USD #373 Board of Education

USD #373 Board of Education Date: Monday, December 10 , 2012 Place: McKinley Administrative Center Time: 6:00 p.m. Discussion with Legislators 7:00 p.m. Regular Session 2012-2013 USD 373 Mission The mission of the Newton school community is to prepare our students to be capable, contributing participants in a changing world. USD 373 District Belief Statements We believe that: • the educational needs of each student must be met. • the needs of students must drive decision-making. • education is an active partnership involving students, families, schools & community • motivation, opportunity and effort are critical to success. • high expectations foster quality performance. • the right to education conveys both privilege and responsibility. USD 373 District Goals . Student Learning: USD 373 will provide all staff with the resources necessary to assist all students in acquiring essential social and academic skills for success. Human Resources: USD 373 will recruit, support and retain quality personnel in every staff position in the school district. Technology Utilization: USD 373 will support appropriate technologies as both a means of managing data and expanding student learning. Funding: USD 373 will advocate for adequate and equitable school funding both within the school district and throughout the state of Kansas. Parent and Community Relationships: USD 373 will build positive parent and community relationships to increase educational opportunities for all students and promote vital economic development throughout the school district. Specific indicators will be identified for each district goal and progress reports will be submitted during the school year with a summary report at the end of the year. Approved April 18, 2011 1 BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING Public notice is given that a meeting of the Board of Education of Newton USD 373 of Newton, Kansas will be held in the Board of Education Meeting Room at the McKinley Administrative Center, Newton, Kansas on Monday, December 10, 2012 at 6:00 p.m. to consider and act upon the matters on the following tentative agenda and such other matters as may be presented at the meeting and determined to be appropriate for discussion at that time. Discussion with Legislators 6:00 p.m. Regular Meeting 7:00 p.m. CALL TO ORDER PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE ADOPTION OF AGENDA COMMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC – Comments relative to specific personnel or students will be treated confidentially by the Board of Education and will be heard in Executive Session only. Comments will be limited to 3 minutes per speaker. NHS STUDENT COUNCIL REPORT REPORTS ITEMS FOR DECISION 1. Consent Agenda a) Approval of November 12, 2012 Minutes b) Approval of Personnel Report c) Approval of Treasurer’s Report d) Approval of Bid for Copier Paper e) Approval of Sale of Surplus Equipment 2. Approval of the Resolution Authorizing and Providing for the Sale, Issuing, and Delivery of General Obligation Refunding Bonds 3. Approval of Resolution Authorizing Adoption of Tax and Securities Compliance Procedures Relating to Obligations Issued by USD 373 4. Approval of Bills 5. Approval of Capital Outlay Recommendations for 2013-14 ITEMS OF INFORMATION 1. Newton High School 2013-14 Draft Course Book 2. e-Walkthroughs Report 3. Proposed Technology Budget for 2013-14 4. USD 373 2013-2014 School Calendar 5. Protocol for Board Member Reports 6. 2012-2013 Free & Reduced Numbers 7. November 5, 2012 Professional Day Survey Results for Elementary FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS and BOARD COMMENTS EXECUTIVE SESSION – Personnel & Negotiations ADJOURNMENT 2 Newton USD 373 McKinley Administrative Center Office of Business Services 308 East 1st Street Newton, KS 67114-3846 316.284.6200 ▪ FAX 316.284.6207 www.newton.k12.ks.us BUDGETING • PAYROLL • ACCOUNTING • PURCHASING • OPERATIONS • MAINTENANCE • TRANSPORTATION • FOOD SERVICE Business Services Report – December 10, 2012 Following is a brief summary of some of the many activities that occurred in the Business office during the month of November, 2012. Capital Outlay Planning. Each year in November the district reviews and prioritizes projects that can be completed with available funding over the next 12-18 months. A great deal of time has been spent in assessing specific campus needs, considering requests from building administrators and supervisory staff, and developing a systemically grounded proposal that seeks to enhance district facilities as possible while upgrading and maintaining critical systems. A finalized list of recommendations is presented at the December board meeting. Bond Refunding. Since the board authorized the sale of refunding bonds at the November meeting, we have been engaged in a pretty fast turnaround of the required forms and procedures related to financing millions of dollars. Several meetings with district bond counsel have taken place, a conference call with Standard & Poors to provide information related to the district’s bond rating, and multiple clarifying phone calls to ensure that the process stays on track. Sale documents were completed in time for the December meeting, and closing will occur prior to the end of the month. Audit Support. The official audit of prior year expenditures ramped up in November. The auditors were in and out of the office over several weeks, supported by pretty much everyone in the business office as they reviewed our finances and procedures to ensure compliance with local, state, and federal regulations. As of this report the final report is being prepared, and will be available for year- end filing requirements as well as presentation to the board in January. Office Reorganization. After removing a number of pieces of obsolete equipment and spending some time reorganizing the data processing room, the student data office has now been relocated to the north end of the business services office at McKinley. The new space for Vickie Hill and Betty Schmidtberger provides significantly better work space, and is much more conducive to this critical function. Many thanks are expressed to the business services staff, ETC staff, and Maintenance for making this happen! E-Rate 2013-14. Here we go! The E-Rate season is now officially open, and kicked off with the development of RFPs for local phone service, long distance service, and dark fiber service for the year beginning July 1, 2013. The Form 470 was filed to kick things off, and we have been responding to a number of vendors interested in serving our district. This process will continue for several weeks; new contracts for services will be brought to the board in January for approval. 3 November 2012 VOL 1 ISSUE 4 Instructional Services Sheila Wendling, Director District Level Mentor Teacher and New ELL Program Teacher Support Currently we have 196 active students • I am meeting weekly with Rochelle receiving ELL services and 85 students that Glover, Gail Pryce, and Jean Weber to are monitored. This table shows the active discuss the support being given to new students as well as the number of paras and teachers. These mentor teachers are also teachers at each school that assist the ELL meeting with the new teachers each week students. collaborating, modeling best practices Active Paras Teachers and observing lessons. Walton 0 0 0 NHS 13 2 0.5 • New teachers received training on Northridge 14 1 0.25 October 25. The morning was for Chisholm 12 2 0.75 elementary teachers with the topics of Santa Fe 21 2 1 literacy and Daily 5. Classroom South Breeze 31 2 0.75 management was discussed in the Sunset 35 0.75 1 afternoon with elementary and secondary Slate Creek 70 3 1.25 teachers. New teachers are feeling the stress of their first parent teacher conferences, grade cards being completed Curriculum and Instruction for the first time and implementing the common core standards. Recently we met on November 2 for the PreK-12 ELA committee. We have drafted a • All four of us attended New Teacher philosophy statement, definition of Center training in Wichita on October 31 curriculum and began brainstorming non- and November 1. This is the second negotiables. The non-negotiables are the session in a series of four. The topic was strategies and items that would be evident in on teacher observation and feedback with teaching and learning in each classroom that the focus on the needs of the teacher. has the content of English language arts. The members in grades K-6 will be creating an PDC committee inventory of class sets of literature to determine what is available and also outline The Professional Development Council will what stories are taught at each grade level. be meeting on Thursday, November 8. We Our next meeting is November 28 and we will be reviewing the audit of Kansas will be discussing the Sunflower Literacy professional development policies. We will Project on the KSDE website. be discussing the professional learning measures survey and making changes so that it can be more useful for feedback on professional days. 4 PreK -4 District Collaboration KWIET On October 10, the media specialists gave a Stacy Smith and I have met with grades 5, 8 and presentation on text complexity. Teachers have 11 to show the teachers preliminary information since met to discuss how to be applying this on this writing assessment tool. The transition information as they plan lessons for their we are going through right now is to have this students. Schools are in the process of creating online tool replace the paper/pencil method. an inventory of guided reading books and This tool is available through KSDE and right materials that are in the “book rooms”. One now students have access as a guest. The state challenge we have is to figure out who will writing assessment window is January 16 to manage this inventory list. One possibility is to March 29. Our goal is to get teachers and have this go through the media center so that we students very familiar with the tool by the time can track which books students have read.

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