January 8, 2015 at 8:30 AM - Regular Meeting

Discussion:  Call to order at 8:30 AM. Staff: David Ludwig, Deb Hericks, Priscilla Quintana, Scott Issacson, Craig Peterson Guests: Freida Lange, Steve Williams

Discussion:  Freida Lange attended for NDE. Waiver is still being processed. This is a blue-print for us to proceed with education in NE. It will include all entities across the state (everyone working together to educate.) State Accreditation committee will be meeting later this month (AQuESTT - accountability model). Rule hearing is on January 27th at 10:00 AM Central. Schools will be identified next Fall. April 27/28 at the Data Conference will be important working AQuESTT. Important for all ESU administrators, staff (PDO), etc to be there to continue our support for our schools. School Safety Director - Jolene Palmer will be talking to affiliates regarding providing the training (suicide prevention, etc.) They have a five year to training plan. Palmer will be putting together a committee to write standards for Safety in Schools. Delivery will begin August 2015.

Discussion:  Annual conference in SanDiego was a success. Planning for next year conference in New Orleans.

Discussion:  David Ludwig reviewed his goals for the year. Top priorities will be finances, policies/procedures, improve statewide Professional Developments Organizations and including NDE and stakeholders. Next step, President and Executive Director will review second section and bring back to Executive Committee for review at February meeting. If Board members have any input, please let Board President within the week.

Discussion:  Discussion was held that the April meeting needs to be changed due to NDE Board meetings. Move meeting to April 7/8.

Discussion:  Executive Director reviewed the Statewide Technology Plan that was created by a small group. The documents put all activities with some dates attached to keep processes moving forward. Recommendation to sign Memorandum of Understanding with IlliniCloud partnership.

Discussion:  Board reviewed the final audit of state auditors. There will be no formal presentation from Auditors to Board. A lot of findings were prior findings but they note that findings have since been implemented just not in current audit.

Discussion:  Continue to work on "draft" version with final due at March meeting. Last fall, ESU 13 provided a letter regarding verbiage in MSA, need to revisit this letter.

Discussion:  David Ludwig and Deb Hericks will work on creating ESUCC and PD calendar. We will look at other calendars with NDE, NCSA, NASB and others. We will work on a two year calendar.

Discussion:  Larianne Polk discussed ESU Services and how they will affect future funding. What services do ESUs charge their schools? Recommended to create a spreadsheet in Google Docs to include all ESUs information. Does anyone have Policy and Procedures for Board Members attending national conventions? Please share with other ESUs.

Discussion:  DL sites that are published. Would it be helpful to have all sites available for DL meetings. If you choose to attend in person you would still have to have a location available in case public attends. Have Open Meetings Law available. One person needs to be present at each DL site. Post meeting notice on front door of DL site. Education Committee - Mike Delaney send out a letter last night. Senator Davis will no longer on be Education Committee.

Discussion:  No public comment at this time.

Discussion:  Committee Chair, Radford reviewed the November financials and projected December financials. Overall feeling is much better with financials with additional meetings and budget spreadsheet.

Discussion:  Committee Chair reviewed the December Expenses.

Discussion:  Executive Director reviewed the financials statements from staff meeting on January 5, 2015.

Discussion:  Committee Chair reviewed the findings of the final audit report. Response to findings is included throughout report. Next step, staff will start working on procedures. If we have a common contract to use, it does not need legal review every time.

Discussion:  We have budget goals, but we will work to create fiscal management goals for the areas of deficit. Executive Director to work on some goals that we can discuss at the next meetings. Executive Director reviewed the beginning stages of budget goals for the identified areas. Each committee will review their goals and include their ideas of how we are going to meet these goals.

Discussion:  Will continue to work with legal on "draft" for next meeting with final due to Board in March.

Discussion:  Network NE has submitted a budget for funding. NDE has submitted 3 project proposals which were reviewed by the NITC. LB497 recommendations are to distribute lottery funds via NDE in the form of grants. All of these developments will have a positive impact on K-12 education in NE.

Discussion:  A group met to discuss the process of the Statewide Tech Plan. This plan is to help move forward the technology projects across the state (ie: single sign on, identity management, etc). IlliniCloud will like us to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with them so it documented as to our plan to partner with them. Additional grant funding opportunities may be available in the future due to our participation in a multi-state effort such as this. We need to add some language into agreement regarding student data (FERPA, IDEA, etc.) We received a donation from IllniCloud of 25 servers so go toward getting us started with our plan. These are in the inventory of the ESUCC but divided between ESU 2 and ESU 10. Single Sign-on - Will have a demonstrable system of the federated sign-on and application portal by 2/15/2014. Cloud infrastructure - a group of technical staff meets weekly to design and build the private cloud system, with the goal of having a production system ready in the summer of 2015, continuing to add participating ESUs and districts. Cost-efficiency, backup, disaster recovery, data privacy, and security are major considerations in this work. Dave Ludwig and Bob Uhing will work with technical staff to develop common language documents helpful in describing the system and benefits to ESUs and school districts. Vendor Management - We want to be careful to not get locked too tightly into any one vendor. Dean Folkers and Scott Isaacson are going to a vendor management conference for SLDS states January 13-14. Four people plan to attend the ICE conference in Illinois February 25-27 in support of our partnership with the IlliniCloud. This conference is similar in nature to Nebraska's NETA conference. Data dashboard - The pilot of the system continues work with the 9 pilot districts this spring. An additional 35 districts are interested in being part of the next wave of early adopters. Ongoing meetings are being held between ESUs 2, 5 and 10 regarding statewide Power School support. NE Repository for Online BlendEd Learning - beginning planning toward a repository of master courses that can be freely used by teachers statewide . The Safari Montage support contract is up for action in a separate agenda item in this meeting.

Discussion:  Discussion was held around memorandum of understanding with IlliniCloud.

Discussion:  Rhonda Eis reviewed her attached report.

Discussion:  Scott reviewed his report--mostly discussed in conjunction with the statewide technology plan.

Discussion:  Gordon Roethemeyer reviewed his attached report.

Discussion:  Continue to review with legal and have approved in March.

Discussion:  Scott Isaacson has been working with Sarfari Montage on negotiations. The current agreement, for $57,200 is for the 2014-15 year only and costs are projected to increase to the range of $200,000-300,000 in future years. A team will be formed based on the ESUCC board's action to evaluate the status of the current solution and specify and prioritize future development work to address gaps and projected needs. Funding for the LOR is included in NDE's eLearning project proposal which is pending action by the legislature. If the project is funded, funds would be available in the 2016-2017 fiscal year.

Discussion:  Currently, half schools in NE use Brightbytes to gather data. CASE would gather information on ESU levels.

Discussion:  Dave has had discussions with Krsten Swanson regarding getting a statewide licenses. Several ESUs interested in joining the pilot. February 23-24 is a training in CA.

Discussion:  Craig Peterson has been looking at other procurement options.

Discussion:  Coop staff and EMS had the quarterly meeting on Jan. 6th. There is concern as to whether ESM is working to meet the goals that were set and agreed upon. It was also noted that the "aggregation" needed by Coop cannot be completed by the ESM software.

Discussion:  All paper will be ordered and delivered early this year. It was noted that Paper 101 will be providing the "bulk" paper orders this year (pallet, 5 pallets, 10 pallets, 21 pallet truckloads). There were a few of our "usual" vendors that did not bid this year due to the multiple school deliveries.

Discussion:  Interim Coop Director discussed the updated World Book contract.

Discussion:  Interim Coop Director discussed/reviewed AEPA Contract Extensions that need to be approved.

Discussion:  Interim Coop Director reviewed AEPA new contracts that need approval.

Discussion:  Interviews will be held at the Ainsworth Coop office. Mr. Ludwig will send applicant information to interview committee members.

Discussion:  David Ludwig has developed some goals for the Coop project. He will be communicating with Coop staff to work through these goals.

Discussion:  It was noted that we have procedures for Coop, but we do not have policies. We will start looking at creating/adopting policies later in the year.

Discussion:  Executive Director is looking at formatting the MSA a little differently. We will be reviewing the Coop section of the MSA to suggest necessary changes.

Discussion:  Reviewed updates to the January PDO. Mission statement has been revised and ready for final approval. Final version will go to PD in January with final approval on mission will be with ESUCC Board in February. We have invited higher ed and each ESU could invite up to 5 school people to join the meeting. Currently, 115 registered with NDE-13; Higher Ed - 4; and School - 17. Most of these will only be present the first day.

Discussion:  Discussion was held regarding budget requests already received and those needing to be submitted. Will continue to work with affiliates to get requests in by February meeting.

Discussion:  Executive Assistant reviewed current grant including carry over funds and other grant opportunity. Winnebago has declined option.

Discussion:  Marge Beatty updated committee on SRS project.

Discussion:  SRS has been working with NDE and HHSS to update our forms to meet the requirements for the new Rule 52.Based on their feedback, we have undertaken the following tasks. They have created a new forms called “Notice and Consent for Early Intervention Initial Multidisciplinary Evaluation and Child Assessment” which replace our previous Notice of Initial Evaluation form. They are building a new “Notice of IFSP Meeting” form. There has been a couple small changes to the IFSP form Provided trainings for South Sioux City and ESU#1. Our Advisory Board meeting was held on December 18th. New Priority list was established, it includes the following tasks: Focus on Zend Conversions, Indicate Primary Disability on Edit Student Screen, Search by Disability, Add optional section to address transition activities on the Notice of Meeting Form.

Discussion:  Editing tests and activities to upgrade the coding for security.

Discussion:  They continue to maintain the ILCD Staff Survey site. SRS office emails data (along with a summary) to school districts upon request.

Discussion:  AAP Grant for this year has been approved. New funds will go toward report building features and further system improvements. We have made improvements to the printout of the AAP form, and continue to identify and fix bugs

Discussion:  Master Service Agreement - Advisory Board talked about a 5% increase for future years. Executive Director and Wade Fruhling to meet and discuss tier structure and SRS fees.

Discussion:  We interviewed one candidate for the new Systems Analyst position. The candidate seemed very capable but he was essentially our only option. We decided to expand our search by placing ads in additional job websites. Three more candidates have replied. Only 1 of the 3 had PHP experience (which is essential). Advertise in Omaha World Heralds and Lincoln Star Journal for two Sundays with close the following Friday. Recommendation to hire or move forth with Soliant by March 4th meeting.

Discussion:  Executive Director will continue to work with NDE on Medicaid: services and support. Milliken will be invited to meet with SPED Committee in February.

Discussion:  Larianne Polk will discuss with her SPED Director to see if interested.

Discussion:  Executive Director shared email from John Stritt for discussion regarding word changes in statute to include participation of public libraries and non-profit entities. Potential to increase Network NE expenses. Would need bigger equipment to increase hardware to include extra bandwidth. They would like a letter of support to move forward to allow the legislation to be changed to include public libraries or non-public to be added to Network Nebraska. Wait until after February meeting when we have more information. Executive Director will have discussion with OCIO to gather more information on how it will impacts costs to current K-12 schools and ESUs.

Discussion:  Executive Director discussed the recent conversations regarding the lottery funds. The lottery funds need to be utilized for new and innovative projects.

Discussion:  Executive Director shared diagram of what the repository concept could look like. (BlendEd) This model could include master courses for each content, digital content, course repository, etc.

Discussion:  Executive Director discussed the Tier 2 Funding and how it will affect distance learning across the state. Schools District and ESUs will need approval of courses (career readiness, dual credit, etc.)

Discussion:  Three specific needs - capital, additions to facilities, new facilities. Facility funding, what can we currently find that we have in place that will help meet these needs. Can we modify language in QCPUFF to include ESUs. Would that help ESUs? Joint Partnership Act to help provide additions to buildings. (Cap is 5% of restricted funds, increase to 10%) ESU #6 has updates documents and will share with Executive Director and others to try and move forward.

Discussion:  Discussed the letters received KSB School Law and Harding & Shultz.

Discussion:  There are none at this time.