jim Luebbe, NASB Policy Director for the online service, and he said he would be happy to work with us on updating the entire manual again for $3,000. The regular price for the entire review is $7,000 to $10,000 depending on the age of policies.  If you want, I can coordinate a schedule for Jim to meet with the board policy committee to do the review.

http://members.nasbonline.org/index.php/nasb-website-policies

With the 90 day session, new and changes to our board policies will probably take place with 1st Reading in July and Final Reading in August.

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

Rationale: 

Holly Hild, representative from Agri-City Insurance Agency, LLC visited with Penny Janousek, Ron Mundil, and Dr. Hoesing to review the district insurance renewal premiums with EMC for the 2021-22 school year.  The finance committee also reviewed the renewal at their committee meeting.  See attached renewal summary and property value changes.

Rationale: 
Teachers
1.  Dan Wolken:  SCHS Social Studies Teacher
2.  James Watts:  SCHS Science Teacher
3.  Grace Scheil:  SCHS Physical Education
4.  Charles Hosier:  SCHS Vocational Agriculture
5.  Jason Ankrah:  SCHS Physical Education/FCS
6.  Blanca Alarcon:  SCHS Spanish
7.  Danielle Tilley:  SCHS Language Arts
8.  Ashley Faltin:  SMS Physical Education Teacher
9.  Nick Arlt:  SMS Math Teacher
10.  Aaron Thumann:  Rural Schools PE/Alternative Ed.
11.  Karyee LeSuer:  Early Childhood/Rural School SPED
12.  Jim Kasik:  SCHS Asst. Principal/AD

Support Staff
1.  Hugo Ramirez:  SES Maintenance/Custodial
2.  Isidro Adame:  SES Maintenance/Custodial
3.  Aylin Adame:  SES Para Educator

Rationale:  Teachers
1.  Kailey Clapper:  Preschool SPED
2.  Angela Schwarte: SES Special Education
3.  Troy Schlueter:  SMS Math
4.  Jacob Twibell:  SMS Science
5.  Kalli Feddersen:  SMS Physical Education
6.  Chase King:  SCHS Language Arts
7. Greg Hansen:  SCHS Special Ed/Physical Ed.
8.  Scott Mollring:  SCHS Physical Education/Life Skills
9.  Riley Haug:  SCHS Science
10.  Lynn Hanson:  SCHS Skilled and Tech Trades
11.  Logan Paben:  SCHS Alt. Ed/Rural Schools PE
12.  Travis Steinhoff:  SCHS Asst. Principal/AD
Support Staff
1.  Jennifer Corbett:  SMS Food Service
2.  Diane Sandoval:  SMS Food Service
3.  Emanuel Jorge:  SES Custodial/Maintenance

Rationale: 
The Nebraska Continuing contract law automatically renews contracts for all certificated employees (teachers and administrators) on April 15th.  All teachers who have not resigned or notified of non-renewal or termination are on the list for renewal.  See attached list.

Rationale:  1.  Teachers:  Teacher contracts are 185 days.  We recommend keeping the end-of-year contract date of May 21st for all 185 day contracts.

2.  Support Staff:  Our policies pay support staff for two inclement weather days.  We recommend keeping the end-of-year contract date of May 21st, however, we also recommend allowing 9 month employees three additional days of work if requested. 

If you decide to add days, we will put an item to "Amend the 2020-21 school calendar" on the May board agenda for board action.

Rationale: 

Priority Plan update:  This past month we were able to meet with our consultants four different days.  We met on March 2nd and 3rd, as well as March 22nd, 23rd.  We had a long list of to-do items, but I feel the meetings went well and were very productive.  During our time with Dr. Kennedy, we visited classrooms to support high quality instruction.  

Mr. Kasik continued his teaching study.  Again, this is three teachers visiting other teachers' classrooms to gain insight on effective strategies they could use into their classrooms.  We also spent part of a day working on our Checkpoint #2 of our progress plan.  During this time our admin team rates how we feel we are doing on each area of our plan while our consultants rate how they feel we are doing.  We then come together to discuss and come to a consensus on how to rate us as a team.  This has been an excellent process, and we were able to come to a consensus fairly quickly.  We will have one more rating this year.  

We also spent time during their visit discussing ACT and MAP administration and goal setting, as well as summer professional development opportunities, coaching for administrators, and visiting our newcomer’s program.  We have four more days scheduled on April 14-15, and April 28-29. 

Below is a link to our priority plan, as well as our SCHS newsletter.  Again, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t be afraid to contact one of the high school administrators.

https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/908802/Draft_2018-2021_Schuyler_Priority_Plan__1_.pdf 

https://5il.co/nlww

Rationale: 

Preschool and SES 3-5 Principal's Report:  Mr. Comley
Staff Member Spotlight:  This month I would like to highlight Carmen Nava de Chavez and Natividad Millan. Both of these ladies work in our SPED dept and help children with higher needs. They provide excellent care to these students and represent our school with compassion and integrity.  They also recently became US citizens. I want to congratulate them on this great accomplishment. I could not be prouder of them and their hard work!

SES K-2 Principal's Report:  Mrs. Neesen
Spotlight Staff: This month I would like to highlight the work and dedication of our SES Kindergarten Team. Outside of their commitment to a rigorous education, collaboration through weekly planning meetings, they also use their lunch time eating with their students! It isn’t uncommon to go into the cafeteria during Kindergarten lunch time and see at least two or three teachers eating with their students. When asked if someone earned a reward to eat with them, they answer that lunch time is just another time to get to know their students better. Wow. I am so thankful for our teachers who make additional efforts to make connections with our students. This act of kindness is making a difference, thank you.
Spotlight Upcoming Events: The always anticipated elementary Field Day has begun the planning stages. With this year needing extra primarily planning in order to ensure the health and safety for our students, the Field Day team has already begun planning on how to make sure Field Day can be a success.

Fisher’s & Richland Principal's Report:  Ms. Bebout
Staff Spotlight:  I would like to highlight Jamie Ramirez.  Jamie was born and raised in Schuyler.  She has worked for Schuyler Community Schools for seventeen years!!  She worked thirteen years in the high school kitchen and the last four years as the Director of Food Services.  Before working for the district she worked doing detasseling, and at Hardee's, Subway, Camaco, Appleton, and the Schuyler Hospital cafeteria.  Jamie has five children; Myiesha(23), Jermaine(23), Caeden(20), Benjamin(16), and Tycen(12).
          Jamie does an amazing job getting breakfast and lunches out to the rural schools.  She is great with communication.  The lunch program has flourished under her leadership.  Students have many more healthy choices to choose from for lunches.  Jamie has helped fill in when I have been short staffed in my lunchroom.  We really appreciate all she and her staff do to make sure our students get a yummy and healthy lunch.

Middle School Assistant Principal's Report:  Mr. Banahan
Spotlight Program: The program that I want to highlight is our District and Building MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports) teams. As a District we have placed a huge importance on creating an MTSS program, and after the Strategic Plan was approved we began planning as a district team to get the ball rolling on this area. We have created a district level team that will create the foundation for our district, but we will also have building level teams that will work to help improve the education for all of our students. At the Middle School we had begun working on this earlier this year to get some changes already in place to jumpstart our transition into MTSS. This has allowed us to look at different changes we want to implement into our school day for next year, and what data we will look at to measure the impact that our interventions are having upon our students.
Spotlight Staff: The staff member I would like to highlight is Mrs. Samantha Ladwig. Mrs. Ladwig is one of our 8th grade English Language Arts teachers and she is currently involved with our STEM Leadership Corp, District MTSS team, and Process Champions. Mrs. Ladwig is a Schuyler graduate who came back to Schuyler to raise her family here with husband Mark (also a Schuyler grad) and has been deeply involved in ensuring that our students are getting the best education possible here. This year she stepped up and joined our STEM LC group and has really put herself out of her comfort zone by trying new ways to teach Language Arts to our students. While working with the STEM LC, we are really focusing on allowing our teachers to facilitate the learning while having the students taking on the role of doing more of the discovery aspect of learning. This is hard for teachers, giving up the control of the classroom and not just sharing information with the students. Mrs. Ladwig has done a phenomenal job with this, and when visiting her classroom and with the students in 8th grade they are definitely enjoying this process as it is allowing them to develop a deeper understanding of the concepts being taught while also allowing them to showcase their talents in ways they are presenting their learning to their peers in the classroom. We are very grateful that Mrs. Ladwig took this opportunity to grow herself as an educator, and the benefit that our students and other teachers are getting from her and the other STEM Leadership teachers is going to continue to help move our district forward!
Spotlight Upcoming Events: This month students have taken the MAP test to measure the growth of our students from the beginning of the school year until the end to see how much they have grown this school year. We have also begun our NSCAS testing which is the state level testing which tests students in the areas of Mathematics and Language Arts in grades 6-8 and in Science for those in 8th grade. We are also heading towards end of the year celebrations that include Academic Honors night on May 11th.

Middle School Principal's Report:  Mr. Zavadil
Staff Member Spotlight:  This month I would like to highlight the work of Mrs Kment. Mrs. Kment has worked a lot in the past month preparing for our NSCAS testing that we started on April 7th.  Mrs. Kment has work a lot with teachers, administration and Dr. Gibbons to organize testing groups, help set testing dates, and coordinate test accommodations for students on IEP’s and LEP programs.  This is a mountain of work that she has taken on and organized very well for our building.  Our students have been taking these assessments in their classrooms which is a switch on procedures from years past.  Our teachers feel that this is the best environment to allow students to perform their best.
Upcoming Events:  We are barreling towards the end of the year and we have many events occurring at the middle school as we wrap up the year. April 26th is our home Middle School track invite, April 30th will be our 6th grade Track and Field meet.   May 6th will be our end of the year Middle School Band and Choir Concert.  May 11th will be our Middle School academic awards evening.  May 14th is the Middle School R-time Celebration and Athletic Award, this year it will be done digitally so we can continue to follow our COVID-19 protocols and avoid an assembly.  Lastly we are planning to hold an 8th grade graduation celebration on the last day of the year.   A lot of work is being done this year to adjust these celebrations and events to help with social distancing and following all of our district COVID-19 protocols.

High School Assistant Principal's Report:  Mr. Kasik
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  Our Foundation does a great job of supporting our school and promoting programs within our school.  They sponsor events and provide scholarships to our seniors, thanks for their support.
Person Spotlight:  I want to spotlight Mr. Grammer.  As he enters his final few months as our Principal, I would be remiss if I did not say how much he has done for this school.  I have never met another educator who had a bigger heart for kids.  He has taught me a lot and he has been a great mentor for me these last 5 years.
Upcoming Events:  It is testing time, we just completed our ACT and we still have other assessments planned for this year.  8^th Grade visitation is around the corner as well as in-person Graduation to prepare for.
 

High School Principal's Report:  Mr. Grammer
Program Spotlight:  The program I would like to acknowledge at Schuyler Central High School this month is our Newcomer  Program. We revamped the Newcomer Program to get a more intensive approach to language acquisition for our newcomer students.  This idea of language acquisition was to give our newcomer students opportunities to try to excel their program in order to get into regular curriculum classes. The program is held at the district office with three staff members and paraprofessionals.  The program was developed  and implemented with our students best interests in mind. We are fortunate to have a staff, who have a passion to work with our students through this program. The staff genuinely care about their students and are    diligent in working with their students to be successful both at school and within the community. Their main goal as a program is to ensure their students will show mastery of  language skills, so that they can move to the high school and continue to develop  their language skills and eventually earn a diploma from SCHS. December and one in April. Of course this year our club looks very different. Thank you  for making our students feel welcome and successful at SCHS.
Staff Member Spotlight:  As the Principal of SCHS, it is my honor and privilge  to recognize Dr. Lefdal, the Director of Student Services at Schuyler Central High School. Dr. Lefdal has developed and implemented multiple programs to help our students from different backgrounds feel welcome at SCHS.  Dr. Lefdal over sees our Alternative Program, Attendance Program, and Credit Recovery utilizing a program entitled APEX. Dr. Lefdal has the energy, passion, and stamina to develop his student’s success at SCHS.  He works hard to ensure that his students feel welcome, and has a caring attitude, which enables him to develop a positive rapport with his students, and a dedication to his students academic well-being is unmatched. He strives to be a strong advocate for her students and ensure they have a positive school experience. With Dr. Lefdal’s rapport and genuine caring for his students, he is able to build successful programs at SCHS, for years to come.  Congratulations to Dr. Lefdal for making our  school a positive experience for our students.
 Event Spotlight:  We are continuing our work with the state priority team, UNL EL team, DE cohort groups, with the SIG grant, and STEM through DE.  It is cumbersome at times to schedule and plan for all the groups.  But, it is worthwhile as we see growth and development of our students.
 

Rationale: 

Warrior Academy - ASP Director's Report:  Ms. Bebout
Staff Spotlight: I would like to highlight Tracy Brandt and her work through Boy Scouts and the after school program!  Tracy was born in Osmond, NE.  She grew up on a dairy farm outside of Hartington, NE.  After she graduated from Hartington High she moved to Norfolk where she went to college at Northeast Community College.  Tracy has lived in Fremont, Maryville, MO, Hartington, and now resides in Norfolk.  She has worked in factories, insurance, retail, for the hospital in Norfolk.  She now works for the Boy Scouts of America.  Tracy has been married to Paul Brandt for 5 years.  She has five children; Ashley(18), Riley(16), Emily(15), Braiden(12), and Christopher(10).
          Tracey has grown with our program and we have been blessed to have her work with our students for 5 years.  Tracy travels from Norfolk every other week and works with a group of students.  She has brought in a lot of extra programming through the years, like the police, firemen, and paramedics.  Tracy also teaches the students about the Boy Scout program and what it means to be a Boy Scout.  She has done STEM programming with them, which they love!  We appreciate everything she does for our afterschool program!

K-6 Youth Sports Director's Report: Mrs. Neesen
Staff Member Spotlight:  A special thank you to Coach Jason Wehner for putting the time and effort into getting a spring football season in for our 5th and 6th graders! With the unconventional start of the school year, youth football wasn’t scheduled and Coach Wehner took it upon himself to ensure that our students were able to get a season in. Coach Wehner has also been a tremendous help with coordinating other Youth Sports programs throughout the year. He continuously checks in with the Director to ask if there is anything that he can help with and it also helps coordinate practice fields and times. Thank you Coach Wehner!
Upcoming Activities:  Youth Softball and Football will be wrapping up through the month of April. Thank you to Coach Sarah Leimser with her work in building our softball program. Coach Leimser added an additional practice day this year for athletes who are particularly interested in pitching and catching positions.

Middle School Activities Director's Report:  Mr. Banahan
Spotlight Program: My program spotlight for this month is MS Track. We have over 130 athletes out for Track this year! It is awesome to see such a high number of athletes out, we have 65 girls and 70 boys out this year. This year will be a challenging year for our coaches as unfortunately none of these students have ever been able to compete in a track meet before as they didn’t get to have a track season last year. So they have been working hard to identify which events each athlete should participate in, and they were gearing up for their first competition in two years on April 8th, but it was cancelled due to weather. So their first meet will be April 15th at West Point-Beemer. We are excited to see what our kids can do this year, and are looking forward to seeing lots of growth from all of our athletes.
Spotlight Staff: For the program staff spotlight this month I would like to highlight Mr. Ryan Baldwin, Mr. Baldwin is the Middle School band instructor, and helps with the High School band as well throughout the year. Mr. Baldwin joined our staff this year after a long stint working in Omaha Public Schools. He has brings a lot of positive energy into the classroom, and is really focused on getting our students to showcase their talents. Mr. Baldwin is working hard to ensure that our students get opportunities to show their skills off to their families and friends with concerts. He has helped organize three concerts this year for the students and wants to have quarterly concerts for the Middle School students next year, and is working with the other schools to establish a tradition of Band Fest which will feature students from 4th grade through 12th grade in one concert to help grow the band program for years to come. We appreciate all of the work Mr. Baldwin is putting into our students and the music program here at Schuyler Community Schools, and look forward to ending the year with a wonderful band concert on May 6th!
Spotlight Upcoming Events: Our upcoming events for Middle School Activities include our home track meet on Monday April 26th which is held at SCHS. We have three students competing in the State FCCLA competition from the Middle School on April 13th which is being held virtually this school year. We also will be wrapping up our year with a Band and Vocal music concert coming up May 6th, and Academic Awards night held on May 11th.

High School Activities Director's Report:  Mr. Kasik
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  I would like to spotlight our Boys Golf program run by Brante Hayes.  Mr. Hays has a great group of guys and he runs a solid program.  While they have only had limited competition at this time they are primed to compete.  Mr. Hayes teaches his kids respect and great sportsmanship.
Person Spotlight:  Without Renee Brabec our activity programs would struggle to get off the ground.  She is a very detailed person and has great attention to detail.  She is always on top of transportation, payment of officials, concessions and everything else that she does.  Her work is invaluable!
Upcoming Events:  We are just getting into our spring events, Soccer, Track, Boys Golf, prom, music performances and a musical.  It is a busy time but also very exciting  

SCHS Student Services Director:  Dr. Lefdal
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  I would like to spotlight Mrs. Zavadil for the work that she is doing at our school.  Brandi is a transition counselor for our EL students, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.  Brandi sets the weekly FOCUS agenda for our staff, helps teachers with lesson planning, interventions for EL students, as well as anything else that we ask of her.  Brandi has stepped up for our district and is truly making a huge impact on our students.  Her ideas and suggestions on how to improve our programming have been nothing short of excellent.  Great work! 
Notable Topics:  I am very impressed with the teachers that I supervise.  Watching them grow as educators has been nothing short of amazing.  I feel our district is really taking some great strides in learning more effective educational strategies.
Looking ahead:  I am excited to see the spring musical.  I know the students and coaches have been putting in so much time this spring to make sure their play is a success.  I am also excited to see how far we can go in our spring sports.  We have some very competitive teams, and it is exciting to watch them.

Special Education Director's Report:  Mrs. Vrba
Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  For the past 27 years, Brenda Klein's name has been synonymous with the Schuyler Community Schools Special Education Program! Brenda was one of the originators of serving our Early Childhood students in their own home setting along with setting the stage for the inclusion model in preschool. In the lives of our students and parents, she has inspired hope, ignited imagination and instilled a love of learning.
          Every child needs to have a heart-felt hero...one who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be. Brenda has used her talents to help students discover their own. She has dedicated her time and energy every day for the past 27 years to meet the individual needs of all her students.
          At SES and SMS, Brenda has spread her special character traits, such as: her calmness in the middle of a meltdown, her acceptance of every child who walks in her doorway, her innate ability to adapt to any situation, her unending love and compassion, her creative style of collaboration, being a true advocate for our kids and her never ending sense of humor.
          There is a quote that states: "A good teacher is like a candle...it consumes itself to light the way for others." In the astonishing 40-year teaching career that Brenda is finishing, I know that she has made every students' and colleagues' life and future brighter!

Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction Director's Report:  Dr. Gibbons
Spotlight Program/People:   Huge shout out goes to Katie Bertrand for her work on organizing both the Pre-ACT and ACT tests on the same day.
Spotlight Upcoming Events: 

• This year, state testing will take place during the following dates:

  • ELPA 21 - February 8 - March 19 (English Language Proficiency Assessment - given to all EL students).

  • NSCAS Assessments - March 22 - May 7 (All students in grades 3 - 8; Math, Language Arts and Science for 5th and 8th grade)

  • ACT - April 6 (All students in the 3rd year cohort; juniors)

• There are changes occurring in the state assessments so this year is being considered a pilot and will not be considered for accountability purposes.

• We have completed some of our program reviews.  Attached is a document that shows an example of the data and a data analysis narrative.  The programs evaluated here are Capturing Kids Hearts, APL Instructional Strategies and the OnToCollege ACT Test Prep.  The analysis of the data shows that these programs are worthwhile and should continue to be implemented.  The school improvement team did identify some worthy next steps.

  • Need all staff to have some sort of involvement with ACT/OnToCollege work to build the culture of wanting to do well on the ACT. How can we involve seniors?  More College visits? Develop and implement a fidelity check for OnToCollege.

  • For CKH - Have Process Champions present at staff meetings more often.  Have the Flippen Group come in and coach for a day.  (Campus TrAction).

  • For APL - Continue to train new staff, continue refresher courses every few years.  Highlight specific strategies at staff meetings.  Model strategies at staff meetings

Rationale:  Program/Staff Member Spotlight:  The Nebraska Council of School Administrators annually selects administrators from each region for "Honor Awards". 2020-21 Region III Award recipients are as follows.  It is an honor to have one administrator recognized, Schuyler has three receiving honors this year. 
Middle School Outstanding Principal Award:  Jesse Zavadil
High School Outstanding Asst. Principal Award:  Jim Kasik
Region III Distinguished Service Award:  Stephen Grammer
Congratulations to these administrators for their recognition amongst their peers for their service and commitment to students, staff, and their profession.

1.  Emergency Management Plan:  The Department of Education hosted a two-day workshop with representatives from the school, Emergency Management, City Police Chief, and County Sheriff, and Nesbitt & Associates.  The purpose of the workshop is to create a common protocol for schools across the state to work with area Emergency Management and law enforcement on our school plan.  We met again on April 1st to finalize recommendation to our plan.  Nesbitt & Associates are now working to update our plan and submit it to NDE for approval.  Once approved, Our plan will be updated and presented to the board for approval this summer.

2.  Dept. of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Meeting:  We also met on April 1st with the Department of Health and Human services and the County Attorney to review protocols for outside agencies interviewing students at school.  All schools basically have the same policies written by one of the two school law firms in compliance with Nebraska Student Discipline Statues.  The principals discussed their continued interest and required protocols for working with investigators and providing access to our students.
 

Rationale: 
1.  NASB Board Finance Workshop in Norfolk:  Rich Brabec, Chuck Misek, Alejandrina Lanuza, and Guadalupe Marino attended a finance workshop hosted by NASB at the NECC Campus in Norfolk. 
2.  April Foundation Meeting:  Brian Vavricek and Alejandrina Lanuza attended the April Foundation Meeting on Monday, April 12th.  See Foundation website for more information.
3.  Leadership Class Graduation:  Alejandrina Lanuza graduated from the Inaugural class of Leading Locally Schuyler Leadership April 14, 2021.  Cheryl Brandenburg states "Nina has attended these classes and has been an instrumental part of the success of Leadership Schuyler".  Congratulations!

Rationale:  Attached are two letters of concern and the administrative response to the concerns and allegations. 
1.  Letter from County Officials
2.  Letter from Gail Fickle
3.  Administrative Response