April 13, 2015 at 6:30 PM - Work Session

Description:  Board Members: Austreng, Bohannon, Demuth, Habben, Schnettler, Schurman.

Student Representatives: Anne Howard, Alyssa Job, Lisa Volkers

Description:  The School Board Chair will lead the board and attendees in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Description:  Board action to approve the agenda for the meeting is expected.

Description:  The agenda is open to visitors of the meeting to offer comments to and/or requests of the school board. The comments and requests should follow the adopted district guidelines which are printed and available at the meeting.  As a general rule, items introduced in the opportunity for comments and requests do not receive action from the School Board, but are taken under advisement or consideration for future action.

Description:  The RHS Student Senate has requested opportunity to address the board although not with the normal Student Senate report and update.  It is expected that Alyssa Job or Anne Howard will offer comment to the School Board.  The Student Senate is interested in learning how they might suggest or the path they might pursue to secure a change in schedule at the Senior High site.

Description:  Action is requested on the following items of the consent agenda. Consent agenda items are typically adopted without discussion of the individual items because they are routine or ordinary in action.  Any consent agenda item may be removed for further discussion and deliberation by any member of the board.

Description:  The minutes from the meeting of March 23, 2015  are included in the exhibits. Recommend approval of the minutes from the meeting.

Description:  The Minnesota Department of Education has changed its procedures to authorize individuals to access the secure website portals for reporting processes.  In the past, there has been a process by which the superintendent of schools has had to identify and submit names into the different areas of authorization for reporting, test access, financial information, and other secure areas.  The Department is eliminating the previous processes and is using a different system.  The instructions for the new process, from the Department of Education, say: "The agenda of your school board meeting should include an agenda item to designate the Identified Official with Authority to authorize user access to MDE secure websites for your local education agency. The school board meeting minutes must clearly designate you as the Identified Official with Authority, giving you the responsibility of assigning job duties to local education agency staff."  Typically, the Identified Official with Authority would be the superintendent of schools.

As such, it is recommended that action be taken to identify Scott R. Staska, Superintendent of Schools, as the Identified Official with Authority for the ROCORI School District.

Description:  Karen Weisbrich has submitted a letter of resignation from her part time teaching position as a "rehired, retired" Science teacher at the Secondary Schools, effective at the end of the 2014-2015 school year.  Recommend acceptance of the letter of resignation.

Barry Voight has served as Assistant Principal at the secondary site for the past three years.  Barry has been offered a position as the Middle School Building Principal in the Delano School District.  He has submitted a letter of resignation, pending board approval of the offer in Delano, effective at the end of the current contract year.  Recommend acceptance of the letter of resignation.

Description:  The district received a letter of intent to negotiate from SEIU representing the paraprofessional unit.  The letter indicates that the current agreement expires on June 30 and the unit desires and intends to negotiate a new agreement.  The district should acknowledge receipt of the letter of intent to negotiate.

Description:  Jerry Goodmanson, Social Studies teacher at the Secondary site, has requested a leave of absence from the district for the 2015-16 school year.  Jerry is seeking to pursue a ministry position.  Jerry has been with the district since the fall of 2006.  Recommend approval of the leave of absence.

Description:  This portion of the agenda has been designated to highlight programs and initiatives within the district or to invest extended time to discuss issues of strategic direction. 

Description:  John Hodson, Director of Community Education, is expected to be present to share information about the arious initiatives underway within Community Education and Early Childhood programming.

Description:  As the district begins to develop the budget for FY2016, the process has included discussion about the broad parameters and goals the school board may wish to pursue.  At this point in the process, several of the preliminary budget areas can be considered.  Michelle Evenson is expected to share some of the preliminary work in the smaller funds to begin the process of establishing 2015-16 budgets.

Description:  The six partner school districts and St. Cloud State University have been working to establish a Center for Partnership in central Minnesota.  The process is moving forward with a goal of hiring a director for the Center before the end of summer and beginning the work of the Center within the next school year.  Each school and partner has been asked to review information about the partnership and to consider the level of commitment that might be made to the Center.  Background information on the entire process, the immediate questions and the direction of the Center will be shared at the meeting.  No action is required at this time, but the issue will return to the next board agenda.

Description:  The month of April is historically the point the board considers the annual performance assessment of
the superintendent. Typically, the process begins with a review of the forms, assignment of responsibility, and development of timelines for the process.  The information and forms distributed in 2014 are included in the exhibits. Recommend discussion of the process.

Description:  The policy committee has been meeting and has been working on issues related to transportation,  The committee reviewed the existing ROCORI policy on transportation as it compared to model policies from the Minnesota School Board Association.  MSBA had multiple policies where the district had only one in place.  As the issues were examined, it was determined to separate out issues of policy into categories more in line with the models but to work to blend the existing language into the new policies.  This is the first reading of four transportation policies and no formal action is required.

Description:  The members of the Academic Administrative team are extended the opportunity of offer written reports to the school board to keep current on information, activities and plans at each site.  All reports that are received prior to agenda publication are included for board review.

Description:  A letter from the Senior Class has been received requesting a change in calendar for the class during the end of the school year.  Mr. Jenson has offered some feedback and direction regarding the request.  This is the first presentation of the information, so there is no action recommended at this time.  The request is submitted for your review and consideration but will return to the agenda on April 27 for action.

Description:  All of the employment contracts within the district, with the exception of the superintendent contract, conclude with the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2015.  The board negotiations team has been engaged in the MSBA Negotiations Seminar.  To help prepare for the negotiations process, the team has expressed a desire to conduct a Negotiations strategy session with the full board.  As a strategy session, the meeting will be closed to the general public and, upon completion of the discussion, the meeting will resume.

Description:  A calendar of upcoming issues of concern to the school board is included as part of the agenda.