January 23, 2017 at 6:30 PM - Regular

Description:  Demuth, Habben, Hesse, Humbert, Schurman, and Wesenberg. 

Student Members:  Lisa Volkers, Tayler Dingmann, and Nick Warne.

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:  Student board members have opportunity to share information about the activities of the Student Senate or other comments as they desire.

Description:  This agenda item is intended to be a formal opportunity for the School Board and its members to recognize and celebrate success within the ROCORI School District.  Most of the recognition comes in the form of ROCORI Proud presentations although the recognition is not limited to that format.

Description:  This ROCORI Proud recognition is intended to represent exemplary performance that is completed or accomplished at a high standard. The ROCORI District expects to be central Minnesota's public education standard of excellence. Behaviors, effort, and performance demonstrating that high standard is worthy of recognition.

Description:  Abby Lieser received honorable mention for the St Cloud Times All-Area Volleyball team.

Description:  Eleanor Holthaus and Morgan Holthaus were named to the St Cloud Times All-Area Volleyball Team.

Description:  Kaitlyn Reinhardt received honorable mention for the St Cloud Times All-Area Girls Soccer team.

Description:  This recognition is intended to represent actions and behaviors that improve conditions, have significant impact on others, or dramatically affect the school district, individuals or organizations within the school system.

Description:  Tom Siekkinen was nominated for a ROCORI Proud for volunteering his time to assist in the many aspects of the Middle School Musical Theater Class.

Description:  This award is intended to recognize actions and behaviors which provide a foundation for the future of individuals or organizations within the district. Long-lasting changes, major innovations, or significant work on the direction of the school district are appropriate elements for recognition. Elements of district vision, anticipation of issues in the future or other improvements which "create a better tomorrow" would be eligible for recognition.

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 Organizational and Work Session meetings of January 9, 2017 are included in the exhibits. Recommend approval of the minutes from the meetings.

Description:  It is the practice of the district to review the list of substitutes at the middle of the school year.  Many times, there are adjustments to the list as new substitute employees are added and others have withdrawn from service.  The approval of the list serves as authorization from the school board to compensate the substitutes.  Recommend approval of the list of substitutes.

Description:  Minnesota statutes relating to open enrollment allows any resident to apply for enrollment to another school district by January 15 of each year. Unless open enrollment is blocked or stopped by legitimate reason within a school district, applications received by the January 15th deadline must be accepted by the schools involved. Because the ROCORI District participates in an integration collaborative, all open enrollment applications must be accepted.  At this point, the district has received a few new open enrollment applications for 2017-18 that should be acknowledged and approved. Continuing open enrollment status does not require annual approval; once open enrollment is authorized, it is a continual approval. Recommend approval of the enrollment applications.

Description:  McKenzie Janson is being recommended as the Long Term Substitute for Language Arts.  The substitute role is required for the leave of absence of teacher Linda Liebl.  This will be from the end of January until March 10, 2017 or until the teacher returns.

Lynn Stein is being recommended as an Early Childhood Special Education Paraprofessional at the District Education Facility.  This is to meet the needs of a new student and would be for 2 hours per week for the ten weeks.

Description:  There are several standing items of business related to financial reports in the district. The standard agenda items are included at this time.

Description:  Board Treasurer Jason Wesenberg will review financial information for the board.  Approval of Treasurer’s Report is recommended.

Description:  Treasurer Wesenberg will review the monthly bills and offer recommendation regarding payment. The Treasurer has typically been at the school site to review bills, ask questions, and confirm information prior to the meeting.  Recommendation is to offer approval of bill payment as directed by the Treasurer.

Description:  The business office provides an update of district expenditures and revenues through the Budget Comparison Report.The report is intended to provide a financial picture of the district in a couple ways.One is to compare current year expenditures to the previous year.The second is to simply give a report on the current financial status.In addition to the report, special items of note are highlighted in the explanations offered. This report does not require formal action but is provided as an informational item.

Description:  Action items receive individual attention because of the nature of the issues, the need to discuss or review the information prior to taking action, or the specific kind of action required for the item.

Description:  As introduced at the last school board meeting, Stephanie Hillman, Community Education Director, has been working with the Business Office and Early Childhood staff on the development of an early childhood 'wrap-around" care project. At one time, almost two years ago, the school board had some preliminary discussion about developing wraparound care in conjunction with the early childhood classes as a means to provide greater opportunities for parents and students to participate in our program.

Stephanie has been working to develop a concept plan to implement wrap-around care for the fall of
2017.  In order to provide information to parents in a timely and appropriate fashion, the wrap-around care proposal is shared for action.

Based on the idea and proposal developed, recommend authorization for the wrap-around care project to proceed.

Description:  Discussion items receive individual attention because of the nature of the issues and the need for introductory or other discussion in order to review the information prior to taking action.  This is also the agenda location for items which simply need school board review, but no formal action on the item is required.  Discussion items will typically return to the agenda at a future point for more specific action.

Description:  At the last two meetings, the parameters and assumptions used to guide the budget development process were introduced.  At the last meeting, the initial process of developing the assumptions was referred to the Finance Committee.  The Committee met and is offering initial ideas for board consideration.  Recommend discussion of the Committee report with endorsement of the assumptions so that the Business Office may begin to develop the FY2018 budget.

Description:  At the last meeting, discussion occurred about "reversing" the process for review of policy by placing items of policy before the full board with decisions about the action needed with the policy made at the public meeting.  Options include a simple review of the policy, referral of the policy to committee, additional work by the full board, referral for administrative action, or other direction from the board.

Under the review cycle, Chapters 6 and 8 are scheduled for review during this school year.  There are several issues that have recently been discussed in committee or full board meeting, so several policies related have been included for initial discussion.

Recommend referral of policies to the committee for further review.

Description:  The members of the administrative team have been scheduled for one formal presentation to the School Board on an annual basis.  The intent of the presentation is to provide an update on issues occurring within the department and to identify strategic plans and direction within the program or department.  At the MSBA conference, board members in attendance requested time to discuss the presentation cycle and the need to have academic administrators in attendance on a more frequent basis to be able to interact, to hear from the administrators directly, and to have more specific updates on progress toward building goals.  The board members asked to have discussion about the reporting process.

Description:  During School Board meetings at the end of the calendar year, there were several points of discussion about the process for superintendent evaluation.  The subject has been part of MSBA training both for new Board members and at the MSBA Conference (breakout session and round table discussion).  With the conversations, there has been exchange that the School Board members should examine what has been done in the district and the process changes that are desired by the Board.

Description:  At several junctures during the election process, concerns were identified about some of the district
processes to communicate and share information. The district website, processes related to sharing
school board information, and other communications issues have been shared during the exchanges.  The School Board had conversation about this topic at the last meeting in November, but a request was made to have the item return to the School Board agenda for further clarification and discussion.

Expected conversation would include opportunities to be more open with board meeting information, website updates, potential inclusion of a standing agenda item for board members to share concerns they have heard in the community, and other means of engaging in public communications. No action is required on this agenda item; discussion is encouraged.

Description:  Administrative reports are requested of each administrator for update purposes. For the second meeting, the reports are offered by the Business Cabinet members. 

Description:  Superintendent Staska is expected to have a report for the board regarding district activities and information.

Description:  Board members will report on activities within their portfolio of committee and representative assignments.

Description:  Lisa Demuth, Kara Habben, Lynn Schurman, and Scott Staska attended the annual Minnesota School Board Association winter conference.  Updates and information from the conference will be shared at the meeting.

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