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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-24-2014 Minutes Board RetreatDr. Charles J. Shackett, Superintendent Marjean McConnell, Deputy Superintendent 3497 North Ammon Road, Idaho Falls, Idaho, 83401  (208) 525-4400  Fax (208) 529-0104  www.d93schools.org Board of Trustees  Annette Winchester  Kip Nelson  Amy Landers  Brian McBride  Jeff Bird Bonneville Joint School District No. 93 is an Equal Opportunity Employer Board Retreat June 24, 2014 Boy’s House, Harriman State Park Breakfast at Trails Inn in Ashton 8:00 a.m. As a result of traffic delays, Chairperson Winchester called the meeting to order at 10:29 a.m. Roll Call Those Board members in attendance were Chairperson Annette Winchester, Vice-chairperson Kip Nelson, Treasurer Amy Landers, Trustee Brian McBride, and Trustee Jeff Bird. Others in attendance were, Superintendent Chuck Shackett , Deputy Superintendent Marjean McConnell, Director of School Improvement and Technology Scott Woolstenhulme, Director of Human Resources Shalene French, Chief Financial/Operations Officer April Burton, District Legal Counsel Doug Nelson, and Board Clerk Valerie Messick. I. Ethics and Governance/Conflict of Interest - Doug Nelson Chairperson Winchester asked Mr. Nelson to speak to the board regarding ethics and governance and conflicts of interest. Mr. Nelson stated that we will take a bird’s eye view of how to avoid disharmony. That comes with proper board governance and the ethical rules that apply to all of us. There are statutes that apply to board service as it relates to administrative staff and teaching staff. Not following policy can cause major issues. Each Board member and administrator has a fiduciary duty or are trusted with acting on behalf of another for the benefit and interest of those who trust. This is the highest legal standard of care. A fiduciary duty is a very express and powerful duty. Board members have the fiduciary duties of care, loyalty, and obedience. These three concepts permeate the statutes that apply. The duty to Care. Members should exercise the same level of care as with your own business affairs. This is fulfilled by attendance at Board meeting (statutory requirement), being knowledgeable about matters before the Board, and using independent judgment to make objective decisions in the best interest of the District. Notice that this is not your interest or necessarily those who elected you. The duty of Loyalty. Members should act in the best interests of the organization and not for personal advantage. Members should avoid conflicts of interest, disclose and resolve conflicts as they arise, and give the organization the advantage in any deal over your own private interests. The duty of Obedience. Board members must take actions consistent with statutes, board policies, and District Mission and purposes. They should follow the law and have transparency in their actions. A single interest person causes the most problems with obedience issues. They often ignore or challenge policies and only prepare for their issues. You should serve consistent with statutes, policy, and agreed upon purpose, goals, and mission because they have one axe to grind and will do so regardless of the rules or how the Board has determined to govern itself. They become disruptive and fight the procedures and customs, challenge policies, ignore policy, not prepare for anything except their issue. That can be an awkward and unfortunate thing. All actions that board members take need to be consistent with the statutes, your own board policy, and the agreed upon mission of the District. Board members must follow the law and do nothing in secret and always have transparency in your actions. Email does not have an expectation of privacy. You could be given a notice to preserve all communications. Once a notice like that is served, you can find yourself violating state and federal law with possible criminal sanctions if your try to sanitize your emails. You can’t sanitize your computer. Communications regarding business and policy is not protected. You need to write and communicate in civil ways. You need to understand that people and those who don’t agree with you may have the opportunity to read these communications. Things like client to attorney privileges in communication do not extend to individual to individual communication. Whatever you retain as a district for email is up to the district. There is no requirement to archive email. If an email deals with an employee issue and it is used in deliberations, it needs to become part of the employment or disciplinary record. The email can be deleted but the record needs to be preserved. Characteristics of Effective Boards include oversight and accountability among members, clear consistent policies, adherence to the law and policies (even if you have a disagreement with a policy) strategic planning, and training. Once a policy is adopted as an entity, you are required to follow it. Even if you don’t agree. Conflicts of Interest is an official action that affects your own private pecuniary benefit or a member of your household’s benefit while acting in the capacity of a public office. There are a number of statutes that apply such as the Ethics in Governance statute that have civil and criminal punishments attached. If you are a member of a group and also in a public position that impacts that group, then you must follow procedures to deal with that conflict. If you find yourself imposing a tax and then actively opposing it in your group, that is a conflict of interest. So, if the board imposes a tax on a group, then board members become involved in organizations and companies that actively oppose it through litigation of the taxing authority. Even if you vote against the tax, you are bound by the tax if the majority votes for it. Do not advise or share executive session information with other groups. You may articulate your opposition in a professional way, but you can’t take an active position against the board’s decision through litigation and paying for and posting to websites and publishing private information you may have access to. Criminal action may be the result. Conflict of Interest is not: a campaign promise, difference of opinion, advice you don’t like, a previously stated policy position and you change your mind, or a personal dislike of someone. These are not legal conflicts of interest. A campaign promise is something you want to see happen. The individual makes a promise during the campaign and it is all over their brochures. Then the individual may learn more and change their mind after becoming elected and involved. You don’t have to continue with that campaign promise. You can’t be sued for violating a campaign promise. You may not get reelected and it may have political implications but it is not a violation of law. Idaho Code section 59-704 specifies the actions required when a conflict exists. They are disclosure, acquire an opinion from legal counsel, and act on the advice of legal counsel. You are protected if counsel is wrong. If you are wrong without counsel there is no protection. The law is not always precise but, legal advice is given based on the lawyer’s interpretation of the laws and statutes. It could turn out that a judge doesn’t agree. You are however protected if you rely on the attorney’s advice regardless of the outcome. Conflict Exception is when there is no salary or fee that you are charging. The individual must observe the procedures in Idaho Code secition15-1361A. You must disclose the conflict. If it is irresolvable, you must remove yourself from the decision making and the deliberation on that issue. Then reclaim your board position on all other issues. The civil penalty for violation is $500 and possible prosecution for any criminal violations. An elected person shouldn’t act on narrow issues where you have a conflict. Chain of Command for Resolution of Complaints You are an elected person and there are a number of patrons who know that, some of whom voted for you. Their assumption is that you are their resource within the school district. If they have a problem that isn’t resolved favorably to them, they will assume that it is because you didn’t do your job. Do not allow yourself to be caught in that trap. You can avoid that trap by following the chain of command for resolution of complaints and problems. Customer satisfaction is not your job. A high functioning board is focused on ownership issues, not customer issues. Your job is setting policy as opposed to day to day practice. Owners are satisfied as a group with reference to overall outcomes and the achievement of pre-defined objectives. Customers must be satisfied one at a time, generally on operational issues that are not part of board work. You should explain and follow the chain of command to your customers. If a complainant comes to a board member, you should refer them to the grievance policy. They should contact the person closest to the problem or the person in authority closest to the problem. Then the superintendent and then the board. The board member should notify the superintendent to eliminate the possibility of any surprises and let him/her deal with the problem. You should then follow-up with superintendent and the complainant to see if the issue was resolved. Find out if policy was followed and whether it reached the level of the superintendent. For parental complaints, give them guidance on how to get their concerns addressed through proper channels. It is not your responsibility to solve each parent’s problem. Listen to them and then help them know how to contact the school staff to have their concerns addressed. You owe the superintendent and staff the opportunity to respond and then support them if they are properly following board policy. If the problem brought to the board member involves a disciplinary action of either their student or an employee, you need to step aside because in addition to your executive hat, you have to wear a judicial hat as well. If you immerse yourself in investigating, you will probably be disqualified from sitting at the board hearing that would review that matter. Because you may over react and not follow the chain of command by transferring the issue so it is properly channeled through the organization you have been conflicted. The Ririe case is a classic example. The complaint was that the principal directed teachers to teach and as a result the kids were performing far above other students in the United States and the World. A couple of board members talked about the situation during a golf game sharing information that each had gathered. The principal and teacher found out about it and filed a law suit. The judge consequently removed those board members from the panel that heard the case because of the appearance of a conflict of interest. While wearing your judicial hat, you should only gather information through the due process hearing. Entity Concept This is the non-cowboy rule. Individual trustees cannot act alone or make decisions on behalf of the board. The powers and duties of the board may be exercised and performed only by the board as a duly convened entity. If you talk to a group that is advocating and get into a board meeting where there is no one who views things the same way as you do, you may set yourself up for failure. You can and should express your views during deliberation on issues, vote according to your persuasion, and be bound by the prevailing vote. This is hard in practice. Individual trustees must not take any improper means to go against the board vote. You can continue with your point of view and explain that your view is different than other members of the board. Individual trustees must avoid using resources available to you in contradicting the vote of the board. Trustees may not disclose information discussed in executive session and attribute that information to individual board members to humiliate or embarrass them, mischaracterize them, or quote them out of context. Each is required to protect the confidentiality of information disclosed in executive session. Don’t use such information for open political opposition. There have been instances where individuals have been quoted from executive session and there have been civil and criminal penalties imposed. Doing so is not just a violation of statute, but also a privacy violation as well as possible slander. A board member who engaged in these types of activities lost on both slander and privacy issues. Things discussed in executive session stay there. Board members need to honestly communicate their view points. Others need to hear it, so the board isn’t blind sighted. Strong feelings can cause problems with board relationships if not discussed openly. Each should honestly and openly communicate your viewpoint. Others maybe need to hear it because if they don’t, they maybe blind sighted because your unpopular viewpoint maybe deeply felt by a lot of patrons. The other board members need to understand and know how to deal with it. Openness will create a better result or a better understanding. Getting into an advocacy situation can destroy the board relationship. The subject matter for executive session is public record but don’t attribute conversations to individuals in executive session such as names and specific position statements and information. Trustees need to honor that confidentiality. Violations can poison relationships and result in adverse settlements. Trustee vs. Representative Trustees do not represent the people that voted for you. You need to make decisions based on what is best for the students. You should not make decisions based on the wishes of the people who voted for you and helped with your campaign. Integrity requires you to be harsh on yourself. You need to decide whether you will make decisions based on the special interests that voted for you or contributed to your campaign o r will you make decisions on what is the best interests of the students in this situation. You may receive additional information/confidential information to help guide you. Express your concerns for the people in your zone that you represent, but vote for the students. Keep in mind the big picture through strategic planning, policies, and the budget. In a district south of here, a young board member was elected because taxes were his passion. He then realized that the education of students was important and he then told his constituents the reasons for the need of a levy and transitioned from an advocate of libertarianism to a very interested educational leader. He was reelected several times over the 12 years he served. You take an oath to exercise judgment and make decisions based on the best interest of the students. That is where your fiduciary duty lies. You are a trustee and not a representative. Special interest people don’t see a separation in doing the right thing for the students. They feel that their position is in the best interest of the students. What you are doing needs to be focused on the students and not the heated arguments between the grownups. You need to evaluate carefully what you are offering. If you are not offering the constitutional standard of free, open, and adequate education because of lack of facilities or curriculum you need to do something to alleviate that conflict and do what is in the best interest of the kids. So long as the governing principles of a board do not violate federal or state law, you as a judicial and executive group combined can determine your own procedures. You are autonomously elected people and as an entity, you have the power to define your own policy and develop your own procedures. The definition of governance is the exercising of authority, direction and control in order to ensure that the organizations purpose is achieved. It is also a process of providing strategic leadership by setting direction, making policy and strategy decisions, overseeing and monitoring performance (not interfering with or performing that yourself, it is not micromanaging) and ensuring the overall accountability. Polices are the means for governing the district. They tell what the board wants to happen and why it should happen. Policy language should be as simple as possible so it is understandable by a wide demographic. Sometimes it is argued that the policy needs to work for the lower demographic because they don’t have access to opportunity like the higher dem ographic. You can refer to the legal sources and other policies included in your policy but your index could be better. Once you find a policy, it is well cross indexed but finding the original policy is challenging. There was a question regarding whether we should have policy reiterating what we are already bound by in state and federal law. The code is vague and definition in policy is helpful. State law requires you to have policy .It provides direction for superintendent, provides a response to district stakeholders, and stabilizes district operations by providing consistency. Policy provides a mechanism for accountability throughout the district and allows staff to respond quickly to emergency situations. You can get into a real problem if you have personality driven decisions. That is attorneys refer to as forum shopping. You file a case so you can get the judge you would like to hear your case. You can apply that to the staff that doesn’t have a policy. They will go to different individuals until they get the answer they want. The staff is left with formulating a policy on the spot or shooting from the hip. If you have a policy in place, you are measuring by that standard. State code is often vague and it helps the administration know what they need to do. The statutes are the law. There is nothing in the SData statute allowing us to issue an exemption. You need policy to uphold the law. Effective Meetings are characterized by organization, preparation, communication and control. The board sets the agenda and decorum of a meeting. You can require patrons to sign in and limit the length of their input. They can leave supplemental written material for the board to study. The agenda should be well-reasoned and appropriate to cover the relevant board business. Board members and superintendent should come to the meeting prepared to discuss and deliberate. There should be no surprises by board or administrators at the meeting. Questions should be asked in advance and then again at the meeting. The Board chair must maintain firm, fair, and respectful control of the meeting. A gavel is highly recommended. For public input, set a time limit and don’t allow testimony to be repetitive. You have the right to control and decorum. Issues are emotional. You need to appropriately and respectfully gather information. You should not allow applause. Don’t allow individuals to speak unless they have signed up. It is important to have decorum. You can ask people to recuse themselves if they can’t control themselves or you can ask them to leave. You have the right to make these types of statements and the right to enforce these requests. Meetings are all public meetings but if people are not following the decorum of the meeting or the rules, you can remove them from the meeting. There was concern about the risk of violating open meeting law. If individuals are disrupting, you can ask them the leave with no problem so long as such removal doesn’t violate open meeting law but are asking them to leave because they choose not to follow the rules you have established. You can determine the rules under which the meeting will be conducted so long as the rules don’t violate the open meeting law. If you have a quorum and start deliberating toward a decision on any matter the meeting must be posted. This should not be evaded by holding smaller meetings with less than a quorum present and then aggregating the vote. Don’t aggregate votes or go between contacts to ascertain his/her sentiments. An administrator can speak to an individual board member to understand how they feel about a situation and to understand what data to collect so the board can be better informed and so we can have a better meeting. It is information exchange so you can be more responsive with information. It can’t be between two board members and call each to get their vote. It can’t be the administration calling each board member in lieu of a vote. Don’t do a go between. You are not a go between if you are not connecting the dots between the individual board members. It is ok to gather information to determine what the questions might be so you can be better prepared to give the board member the information they need to make the best decision. A go between-contact solicits a vote or action. If you are working toward a decision, that is part of your vested authority and you don’t want to do it in isolation. You don’t want to be blind sighted and you don’t want to blind sight the board. The superintendent can seek the advice of individuals but don’t connect the dots by soliciting how they will vote and then letting others know what you have discovered. Only the Board can hire and fire employees. It can delegate authority to the superintendent/designee to suspend. The administration makes a recommendation to terminate a person from employment. That is not official until it is on the Board’s agenda. That is like suspending until the board meeting. Don’t gather information on your judicial responsibility. You can talk about issues but don’t solicit a vote. If you have only two people, you can volunteer information one to one but do not call others to ask them to vote. You need to look at the intent of the conversation. The members of the board can attend information meetings but will not be able to act on anything presented there because there is never a quorum present. Mr. McBride wondered if gathering information on a one on one basis is permissible. Don’t gather information regarding your judicial responsibility such as an upcoming disciplinary action for an employee. You can talk about something like the budget or property purchase if you don’t completely understand it because that is your legislative responsibility. You can talk one on one but don’t ask other board member to be part of that conversation. Mr. Nelson encouraged the members to talk one on one because it might help them to think about additional questions that you might pose to the broader group. Don’t solicit a vote, just get a broader understanding and you can volunteer your opinion based on the information you have at the time and don’t turn around and call everyone else to try to solicit a vote. Mr. Nelson encouraged the Board to look at policy #1600 Code of Conduct for School Board Members. This is an adopted policy of the District and when you took the oath of office, you pledged your solemn integrity to follow the policies of the District. If there is something in this policy you can’t tolerate and refuse to abide by then ask yourself if you should really do this. You are in a hopeless position to have strong opposition to this particular policy. You may have a position that you can’t serve in with integrity. No one here wants to be without integrity and you don’t want to be in conflict with your own policy. You can choose to advocate for change in policy or to not remain involved. Under Commitments in the policy, #9 is the most controversial. It seems to impede free speech rights. It is not intended to do that. You need to abide by the majority decisions of the Board while retaining your right to seek changes through constructive (legal) and ethical channels. Don’t go out and try to denigrate another board member because of something they said privately in executive session or sharing information about others that is confidential with inappropriate individuals. Don’t violate confidentiality or falsify information. So, don’t post on advocacy websites statements that are not true or breech confidentiality. Show mutual respect. You can have enough respect to disagree and be able to articulate opinions and still get along. There was a question about reimbursement for Board members and regulations in Idaho Code. Different states have different requirements and others who are non-compensated elected members do get limited compensation. That could be changed through legislation. Maybe ISBA could sponsor some legislation to correct the situation. Chairperson Winchester thanked Mr. Nelson for his time and for his presentation to the Board. II. Board Self-Assessment- Annette Winchester Chairperson Winchester discussed the board’s self-assessment. III. Brain and Learning - Annette Winchester, Marjean McConnell Chairperson Winchester asked Mrs. McConnell to speak about the Brain and Learning conference they attended. Mrs. McConnell asked what Robert Preston and Meredith Wilson did together. She asked everyone to u se their tools to find out the answer. She then showed a video about the “chicken fat” song that we used to exercise to. They wrote Chicken Fat together in the 1960’s to get kids to exercise. The Presidential fitness was also created. Where we started with chicken fat is where we are with brain research. When John Media came five or six years ago is when we started to look at how kids learn in various ways. Compare kids sitting in rows doing their physical fitness to Chicken Fat to the new iPhones where we have apps to help us with exercise and tracking what we are doing. That is where we are headed with common core and what we are trying to accomplish at school. We need to take kids to where they have the opportunity to know and be able to do the important things that help them become lifelong learners. We have to ask ourselves what we want our kids and grandkids to know to be successful citizens. Learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. The most stressing task is teaching people how to learn. Learning is changing very quickly. We need to prepare kids for the present and the future. Teaching information is important but, teaching them important learning dispositions that will enable them to become lifelong learners is what we want to do. Kids need to be able to adapt and be lifelong learners to be able to survive. We need to be teaching kids to problem solve, think critically, collaborate, agility and adaptability, initiative and entrepreneurship, writing, oral communication, accessing and analyzing data, creativity and imagination, empathy, tolerance, perseverance, grit, tenacity, autonomy, and working in groups. If we are going to serve our students, these are the dispositions that we really need to look at teaching. We need to determine the learning dispositions that we need to focus on. These dispositions are taught through the shifts in instruction as we implement the common core. We now have many information resources available. It used to be that the teacher held the knowledge and the kids had to come to school to get it. We need to help them use the information in good and productive ways. In some ways it seems like technology has caused us to be dumber because we rely on it so much. But, maybe we are we using our brain differently for other applications than just memorization. If we use the phone, we have lost that information and there is a concern about how we balance it. You remember things by using them. Relevance means that show kids different ways to get the answer and how they can use the information. Then they internalize it and know it. With the ISAT we were teaching factoids. We had kids who knew a lot of stuff but had no clue what to do with it. We are shifting back to teaching kids how to use what they know. That is really the shift in the common core instruction. The board will always control of the curriculum. We have policies, committees, and teachers that go through established processes to make changes in curriculum. It will always come to the board for adoption. Mrs. McConnell doesn’t see the board adopting the nasty stuff that is being tied to common core. Some of the stuff is contained in a book and if it is not appropriate, we won’t use it. There are processes in place that people can get a book reviewed and removed if necessary. When you go into a classroom, you will see an active classroom. Kids will be doing and will be engaged. They will be using the information they have. We are not going to stop teaching them how to read and how to do math and how to read. We will let kids use the information in a framework they understand. The brain loves to solve problems. In video games, kids are solving problems and using what they learned to get through the game. The active learning is taking what you have learned and what we are teaching you and put it in a process where it is active and the kids are internalizing it. That is the goals of the shifts. The communicating, collaborating, reading informational material and writing gets kids involved and they will love learning and education. Because there is so much change, kids need to be taught values. If not taught values, things may be confusing. We need to prepare kids to pass the test of life and that includes teaching kids to become good citizens and productive seekers of knowledge. They have to interpret, synthesize, compare, and contrast. They could be lead down a wrong path if we don’t teach them to think critically. They need to decide if something is right or wrong. We have to be careful that we are doing what is right for kids. We need to continue to accept changes in learning and using the information they have but the values don’t change. We need to teach them to be respectful of others. We are preparing our kids for a future we do not know. It will bring challenges. Common Core takes steps toward looking at learning dispositions and helping teachers be able to teach kids the knowledge and skills they need. There was a question regarding how teachers are accepting these changes. Some teachers are not accepting these changes. Many are looking at this and loving this because kids are engaged. The majority are embracing it and moving ahead with it. The concept is a lot of work. Our choice is to not focus on those who are holding back but to focus on our race horses and give them the resources to move forward. There are fixed mind sets and growth mind sets. The fixed mind set says the child was born with this intelligence and this is what they are going to be. The growth mind set says I can grow and learn if I put in the time and effort. We are hoping for the growth mind set. Many can’t wait to change the way they have been teaching. Kids need to become engaged. We need to teach in a different way. The new math curriculum will excite the growth minded people. We will do a lot of in service to help our teachers teach this way. Many of our teachers are excited about teaching in a different way. Sometimes if kids aren’t motivated, it is because we aren’t doing anything to engage them and are still teaching the same way. You can offset Alzheimer’s by doing different things that get you out of your box. The concept is the same with teaching, if you engage teachers and get them to think it is better way to teach it will make a great difference. High school teachers love content and it is hard to make the change. There is fear and we need to have patience, teach and work with individuals. They will need to accept that the change is what is best for our kids. Lunch 1:30 p.m. IV. 2014 - 2015 Board Meeting Calendar - Annette Winchester Chairperson Winchester discussed the proposed 2014 – 2015 Board Meeting Calendar with the Board. We need to move work sessions to September instead of October stream. Talked about the possibility of streaming meetings on home page so people can access them easier. Need to change the Work Session scheduled on August 6th to September 11th. Once we here from architects in July, we will know where we are going. We will start to talk to administrators and we will need to know by November what the plan for the 2015 – 2016 school year will be. We can get by for a year if we know we have additional space. We need to know what we are looking at and what we are planning for. We may need to add a few more work sessions as time goes on. We need to change the board retreat to week before. We need to schedule the work session before the 13th meeting in August and one more in September. V. Finances - April Burton Chairperson Winchester asked Mrs. Burton to discuss District Finances with the Board as well as the supplemental levy and possible bond election. For a bond or levy election to be held November 4th, the wording and resolution must be submitted to the County Clerk by September 5th. For a bond or levy election to be held on August 26th, the resolution must be turned into the County Clerk by July 7th. A. Supplemental Levy and Bond Discussion Levies are taxed on a yearly basis. A supplemental levy is for two years and is passed with a 50% + 1 vote. A Plant Facility requires a 2/3 vote because it is a 10 year levy. We will need to pass the supplemental levy for next year. Currently, we have a $3 million supplemental Levy. If not passed we will need to cut positions. We cut 65 positions when we had to cut $4 million from our budget earlier because of state holdbacks. We need to know by March if these funds will be available. We could go into August next year before an election but we couldn’t do it as a District. That amount is already in the budget for ongoing costs assuming the revenue will continue. If we have to go to split sessions, we don’t know our capabilities with our buildings and what the additional operating cost might be. The hope is that we can make needed changes $1 million per year without raising taxes or $34 for the bond. Split sessions will cost $750,000. We may increase the supplemental then have a bond later will talk after about this. B. Bond Discussion Bonds are long term debt. We may need to pass a bond next year. If we can renew the supplemental and pass a $34 million bond without raising the taxes, hopefully we could remodel two elementaries and the two high schools. We will need to listen to the architect’s report in July and then make a decision. VI. Effective Meetings A. Roberts Rules of Order and Parliamentary Procedure (basics) – Valerie Messick Chairperson Winchester asked Mrs. Messick to discuss Roberts Rules of Order and Parliamentary Procedure with the Board. Mrs. Messick went through a PowerPoint presentation and discussed styles, purposes, basic principles, general rules of order, steps in making a decision, amending a motion, general rules of debate, motion t o lay on the table vs. motions to postpone, recesses, and adjournment protocol. B. Public Input Protocol - Amy Landers Chairperson Winchester asked Mrs. Landers to discuss Public Input Protocol with the Board. Mrs. Landers stated that at ISBA meetings there was a lot of discussion regarding public meetings and how people have acted at those meeting. She talked with District 91 trustee Lisa Burtenshaw regarding how they handle public input. They got their ideas from the State Legislature. If there are a lot of people who want to give input they always state same rules. People can disagree but they don’t have to be disagreeable. Remind people that the board are all volunteers. Remind them of the 3 minute time limit and they need to address board. Refrain from applause to keep things respectful and keep the decorum of the meeting. Reminder of no public disruption. Have them fill out the form. They require a written complaint for personnel matters and the employee will be notified of such complaint. Patrons can’t come and talk about personnel matters. Personal attacks are not appropriate. Chairperson Winchester stated that she has never had a patron come to a board meeting and bad mouth a teacher or employee. There was one earlier this year that was bad mouthing the principal and the secretary. We can end it in an hour. Should not allow public input if it is not on the agenda. Why not notify a day in advance and limit the number of people who will speak. We need to check out the policy. People can put comments in writing. We might want to add information about what school the individual’s students go to. That helps the board to know what the clientele is. District 91 always uses a timer. They have cards that show 2 minutes, 1 minute, and time is up. They allow less than 30 seconds if the individual keeps going. If the testimony is repetitive, ask them to come up with something new and different or choose one speaker. They invite an SRO when there is controversial stuff being discussed. We need to remember that the meeting is a board meeting. People are bringing stuff to the board so we can make a decision. It is not a public meeting it is a board meeting and the public is invited to observe. The board needs to keep the public in check because it is not their meeting. They need to follow our rules. Our work session are our meetings. We only have public input at the regular meetings. We have never asked for public input at our work sessions. We have the policy and we need to use it if we need to. VII. District Mission, Vision, and Strategic Planning – Chuck Shackett, Marjean McConnell Chairperson Winchester asked Dr. Shackett and Mrs. McConnell to discuss the District’s Mission Vision statements and strategic planning efforts with the Board. Dr. Shackett stated that a lot of stuff goes on in the District. It is hard to work when everything is dysfunctional and no fear so, the most important relationship is between the Board and the superintendent. That relationship is built on trust. Things can happen when there is trust. We have a very functional board and he appreciates it. When new board members come on, they think this is how things happen in all districts because this is your first one. This is not your typical school district and a typical leadership team and the typical way things are done. He cautioned the Board to be careful about information from ISBA. They are a corporation and they want us to do their things. Sometimes they don’t do it the best way. We are an exceptional district. Chairperson Winchester explained that in a lot of districts there would be nothing happening together with the board and administration, there would be no PLCs, there would be no evaluation of principals or the superintendent put in place. Our comradery is not typical. Dr. Shackett stated that we are leading the state in many respects and people come to us to see what we are doing. We do have problems but we take those things seriously and try to get on top of those things. This is something special we have been building for several years. We want to catch the board up on what we are doing. This is stuff we probably would have gone over by now if we hadn’t been so focused on the bond issue. Mrs. McConnell discussed how the administration uses the current board goals as their driving principles. We started strategic planning about 10 years ago in the District. Three years ago the District redid the District Mission, Vision, and Values. We always update these with the Board Goals. Everyone is aware that student achievement is a Board Goal and we need to aim toward student achievement. What the board decides today, will be what the principals and departments will be setting their goals by tomorrow. Our Mission, Vison, and Values along with the Board’s Goals comprise what we need as a strategic plan. It has been helpful to have the concise board goals. We will give the board growth data as soon as that is available. The PLCs have given us the structure to help us accomplish great things in our District. We go through everything at the District level on Mondays to make sure trips and other things we are doing align to the strategic plan. Departments can make decisions regarding what is going on in that department or school. Rob Rapp was invited to present at a Mile Posts Conference. He sent an email today stating that Bonneville 93 was presented the 1st annual Ariella award. This was presented to the district that has implemented Mile Posts to personalize the instructional system to improve student achievement. We are viewed as leaders throughout the state of Idaho. The culture we have created in the District has allowed the administration to function and allowed us to be recognized as exemplary throughout the state. Thanks to Mr. Woolstenhulme for bringing Mile Posts into the district. He and Mrs. McConnell have had a huge impact on the District. We have a focus on collaboration, learning, and results. Every school has a leadership team that works on those three main ideas. We constantly are asking ourselves, what we want students to know, learn, and know; how do we know if they are learning; what about interventions; and what about gifted students. Enrichment is one of our weaknesses. A perfect example is at the last awful Board meeting were Mrs. Hix spoke after people were so disrespectful. She turned the presentation over to the principal and teachers. They shut everybody up. It was their choice and loved it. There is no fear to try things. We let the PLCs make decisions. You couldn’t take it away from those teachers they wanted to do it. As a result there was not another negative spoken word on the Math adoption. Schools have to decide what is right for the individual community. We really believe in this and it empowers everyone. They tell us what they are going to do. We don’t tell them what to do. Our Wednesday collaboration time is key to this working. The teachers are focused on the 4 questions every Wednesday. They couldn’t have meaningful collaboration without this time. We have given the schools tools; the STAR testing and Renaissance. Teachers know what the data means and every Wednesday they answer the four questions. That is why our scores are so great. On Wednesdays, teachers should not leave. It is not optional. They will either be in grade level or departmental teams working on those four questions. It is collaborative time to work as teams on the four questions It is a great time to visit the schools during PLC time. The principals will be validated. It is going well in the high schools. It is different at the high schools but they are accomplishing good things. They have leadership teams. They have 90 minutes per week with sometime in the morning and sometime in the afternoon. It continues to evolve. The leadership team evolves, adjusts, and works together. This is philosophy of how education should be. It is not a program. PLCs continue outside of Wednesday. There are teachers working together today to improve education for kids in the fall. This has brought collegiality. Teachers are working together and helping people to be comfortable. They are thinking and working on continuous improvement. WISE plan is required to be submitted to the state every year because we have at least one school that needs improvement as a result of star ratings. We send the 50 page plan to the state and create a one page plan shows where we have been and where we are going. All assessment data and any behavior plans are in one place and follow the student from grade to grade and school to school in the District. Mile Posts does this for us. Mr. Woolstenhulme has testified in Boise twice regarding Mile Posts and its usefulness as a focus on data management and use. The indicators are what we use to put in our plan. The WISE plan doesn’t drive what we are doing. The PLCs define our beliefs and support what we are doing and fits what the state wants. We find ways to make the WISE plan support what we are already doing. We are the only district in the state that doesn’t use Charlotte Danielson for teacher evaluation. We use JPAS and it is in alignment with Charlotte Danielson that has been adopted by the State Board. We have been using this process for at least eight years and have received approval from the state to use this system. It is best practices for teachers. It is better than the Charlotte Danielson plan and it has been vetted and researched. They continue to do iterator reliability tests on the plan. There have been changes to domains 4 and 5 for this year and this will be significant for teachers. These include planning, professional collaboration, and follow-through with professional development. Now use of technology and resources in the classroom will be evaluated. Cross disciplinary instruction or collaboration with each other and parents will be evaluated. The tool is researched based and principals have to be trained so that the evaluations are fair and consistent across the board. The senate education committee was supportive. The data it is valid and reliable and is meant to help teachers grow professionally. It helps teachers to become better teacher. It is a lot of work. It is a place to talk about professional development. It is objective and you can talk to teachers about what was observed. It is less work than Danielson and it holds relationships solid. It is meant to be an evaluation tool and used to identify teachers who need help and celebrate those who do well. We piloted the Marzano Leadership Evaluation tool this year for our building administrators. It worked well. Mrs. McConnell is filling out the paperwork to send to the State on this program. We will adjust policy as needed and required by the state. This is also an evaluation tool that is outside the states scope but Marzano is a leader in evaluation for administrators. We feel we have made some good strides toward administrator evaluation. Chairperson Winchester added that we used the Marzano model for the superintendent evaluation policy this year as well. Mrs. Landers stated that the Board thinks that Dr. Shackett does a great job and thanked him for helping the district to move to where it is at this point. Mrs. Burton stated that the budget isn’t the driving force in the District but, PLCs have become the driving force behind the budget. The finance people are about the numbers and being part of the PLC helps her understand the educational aspect and helps her put resources where they need to go for the students. We have to submit consolidated plans to the state regarding how we will use our federal money for accountability purposes. Our special education budgets are not included but will get a copy to the board. These require separate budgets and reports to the state because of the large amounts of money and accountability required by the federal government. The reports that are included show how we arrived at the budgets and how we will spend the money. There have been needs assessments, surveys, etc. with our teachers to understand how to best allocate our Title II resources. You have last year’s plan but we will give you an updated consolidated plan for 2014 – 2015 as soon as it is refined and submitted to the state. Title 1 funds are for at risk students. – Title 2 funds go toward professional development. Title 3C funds are allocated for migrant students. LEP and Homeless funds are under Title 1. We will update at a work session. Mr. Nelson wondered if the federally funded programs are use it or lose it funds. We can carry over a limited amount each year. These are on a reimbursement plan. We have to spend the money and then submit to the state for reimbursement. They will only reimburse based on our allocation and the allocation for Title I is based on free and reduced numbers. Federal funds are different than our M & O money. There are very strict rules for federal funds. The strings for use are very tight. These funds are to be supplemental in addition to state funding. We have to show how we have spent M & O for Special Education, Title 1, Migrant, and LEP then the state will provide the federal funding for these programs. There was a question regarding the percentage of students that a school would need to become a Title 1 school. School‘s are ranked but they need to exceed the District average. Chairperson Winchester complemented those who put together summer school and used BYU-I students. It was such a good idea because we need to allow more of our students to attend summer school. The partnership is great. Clarice Miller has been a driving force in getting those students to help for summer school. Those kids don’t cost us money and it allows us to have more student participation. Our principals interview student teaching candidates and pick the cream of the crop. Then open the rest up to other districts. It puts interviewing on a different scale because principals interview during the semester and can see how the student teacher performs and interacts. Mr. McBride wondered where we start a new teacher. Because of our negotiated agreement, we start them out a little above the state schedule. Mr. Woolstenhulme spoke about the technology plan for the district. They want to connect every classroom in the district wirelessly to our network by 2016. After three years, we are moving forward with this concept. We h ave done a lot of work over the last two years to get ready for the wireless access points in the schools. We redesigned our internal network. We were allotted extra plant facility funds to upgrade our core switch and firewall. We will need to update our mobile device policy as well. We want to encourage teachers to use technology in their classrooms. Identifying sufficient funding sources for this project has been huge. He thinks we finally have a way to fund that. We are moving from reservation about using mobile devices in the classroom to excitement about using them. We are incorporating safety devices to make sure that our kids are safe and that our network is safe. We will see huge benefits educationally as we move forward. This will enhance the way we do formative assessment. We need to talk about two different networks. One is our internal network that connects our schools and our district office together and the other is the external network that connects to the internet. In 2008-2013 we had 1 gig of bandwidth for the entire district. The recommendation was to have 1 gig per 1,000 students. We are exceeding that because we have a 10 gig connection between Hillcrest and the Tech Center, 10 gig between Sandcreek and our Tech Center, 10 gig from Rocky Mountain and Bonneville to our Tech Center, 10 gig between Falls Valley and our Tech Center, and each of our 18 elementary schools have a 1 gig connection. The 2017-2018 the target is not much bigger than what we have. The city of Ammon provided the 10 gig connections for us at a price that wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise. We are upgrading switches in our schools and were able to upgrade our core switch for 50% of what we were expecting to pay. We will now be able to take advantage of the higher network capacity. Now we need to upgrade our internet bandwidth. We got a 190 meg connection from IEN and a secondary connection from CableOne of 120 megs. We have had spikes of 400 megs on the CableOne network this year. This is preventing us from having a wireless network in place. Once we have solid wireless network in place, we will need more external bandwidth. We are getting a new connection of 250 Megs from the City of Ammon and paying $12,000 per year for that connection. That is a good price for what we are getting. We just got news from IEN and they will bump us up to 200 Megs. We will have 550 Megs guaranteed and an additional 100 Megs that connect us to college campuses for a total 650 Megs. That is equal to five times our current capacity. Our internal connection through CableOne is about $35,000 per year with the Erate. The going rate is about $120,000. If we were to add internet connections through them would be very pricey. We are still less than half of what the recommendation is for our number of students. For mobile devices for every student, we are not there yet. It will be at least three years before we can have every student connected. If we put in our own system we will receive $60,000 per year and will be money ahead in three years as long as JFAC continues to fund that. The total cost will be about $800,000. There will be three sources of funding used for this. We need to take a break from devices and focus on getting the network in place then we will work toward getting the devices into kids’ hands. We will need to look at the following policies: wireless internet, mobile devices, computer use agreement, and possession of pornography on school grounds. Mr. Nelson wondered if there is a way to teach kids about what pornography entails. Kids have no idea that they can be prosecuted for child pornography for sending a self image. We have to teach internet safety. Brenda Curtis has done a great job of coordinating that over the past several years. There is a great website called Common Sense Media that provides lesson plans for teachers so they can cover all these things. Every year, every teacher teaches this. There was a question regarding whether we have had any problems with security. We have not had any attempts to hack our systems. We have SSL Certificates on PowerSchool and our financial data. Sandcreek has a grant and will be using data in Google accounts and parents will have to opt in. Mrs. Hix is over professional development and does a tremendous job. She offers classes during the two semesters we are in school and during the summer. We had 660 credits earned by our teachers through professional development this last year. Mrs. McConnell invited the board to participate in any of these classes. The Idaho Best Practices Institute is fabulous. It is scheduled for July 21 -22. She also invited board members to attend that to see what is going on. The number sense and bar learning is a professional development that we are doing to help our teachers get ready for the math adoption this fall. Professional Development plan focuses on ELA and will work to make sure that is done. We can amend the plan as we go and understand where our needs are. Some money has been allocated to help with common core instruction along with Title 2 money. Teachers have lots of opportunities to take classes to help them become better teachers. The feedback from the JPAS reports helps us know what classes we need to offer to support our teachers. Common Core has been a big focus lately. We love to host these things and people from other districts participate. Mrs. Hix has put the Idaho Best Practices Institute back together for teachers in the state. The last tab is our safety plan. We are only one of two districts in the state to have a safety officer. The report shows schools and capacities. We have a safe school environment. We may have become somewhat complacent. The city of Ammon had a contest to proof the concept of leveraging high speed internet to improve response time between schools and sheriffs departments. Can the video feed go directly to sheriff’s department so they can have real time information? They want to do live fire to capture information. It will be on a Saturday or Sunday at Sandcreek or possibly Hillcrest. The sheriff’s department will do this. There will be material to catch the bullets and there will be full school lock down. The trigger will initiate the feed to the sheriff’s department. They will be able to see the building and identify where the shooter is. We do a lot of things that the board doesn’t know about. Dr. Shackett will be presenting an increase in benefits to the leadership team at about $20,000 over a two year period. It is hard to keep a team together and he wants to keep this team together. When you look at salary schedules for certified and classified we don’t get steps on the salary schedule because we are on a contract. We appreciate you as Board members. You volunteer a lot of time. Thanks for accommodating us with special meetings. We need to get a lot approved as a growing district. Thanks for helping us out and helping us to keep functioning. VIII. Board Goals for 2014 – 2015 – Annette Winchester Chairperson Winchester discussed the Board’s goals for 2014-2015 with the Board The following are the Board’s goals: A. Student Achievement Focus on student achievement through improving the District’s network infrastructure, fully integrating and implementing existing classroom technology, and continued implementation of the Idaho Core Standards. B. Safety and Environment Emphasis on security in our schools secondary by improving physical safety through structure and protocol. Improve respect for all by understanding and following board policies and protocol C. Community Relations Professionally develop, organize, and implement a Public Relations Program with a focus on building the image or our District, encouraging transparency and mutual respect, and educating our community. IX. ISBA Training Modules - Amy Landers Chairperson Winchester asked Mrs. Landers to discuss the ISBA Training Modules with the Board. The decision need to be made by the 1st of August. Mrs. Landers will find out where and who will train the Board. Chairperson Winchester asked for agenda items for upcoming meetings. She reminded those in attendance of the scheduled dinner Wednesday evening at 5:00 p.m. at the Sandpiper in Idaho Falls. X. Call for Agenda Items for Upcoming Meetings A. Information Meeting – Wednesday, June 25, 2014 – District Board Room – 7:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. B. Regular Meeting (Annual Meeting) - Wednesday, July 9, 2014 - 7:00 p.m. C. Work Session - Wednesday, July 23, 2014 -District Board Room - 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. XII. Adjournment Chairperson Winchester adjourned the meeting at 5:11 p.m. APPROVED: __________________________ Chairperson ATTESTED: __________________________ Clerk Date: ___________________