Steering+Committee

=May 1, 2018= Agenda: End of the year in-service Data Camp – dates, who will attend Daniel focus – progress on Teacher evaluation and what’s next?? New SIP members – 2 teachers (Lindsay and Becky) and 1 community member (Colby) Discussion of Write Tools for new staff Summer plans for School Improvement ILCD Community Member input Minutes: Present: Lindsay Wonnenberg, Ronelle Kilmer, Kasy Epke, Becky Berry, Becky Lancaster, Bev Brown, Jeff Sayer, Jamie Isom, Andy Krueger, Suzy Beel, Angie Jordan, Jeff McQuistan, Cristen Witte Nothing from the April meeting minutes was changed. End of the year in-service--the schedule has been set, CPR, MANDT, science standards, updating curriculum. Jeff McQuistan has created a new site for our school district for our school improvement activities as well as the curriculum. It needs to be edited over the summer, before July 31. We need to move over the last three years of school improvement items as well as in-service items, things since our last accreditation visit. Data camp--June 4 & 5--all of the administration and the ILCD chair will need to go. Dr. Isom recommends that the whole school improvement committee attend if they can. It will run 8 to 3. We are hoping to leave with a plan for next year. Danielson--there is a Frontline webinar today, which is a software program that could help administration with the evaluation process. It works to help you prioritize which Danielson components you want to look at. The ESU expressed some interest in helping support this if it’s something that the districts are interested in. We will still use the same evaluation tool next year we used in the past; we are still transitioning. New SIP members--we need to think about making sure each building is represented. We have to consider the next accreditation visit in 2020. We also need to think about making sure people have time to prepare before they become chair/co-chair. We need to also try to find a community member. Write Tools for new staff--there is a training in Hastings that we are sending our new teachers to. School Improvement plans for the summer are to attend the Data Camp and move over information to the new Google Site. We should set up a Google Drive under the new Google account we are using for school improvement. All ILCD items should be on the Google site as well. ILCD--they need to do their data for this year. They are collecting their writing samples and will see if students made progress. If the school improvement goals change, the ILCD will follow suit. We are looking at math and science textbooks. Jeff Sayer talked to Michael Elliot and he is aware that there could be two textbook changes at once. Elementary will also need to look at their reading textbooks in the future. Dr. Isom recommended that the administrative team create a rotation schedule for the purchasing of textbooks. Then Sawyer can support the decisions that we are making (with whatever funds they are willing) - basically the district needs to take the lead.

=April 4, 2018= Agenda: Minutes: Present: Lindsay Wonnenberg, Ronelle Kilmer, Angie Jordan, Jamie Isom, Bev Brown, Cristen Witte, Jeff McQuistan, Suzy Beel, Andy Cronin, Becky Berry Nothing from the February minutes was changed. ILCD--Cristen talked to our rep, and she said everything looked good. Geraldine is going to do a training for our high school special education department to learn more about writing transition goals. Action Plan--we need to add to our action plan, things that are missing and things we have done since we did our improvement plan. We need to get our action plan put on eProve. Surveys need to be done within a year of the visit. We could also do some internal ELEOT observations so teachers are familiar with them. Dr. Isom stated that as we continue to implement Danielson, the ELEOT can go hand in hand with it. It could provide some valuable data, all related to student engagement. There will be a Data Camp put on by ESU in town at the Mid-Plains building on May 21-22. Someone from ILCD needs to be there, admin needs to be there, and also co-chairs need to be there. NSCAS--middle school ELA is done and is getting ready to do science. Elementary is going to get started; middle school is available to assist if needed. Google Site Transition--a school improvement account was going to be made by our tech people so that Google account can be passed down to any new person who takes over the school improvement committee. We need to move over as much as we feel is relevant from our Wiki to Google by the end of July. End of the year in-service--science teachers will unpack the new standards at the May 17 in-service. MANDT is also scheduled for the May 17 in-service day. Math teachers need time to look at new series. Elementary teachers need time to analyze their report cards. Jeff Sayer brought up Wowzers, a part of NWEA. It is something that could be looked at to help with math curriculum. Jeff McQuistan discussed Eureka for math curriculum. Jeff Sayer also discussed IXL as an alternative to Moby Max. Danielson--admin need to figure out our next step. New teachers will receive some Danielson training during TIP. Admin is discussing the possibility of sending the entire staff to the Summer Tech Institute in Norfolk next May. Middle school is sending four teachers to the Summer Tech Institute this year; high school is sending five. Elementary is sending a couple this year. =February 6, 2018= Agenda: Minutes: Present: Lindsay Wonnenberg, Joanna Utecht, Andy Krueger, Jeff Sayer, Becky Lancaster, Ronelle Kilmer, Kasy Epke, Cristen Witte, Jeff McQuistan, Angie Jordan, Andy Cronin, Becky Berry, Colby Fletcher, Suzy Beel Nothing from January meeting minutes was changed. Action plan--need to update it with what we have done with Danielson, domain 4, and the teacher reflection piece. Dr. Isom and Angie will meet to look at it, and then we will decide what exactly needs to be done. Self-reflection document--Jeff McQuistan created a document and so did Ronelle. Admin looked at Ronelle’s and Jeff’s and decided that Jeff’s might be a document we could use later on. Admin discussed Ronelle’s form and created a new one from that. Admin wanted to give more open-ended questions and then also have a rubric for teachers to score themselves. Administrators are going to share the document they created with the staff from their building on the SIP committee. When the admin had the ESU meeting, schools discussed how they are doing different things with their evaluation tool. Some are using their original evaluation piece and then using Danielson to guide the process. Jeff M. said we should look at Ainsworth’s evaluation as it is modeled directly off of Danielson. Jeff S. said he will look into asking NDE to offer examples of evaluation tools schools are using that are modeled from Danielson. ILCD--when they did the review on the 23rd, we had one area of concern, which is the post-school outcome goals for high school students. We have to revamp the way we write those goals so we are looking more toward the future, not just until the end of the time in our school system. Other than that, they had really nice things to say about our paperwork. They will work on the post-school outcome goals and keep working for the next two years until another evaluation. The ESU is sponsoring a two-day data dig May 22-23 for school improvement teams. We discussed our school improvement goal and what direction we should go. We decided we do need to do a deeper dig into data to decide where we go from here. Community member input--Colby Fletcher announced that he and his family are going to be moving as he took a new job. This was his last day for school improvement committee. We appreciate all of his hard work and attendance at meetings. TestWiz--Jeff M. is doing a presentation with middle school staff on TestWiz during February in-service.
 * Approve and/or add to the Action plan
 * More on Teacher reflection in the evaluation
 * Possible moving to a different Improvement goal
 * Upcoming Danielson training and what is next for staff
 * NSCAS testing
 * Data – Who will go to the Data Dig in May
 * Google Sites Transition
 * End of the year in-service
 * ILCD
 * Community Member input
 * Discuss and make a plan to update Action Plan
 * Follow up discussion on self-reflection document that Mr. McQuistan created (refer to email he sent on Jan. 13) to use with teacher evaluations.
 * ILCD
 * Community Member Input

=January 9, 2018= Agenda: Minutes: Present: Lindsay Wonnenberg, Joanna Utecht, Andy Krueger, Jeff Sayer, Andy Cronin, Becky Lancaster, Kasy Epke, Bev Brown, Angie Jordan, Ronelle Kilmer, Jeff McQuistan, Jamie Isom, Becky Berry, Cristen Witte, Suzy Beel Nothing from the December minutes was changed. Danielson implementation--we thought the short presentation during the in-service day went well. We discussed having a form teachers can fill out/look at related to our evaluations/observations. We agree we should move forward with an action plan in eProve. Andy K. mentioned it could work to have teachers pick an area post observation on the Danielson model where they feel they need to improve and could go into the post observation meeting with the principal ready to talk about it. It could be one more blurb on the evaluation that teachers need to answer/be ready talk about. Ronelle stated that reflection and goal setting needs to become part of an ongoing process. Dr. Isom reminded us this is one indicator in one area of Danielson. Joanna discussed a program she went through UNL which involved taping a lesson, having a coach watch it, and both of them came up with different things she could improve on. She stated it was a valuable process to go through; both of them saw different things and it created good conversation. Another powerful tool to use, Jeff M. stated, is to self-tape lessons. Andy C. stated that 4a is a good place to start because all teachers can achieve or at least see what a 4/Distinguished looks like. We agree the teacher reflection piece can be a short addendum to the evaluation, a form, that can be used K-12. The questions we can put on the form are: What went well? Why? What didn’t go well? Why? What would you changes would you make in the future? And then have an area to rate yourself (1, 2, 3, or 4) and why. We also talked about if we need to get a rotation going with our co-chairs. We talked about how someone needs to rotate some co-chairs off and new ones on. A tentative plan for the February In-Service: grade-level meetings, possible Test Whiz Training from the ESU, parent/teacher conferences for staff members (like last year ILCD: File Review on the 23rd of January - exit report at 9:30 at the elementary
 * Discussion how to go ahead with the Danielson implementation
 * - possible need for an action plan
 * - could add to the new AdvancEd online space
 * Follow-up on the presentation at January in-service
 * Discussion of the February in-service
 * ILCD
 * Community Member input

=December 5, 2017= Agenda: Here is a list of Danielson Component training modules that have been developed: 1c - Designing Coherent Instruction 1e - Setting Instructional Outcomes 2b - Establishing a Culture for Learning <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;">2d - Managing Student Behavior <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;">3b - Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;">3c - Engaging Student in Learning <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;">3d - Using Assessment in Instruction <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;">4a - Reflecting on Teaching <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;">4c - Communicating with Families Minutes: Present: Lindsay Wonnenberg, Becky Berry, Bev Brown, Joanna Utecht, Jeff McQuistan, Becky Lancaster, Ronelle Kilmer, Jeff Sayer, Andy Kreuger, Angie Jordan, Cristen Witte, Jamie Isom, Colby Fletcher, Suzy Beel Nothing from the November meeting minutes was changed. Jeff McQuistan, at the last meeting, mentioned ESU 5 & 13 had put together nine modules across all four domains. We need to start looking at what we need to do with staff in the near future during in-service time. Those ESUs said that really any of the nine domains would be a good starting point for our district to really start implementing Danielson. Jeff M. mentioned that the powerful part of this is that the information would come from the administrators, not the ESUs. The ESU would train the administrators. It would be a facilitated event. Jeff Sayer stated he’d like to start with 4a, and Ronelle added that would be a good way to help administrators and teachers have that conversation about observations. We all agreed to start with 4a, Reflecting on Teaching. We will be doing a short session, introducing 4a, during the January 4 in-service. The administrators will be trained prior to the January 4 in-service. Ronelle added that this will contribute to accountability, so every teacher will be able to hand in something related to their reflection. Angie asked if those who attended the AdvancED conference had seen what the new documentation looks like, not ASSIST, but eProve. She mentioned that we need to be looking to the future, since our next visit is 2020, just making sure we have what we need in eProve. Dr. Isom talked about how we have time; we will get familiar with the changes made in AdvancED. Jeff M. talked about how ESU is going through their visit this spring. ILCD--Our review is January 23/24. The state department will come and visit the schools. Considering the elementary playground issue we discussed at the last meeting, Dr. Isom had the guy who did the playground equipment back in 2000 came and looked around. She hasn’t gotten anything back from him yet, but she will.
 * Discussion of which Danielson domain or component to focus on to begin. Mr. McQuistan can share what ESU can provide for us – the following is the message he sent about this topic…
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"> ILCD
 * Community Member input

=November 7, 2017= Agenda: Minutes: Present: Lindsay Wonnenberg, Becky Berry, Angie Jordan, Bev Brown, Joanna Utecht, Jamie Isom, Jeff McQuistan, Suzy Beel, Becky Lancaster, Ronelle Kilmer, Colby Fletcher, Andy Cronin, Cristen Witte, Jeff Sayer Nothing from the October meeting needs changed. At the ESU principal’s meeting, they were unable to connect with Sue Pressler, but Jeff McQuistan went through a trial run on how to document watching a video clip related to domains 2 and 3. Jeff thinks it would be a good activity to replicate.Becky has been observing teachers based on domain 2 or 3, and she has found it easier to use than most had imagined. She types evidence while in the classroom and then goes back and sees how it fits with domain 2 and 3. Jeff M. reminded us Sue Pressler has recommended to make it more of a process rather than a once a year evaluation. So we may need to look at our process of evaluations. Lindsay spoke about the AdvancED conference and a session Joanna and her sat in on; it was Lexington’s system accreditation presentation. They focused on one domain and one particular strategy and then had consistent fidelity checks--sounded like the direction we needed to take with our implementation of Danielson. Jeff M. spoke about ESU 13 and what they have been doing to help school districts implement Danielson. He has spoken to Misty about implementing some of that, perhaps by having a training during an inservice on one component. It is led by the principals, which is its strength. Jeff M. has asked if there is a particular one domain to focus on and the feedback is that we can really start anywhere. So, we need to pick one domain to focus on. Planning on doing a training this spring semester. Dr. Isom suggested finding one domain that is stronger to focus on so we can get the process in place. Jeff M. is going to look at what they have already and come back to the SIP committee (in December) so we can choose from what they have. Survey feedback from the elementary surveys given at September PTC (50% of parents responded)-- The middle school will be the next building to utilize the survey. PBIS: Dr. Isom explained the premise of the program, which is to recognize positive behaviors. Teachers also are to utilize consistent methods to encourage these positive behaviors. This could tie into what we are doing with Danielson and is something that the state is pushing for. ILCD: Cristen stated that the targeted improvement plan for writing was approved by the NDE. Desk review results will be returned after the first of the year. Community Input: The playground equipment could use improvement: broken diggers and slide safety.
 * Sue Presler - 'next steps' for instructional model integration - Review October in-service
 * Discussion of School Improvement/ AdvancED conference 3. Survey results from VES parents, staff and student
 * PBIS – latest from ESU and state??
 * ILCD
 * Community Member input
 * Strengths--great teachers, quality learning environment, quality education, students like school lunch, high expectations, caring, friendly environment
 * Challenges--challenging students, school lunch, more supervision at recess, updated playground equipment, better communication

=October 3, 2017= Agenda: Minutes: Present: Lindsay Wonnenberg, Becky Berry, Andy Cronin, Jeff Sayer, Becky Lancaster, Bev Brown, Joanna Utecht, Angie Jordan, Suzy Beel, Andy Krueger, Jamie Isom, Cristen Witte Nothing from the September meeting needs changed. Dr. Isom and Lindsay Wonnenberg are attending the SIP conference in Kearney October 19 and 20. Joanna Utecht will get signed up also if still interested. October 18 in-service--wondering if we should do something with the Danielson model. Joanna mentioned it would be nice to hold a department meeting, K-12, during the in-service. Dr. Isom mentioned a book study. Andy mentioned bringing a team to Valentine to help us with our next step in Danielson. Discussed talking to Sue Presler and seeing what her recommendation would be for a next step with Danielson. Jeff talked about wanting time with his staff to discuss NeSA scores on the 18th. Decided we do need to talk to Sue and decide a way to do something during the October in-service related to Danielson, perhaps an activity from the book. ILCD--the review is not at the end of the year like originally thought; it is now. The on-site review will be within 60-90 days.
 * Plans for AdvancED Training
 * Discussion on October Inservice
 * Progression on Danielson Instructional Model
 * ILCD
 * Community Member Input

// **September 6, 2017** //

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Agenda:

 * ====Discuss CIP Fall Training and additional items accessible to member districts====
 * access to surveys
 * Eleot
 * School Quality Factors Diagnostic
 * some inventories
 * ====Discussion of the Danielson Training and what teachers can expect for the<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> upcoming year(s). Update on Data Training (Brad Geise) and reviewing district data to possibly determine new goals====
 * <span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">ESU meeting discussion of having additional training for admin as well as teachers
 * ESU’s idea of developing a plan and having it be ongoing
 * ====ILCD====
 * ====Community Member input====

Minutes:
==== Dr Isom - who will go to the fall session dates? She advised that documentation and visits will be changing a bit with AdvancED...essentially the paper load will be lightened. “External review” has been changed to “engagement review.” Rather than one large visit, there may be a smaller team who visits more frequently. Those smaller visits will be more focused on one area, rather than the overview they have always been. ==== ==== This is why it would be good for us to attend - Dr. Isom. Jeff McQuistan will share the two-day agenda for the Kearney session. Angie - will ASSIST change? Dr. Isom said it will still be available, but they are moving in the direction of a program called eProve. Assist will eventually be phased out.ELEOT, surveys, and diagnostics are available to districts at no extra cost. Previously, we had to pay for those things. Surveys will occur at the elementary this year. We will rotate the surveys, and it is their year. It is the NDE perceptual survey.Our next visit will be April 2020. Kearney date was selected - October 19 and 20. Ideally, 1-2 chairs will attend, along with some who will become the chairs eventually.Survey results from our August training with Sue were positive (reports from staff) ==== ==== On-going training for Danielson discussed by Jeff M. Danielson offers additional modules that the ESU is working to implement in districts. They are considering the first week of August 2018 for the next one. They are also considering something within the school year as well. For principals, they want to offer additional support because most of it falls in their laps. They are hoping that principals will submit an evidence log, along with where they would place teachers along the continuum. Sue will then look those reports over and offer feedback. That would be a part of each principal meeting. Their main focus: support principals and teachers. ==== ==== Cristen ILCD: this is their monitoring year. This year, in April their rep from NDE will come and view files for IEPs/meeting notices and their buildings. The rep will travel through each building and talk to teachers. She will view files for the past two years. ==== ==== Update on data training with Brad - Brad is not coming, Jeff M will be Brad. Data Institute in summer 2018, (1-2 days), all districts come together to view their own data. More info. to come later. This may lead to a change in our goal. ==== ==== Jeff M. mentioned that some districts are using MAP fall to winter results to determine growth. Then, the spring MAP becomes the state assessment? There needs to be a conversation to determine what the district thinks about this. Dr. Isom wants to know what other data points we could have? ====

Community input from Colby: likes the article about new staff that is in the paper
=//May 2, 2017//= Agenda: Minutes: Nothing from the April meeting minutes was changed. We have a plan in place for the instructional model improvement priority. ESU has a plan for TIP for next year. A plan is in place for including paraprofessionals in training and some ideas are in place for next year. For the stakeholder feedback, there are things in place for the Revision committee and the board/community meetings. Our progress report was submitted at the end of April. If there are changes they want made, we will hear back from them. A discussion was held about what to do SMART goals. Jeff S. mentioned the middle school still uses them and the elementary uses them. The high school has gone away from them. Dr. Isom mentioned that SMART goals don’t need them to be a district-wide school improvement. Then it was discussed that maybe our school improvement goal needs to be changed as well, since the data for writing is up in the air and constantly changing. We need to look at it in two ways; did we meet our writing goal? What is the next area of great need? The MAP assessment is given from 3rd grade-11th grade; that assessment could be used to help determine our area of need. We need to wait until we get NeSA and ACT data back and determine what is the greatest area of need. We could have two goals if we need. This is something we could look at in the fall with Jeff McQuistan during an in-service time. This would not affect ILCD’s goal in writing. All curriculum needs to be on the Google site by the end of the year. K-12 science is on hold until next year with their pending revised standards. On August 3, new teachers will go to TIP at the ESU. On August 4, administration and Lisa will meet with new teachers, fill out paperwork, go on a tour, etc. The Brad Geise conference was discussed. A couple of things mentioned were the problem solving cycle and involving more people in what we do (not just a small group doing most things). The Victoria Bernhardt book is a good guide. On May 30 & 31, the administration Danielson workshop is being held in Ainsworth and Dr. Isom mentioned teacher leaders going. ILCD--on the in-service days at the end of the year, they will need time for an ILCD meeting. The report has to be done by August 1. We are wondering what is the most comfortable way to go about getting community feedback. We feel we have reached out and don’t always get much feedback. It was mentioned that making a more personal reach-out to people to get them involved is helpful. Jenny mentioned that the radio is a good way to reach people; she always hears back about that. Ronelle did a visit in Cody-Kilgore; their board has a once a year board meeting with the entire staff. They had another meeting they opened up the same way between the board and the community.
 * Discuss goals in the progress report and what needs to happen with any of those in the future
 * Discussion of Mission Statement and SMART goals
 * Discuss end of the year In-Service plans (curriculum)
 * Discuss plans for new teacher mentoring (TIP, orientation, matching)
 * Update on Brad Geise
 * Update and discussion with Danielson workshops
 * ILCD
 * Community Member input

=April 4, 2017= Agenda: Minutes: Present: Lindsay Wonnenberg, Jeff McQuistan, Becky Berry, Angie Jordan, Ronelle Kilmer, Becky Lancaster, Bev Brown, Jeff Sayer, Suzy Beel, Cristen Witte, Colby Fletcher, Jenny Nollette Nothing from the February minutes was changed. No March meeting was held. The co-chairs presented their updates to the progress report that has to be submitted by May 1, 2017. For the Improvement Priority #2 on Para training, Cristen informed the group there was a training on March 22 on bullying and fidelity when providing assistance for a student. Also discussed was a training for new paras that come into our building. Jeff M. stated that maybe a para mentoring needs to take place like what is set up for new teachers. It was also suggested that paras attend the meeting at the beginning of the year on all students with an IEP. For Improvement priority on stakeholder engagement Colby suggested adding LiveStream that is now featured and also mentioned the newspaper article that was feature a couple months ago as a way of reaching out to the different stakeholders. Jenny visited about the feedback she has heard on the internship/workplace/medical terms class and that those who are taking on a mentor would like more guidance with what to work on with these students. She also informed the group on a workplace website that covers all career areas that will be a great resource for these classes. For the improvement priority on the instructional model, Jeff M. stated that there is a two day administrator training in May and asked the administrators how they would like their teachers to get registered for the Danielson training in August. ILCD was updated by Cristen. She informed the group on where they are with scoring the writing samples to be used as a baseline and how this current group would be the cohort group that will be scored for the next several years for the data needed to measure progress to meet the writing goal. Jeff M. mentioned the possibility of revisiting our current goal and since it is writing and there is no data how does the district measure progress? He stated possibly from the data retreat that is held every August we can identify an area of need from that and possibly go from there.
 * Committee Chairs will present the Improvement Priority reports to the SIP to see if anything needs to be changed or added before we submit May 1
 * Discussion on updates with the Danielson Instructional Model
 * Community member input
 * ILCD

=February 14, 2017= Agenda for meeting: Minutes: Present: Lindsay Wonnenberg, Jeff McQuistan, Becky Berry, Angie Jordan, Ronelle Kilmer, Becky Lancaster, Jeff Sayer, Bev Brown, Kasy Epke, Colby Fletcher, Joanna Utecht, Cristen Witte, Jamie Isom, Suzy Beel, Jenny Nollette, Andy Cronin Nothing from the January minutes was changed. AdvancEd reports are due May 1st. We need to finish working on them. We should present that to the board and staff. Probably need to share with the board at the April meeting and think about a time to present staff. Present to staff at the March early out or at the end of the year. Ronelle, Angie, and Lindsay will get together this Friday (the 17th) to continue work on them. Last week some SIP members sat in on Ainsworth’s meeting with a Danielson representative. We discussed what we learned from that meeting. It sounds promising that all ESU schools could go together to support each other and have the ESU support all schools. We discussed how Danielson will work with what we have in place, such as APL. After discussion, we decided we will move forward implementing the Danielson model. Jeff McQuistan explained the ESU has penciled in some time, August 1-2, for all staff for all five school districts to get trained in Danielson. There is another training they hope will precede that, end of May or first part of June, for administrators and/or instructional coaches. This first training would be setting the stage, creating an awareness, etc. The ongoing professional development will be there--would be a 3-5 year implementation plan. There is a differentiation training on Friday, February 17 during in-service. Education for the Future meeting with Brad Geise on February 16 is at 1 pm. Angie will be listening in on it. April 4-5 are the new dates for the Education for the Future workshop in Ainsworth. Jamie encouraged any SIP members who hadn’t been to go. ILCD--nothing new to report. Need to get writing samples scored, but there is nothing new otherwise.
 * AdvancEd Reports due May 1, 2017. Discuss plan for completion and possibly presenting to the board
 * Discuss the video chat (Zoom) with a Danielson representative held on 2/7/2017 *Decision on Instructional Model????
 * February 17th in-service - the differentiation presentation by ESU
 * Next on-line meeting for Education for the Future - Feb. 16 @ 1:00
 * Community member input
 * ILCD

=January 10, 2017= Agenda for meeting: Minutes: Present: Lindsay Wonnenberg, Jeff McQuistan, Bev Brown, Jamie Isom, Joanna Utecht, Becky Berry, Angie Jordan, Jeff Sayer, Ronelle Kilmer, Danielle Arganbright, Becky Lancaster, Andy Cronin Nothing from the December minutes were changed. Regarding the previous SIP meeting, we decided we would look further at Danielson and Marzano. Jeff McQuistan presented a “padlet” online that better brokedown Danielson and Marzano to compare and contrast. Took a closer look at Marzano’s evaluation tool. We discussed who should be making this decision about adopting Danielson or Marzano. Many stated the importance of teachers and administration being involved in making the decision. The logistics and practicality of the programs were also discussed. What would cost more? What would be easier training to access? These are things we need to find out before we decide. It was asked if the ESU would be able to bring Danielson training to this area to cut down on cost, and Jeff M. stated that it would be a goal of theirs. The timeline of adopting a model was questioned. We considered when our next accreditation visit is and also calendar for next year and so on. Jeff M. stated it would be helpful to have a principal/superintendent conversation to discuss which model to choose. There is not going to be a Marzano academy this year for the first time in seven years (simply because schools that have needed it have had it). Ronelle brought up the possibility of being able to observe a Danielson school and a Marzano school. Others discussed the possibility of video chatting with someone. Jeff M. said we can video chat (Zoom) with a Danielson representative when they chat with Ainsworth schools on February 7. SIP meeting for February will move to February 14. During the February in-service there will be a differentiation presentation from the ESU (for about an hour). ILCD--Angie will ask Cristen if she has anything for ILCD. Jamie discussed the writing goal; there are some writing samples that they can use to monitor progress.
 * Analyze and discuss the teacher evaluations tools for each of the two instructional models we are looking at
 * *Small Group discussion
 * *Whole Group discussion
 * If you have a lap top please bring it to the meeting. We will be viewing the link below: __ https://padlet.com/jmcquistan/9byn523iweqt __
 * Jan. and Feb. In-service - differentiation presentation
 * Community member input
 * ILCD

=December 6, 2016= Agenda for meeting: *Small Group discussion *Whole Group discussion Minutes: As we discussed at our November meeting, we have decided to take the time to analyze the two instructional models the NDE supports, Danielson and Marzano. We held small group discussions comparing and contrasting Marzano and Danielson. Moving Forward: look at rubrics, could talk with Ainsworth, review evaluation tools Jeff shared a more thorough overview of the two. Danielson evaluates teacher effectiveness, and Marzano supports teacher development. New Jersey study showed Danielson’s to be more thorough, even though Marzano looks longer. December In-Service: admin’s agenda is still up in the air, what direction would we like to go for professional development? December 22 (afternoon) - Jeff M. would like to travel to each building to get teacher feedback to guide the ESU with some new directions they would like to take. Program evaluation - Jeff believes this will be a topic at the Brad Geise workshop in January 24-25, along with a study of mission and vision statement. Angie mentioned bringing new people to this training in an effort to begin training them for the future. Jeff S. suggested that the high school be the only school to do surveys this year in the hopes that we would get more results. In this way, we could rotate the usage of the surveys. Review are due in May - share what we did at the workshop with the larger group. ILCD - met with NDE rep...she suggested looking at samples for the 5,6, and 7th cohort - will score samples to evaluate progress because this group is a large one (10 who are currently in 6th grade). Community: should make the Livestreaming more public.
 * Analyze and discuss the two instructional models we are looking at
 * Dec.16 In-service
 * Differentiation presentation discussion
 * ILCD
 * Team 3: domains match up nicely, just are sometimes called something different, strengths: Danielson placemat simpler, Marzano: teaching domain more thorough, question: rubrics? What do they look like?
 * Team 2: Danielson not as foreign, want to see the evaluation tool for both
 * Team 1: Marzano more directive...might be nicer for new teachers, agreed that we need to review the rubrics

=November 1, 2016= Agenda for meeting: Minutes: The Accreditation Progress Reports have been mostly updated on ASSIST. We have updated three of the four improvement priorities. The instructional model improvement priority created a good conversation at the SIP conference Lindsay, Angie, and Ronelle attended. Many things were brought up about whether we would need to adopt the Danielson and Marzano instructional models later. Conversations were had about whether our instructional model would be valid down the road if it is not “research-based.” It also would be helpful to have built-in ongoing training for new staff and current staff. We had good discussion about whether we are down the right road or if we need to look at Danielson and Marzano again to maybe go that way. Co-chairs met with the administration about the improvement priority of having an instructional model. Jamie felt like we left that meeting thinking we need to revisit Danielson and Marzano. Ronelle brought up the benefit of adopting Danielson or Marzano in order to show we have common practices and a common language. Jeff McQuistan looked regionally and Ainsworth adopted Danielson and Cody-Kilgore was at the SIP training, too, and now knows of Danielson and Marzano. If we could get consensus on which to adopt among schools in the region, the ESU could be more supportive in the process. We just need to find which one is going to fit us. Jeff M. discussed the importance of getting the instructional model in place prior to implementing a teacher evaluation tool. It was discussed maybe sending people to a Marzano training, but it would be a big commitment of a several days. Jamie suggested getting the most recent Marazano information a look prior to making a decision of adopting Danielson. Jeff McQuistan is going to dig out Marzano information, and we will look at Marzano and Danielson at the next committee meeting. Several things that Ronelle, Angie, and Lindsay discussed at the SIP conference were brought to the committee’s attention. These things included Personalized Learning Communities (PLCs) and implementing those again, how to involve the staff in the data process better, department meeting/time every year, and differentiation of professional development. Jamie reminded us of the Data Dashboard and discussed how if that ever comes into fruition, then that would greatly help staff looking at data. Data Dashboard has huge potential but it is taking a long time to get it going and we don’t know when it will be done. Data and the instructional model could be a good vendor for the use of PLCs. Angie brought up our in-service/early outs and asked if we have things planned for then; we discussed that we need to get a game plan for our in-services/early outs so it can be useful time for school improvement. ILCD--Cristen will meet with the special education staff during the Nov. 16 early out. After that, she is going to schedule an ILCD meeting so we can talk about the targeted improvement plan and pass that on to the committee members. ACT will have the writing component, so they can use that as a data point for the improvement plan. On Nov. 16, the paraprofessionals will be at the early out; Geraldine Ericson will probably be teaching them some classroom strategies. Suzy discussed that the board is going to have a community event in November to give feedback to the community about their successes and what they’re working on. One thing the board feels they need to do more of is communicate with their stakeholders, so they are having a follow-up meeting at the end of the month. Giving feedback to the staff from our data analysis in August was considered; we read aloud the questions that remain unanswered and also what actions will move the district forward. Joanna brought up using those components to guide the discussion for PLCs. We will email out those to the SIP committee and come up with some ideas for PLCs.
 * Present progress made on Accreditation Progress Reports
 * Discuss the new developments on the Instructional Model based on information from the School Improvement Conference
 * Nov. 16 In-service
 * -Learning Communities
 * -How to involve staff in the data process
 * -Data for writing
 * -Dept. Meeting/Time
 * -Differentiation of Professional Development
 * -Started the reports that will be submitted to AdvancED
 * Picture and article for the paper
 * ILCD

=October 4, 2016= Agenda for Meeting: Minutes: Present: Jenny Nollette, Cristen Witte, Jamie Isom, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Angela Jordan, Bev Brown, Joanna Utecht, Becky Berry, Colby Fletcher, Jeff Sayer, Suzy Beel Nothing from the September meeting minutes was changed. Discussed the presentation the co-chairs gave at in-service on the evaluation tool. Had a mostly positive reception; staff just had questions and also had some good discussions. Co-chairs and principals were supposed to match sample rubrics with our evaluation tool and begin making our own rubric. Elementary made some progress on their section but did not finish. Middle school made some progress on their section but did not finish. High school has not started on their section. We found the language difficult; feel the need to discuss the language we want to use so we are on the same page. Jeff Sayer reached out to other principals and many use the type of evaluation tool we currently have in place. We decided that we would have four levels on the rubric; we will figure out what we will call each level at a later time. We agreed to use the following adverbs so we can keep consistent: 1--Rarely, 2--Sometimes, 3--Usually, 4--Consistently. We reminded each other that this is a long process, and we are just working on a rough draft. We will come up with this as a SIP committee, then we will bring it to the staff. Discussion on differentiation (competency-based education)--some met with the ESU to discuss more education for staff. They are willing to help find us professional development. We discussed some things teachers are already using to differentiate (Newsela). Community members on the SIP committee feel the flow is fine but feel they would benefit from a document that has acronyms for them and other language we are using. It is important we keep reaching out via social media. Next month, we plan to take a picture of the SIP committee and put that out in the public with social media, newspaper, etc. Need to keep putting out good PR--notify the public of what we do during staff development days. ILCD--we did find out there is not going to be a separate writing score reported on the ELA NeSA test. In November, we are going to have a paraprofessional training during our early out. Cristen asked for ideas on what they can work on. The ESU’s Love & Logic training was brought up as an option. We discussed the feedback for the data we analyzed in August. We will ask Jeff McQuistan to get that to staff so we can take a look at it. We also discussed that we need to ask Cristen to put specifics about para trainings we have had this year on the Google spreadsheet.
 * Discussion of how the presentation to staff went at the Sept. 21 in-service
 * What’s next?
 * Discuss progress on matching rubrics to our Instructional Model
 * *highlighting differentiation and what we are working on with ESU
 * Discussion/brainstorming what can happen to involve all members of SIP committee more.
 * ILCD

=September 13, 2016= Agenda for Meeting: Minutes: Present: Andy Cronin, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Joanna Utecht, Angie Jordan, Ronelle Kilmer, Jenny Nollette, Jeff Sayer, Jamie Isom, Becky Brown, Suzy Beel, Colby Fletcher, Cristen Witte Nothing from the May meeting minutes was changed. The SIP conference in Kearney on October 10-11 will be attended by Lindsay, Ronelle, and Angie. Jamie visited with Don Loeske about us using that time to work on updating our reports. We have to have a report for each improvement priority. We had discussed having a committee for each improvement priority. The reports are not real in depth, so our Google doc we have created where we compiled this information should be enough to get us started in October at the SIP conference. The last we added information was early spring, so everyone on SIP committee is encouraged to look at the Google doc to see what we need to update. When we left in May, we were trying to decide what to do with the instructional model. In February, we went through and added the revisions. There was talk about how to change the staff evaluation tool into a rubric. In May, we were encouraged to try to involve staff, but in June, the co-chairs and admins met and decided we should come up with a rubric as a SIP committee first, then ask the staff to give feedback. There are five areas on the evaluation tool. Let’s not reinvent the wheel if we don’t have to. We created a sub-committee to tackle the task of looking at the evaluation tool. The administrator in each building will work with at least one person in their building from SIP who can help. We can tackle one of the five areas at a time. Middle school will do Learning Climate, elementary school will have Planning, and high school has Professional/personal conduct. Staff in-service on September 21st next Wednesday--we are going to have a presentation in each building updating the staff on the instructional model. Ronelle, Lindsay, and Angie will go around to each building to present. Write Tools training in August--we could do a local assessment to assess the school improvement goal in the middle and elementary schools. The high school will have the ACT writing to assess the goal. Jamie brought up having more than one assessment to check if we are meeting our school improvement goal. ILCD--went with writing as their targeted improvement plan (which was submitted August 1), 4th grade writing. It is a fluid document; it’s a self-assessment. ILCD will have a committee meeting, have a discussion, and tighten up that plan more. Next year is the monitoring year for ILCD. Friday Cristen goes to North Platte for a monitoring meeting for next year when NDE comes in. It was more compliance based and now it’s more based on student outcomes. Need to have a discussion about incorporating ILCD into SIP as opposed to two different committees. Colby asked about live-streaming our sporting events. Andy said we have looked into doing it, but there is a price-tag involved and also a concern about it affecting our gates. Jeff Sayer brought up his regional 5 meeting--they recommended talking to our senators about our funding, promote public schools, and look into mental health providers. Suzy went to a conference and heard other districts have a therapist that comes into the school during the day. Cristen has talked to people across the state about what resources they have, such as pulling a therapist from another place. Suzy suggested tapping region 5 and see what they can do for us.
 * SIP conference on Oct. 10 and 11:
 * How to generate improvement priority reports. Possibly having each committee member sign up for one of the Improvement priorities to build an action plan and help with the report this spring
 * Update committee on June discussion of evaluation rubric
 * Staff in-service on Sept. 21- how staff can become more familiar with our instructional model
 * Discussion of Write Tools training and data workshop
 * ILCD
 * Community Member update

=May 3, 2016= Agenda for Meeting: Minutes: Present: Andy Cronin, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Joanna Utecht, Danielle Arganbright, Cindy Wobig, Deb Obermiller, Angie Jordan, Ronelle Kilmer, Colby Fletcher, Cristen Witte, Jenny Nollette, Jeff Sayer, Jamie Isom, Peggy Medema, Suzy Beel SIP meeting minutes were not changed from last month. ILCD--at the last meeting, they finished up the final areas they were working on. They figured out targets for 4, 8, and 11 grade in writing. They set targets for 2020-2021; they would like to see 45% proficient in writing (and work backwards for each year’s target). They can use what the elementary report cards already do for a data point. They felt they needed to have discussion about how that will look in the middle school and high school to collect data for those students. Rotary is May 19th--Ronelle, Lindsay, and Angie will be there to present to the Rotary Club, noon-1 p.m. at the Peppermill. We will have 20 minutes to speak; may have a handout for them. Survey responses were discussed. Elementary had more than 80 responses; middle school had around 60 responses. Jamie asked if there was somewhere we could collect all this data year to year. Jeff Sayer said he had all of the middle school survey responses since he’s been principal; he also thinks he has all the responses for the last couple of years (from all buildings). Andy says he has the high school’s on Google. It was discussed that we need a place to put all of this-on Google since we are moving our Wiki to that. Improvement priority/instructional model--we discussed using more of a rubric for evaluations. Administration has not discussed this yet. Jeff brought up an email he received for a grant we could obtain through the state to try one of their two models. Jeff McQuistan suggested using our PLCs to ensure we had staff input on something we already put together. We need to use the same language that is in our instructional model. Jamie suggested working on it throughout the year next year because it will take some time to get it done correctly. We need to share with staff what we have been doing. We are on the agenda for the last day of in-service after the Blue Cross representative. Ronelle, Angie, and Lindsay plan on meeting to get ready for it. Cindy discussed coming up with an action plan for each improvement priorities, that way we have the right people in charge of keeping track of what we are doing. The mentoring program we have in place was discussed. Peggy brought up what Lindsay had experienced at her last school. Lindsay discussed some different things they did in their school and discussed some ideas we could incorporate. Jamie asked if we could use our same action plan format for the improvement priorities. Cindy wondered about the training of the paras in data and how that could help students self-assess. Cristen said it is important to look at this piece more. It’s ok to put all non-certified staff in one room at the beginning of the year, but we should break it down by building at least, since things look different in the elementary, middle, and high school. Cristen said they need more foundational knowledge to understand why they are doing what they do. Angie asked if the co-chairs could meet with Jeff McQuistan to set up each action plan (put what we have done in each action plan), summarize what we have done so far. We plan to meet in June. Jeff Sayer asked if people who are retiring or are retired could help with NAEP. They are looking for in-state people to help.
 * ILCD update
 * Community member input/ Rotary meeting
 * Discussion of survey responses from stakeholders at Feb. PTC
 * Instructional Model: discuss the idea/need to update short form and/or possibly create a rubric. Administration discussed and looked it over at their meeting
 * Anything to add to the Improvement Priorities
 * Discussion of what and how to pass along to staff the work and direction of instructional model. Possibly at the end-of-the-year breakfast

=April 5, 2016= Agenda for meeting:
 * View and discuss the Improvement Priority Google Doc
 * Discuss plan for updating the Evaluation Tool of our Instructional Model to present to staff for 2016- 2017 school year
 * Update on continue training in Write Tools
 * Community Members Input – Jenny Nollette Rotary member may feature SIP
 * ILCD update

Minutes:
====Present: Lindsay Wonnenberg, Jeff Sayer, Jamie Isom, Peggy Medema, Danielle Arganbright, Ronelle Kilmer, Deb Obermiller, Angie Jordan, Cindy Wobig, Cristen Witte, Suzy Beel, Colby Fletcher, Joanna Utecht====

Nothing from last month’s meeting minutes were changed.
====The Improvement Priorities and the updates we’ve done on them were read. The Improvement Priorities were put into a Google Sheet and shared with the SIP committee. Priority one (instructional model) was added to, and priority two (community engagement) was added to. Concerning priority three (mentoring and induction), it was discussed the importance of continuing on with mentoring and induction throughout the year, which has been going on with teachers in the elementary and middle school.==== ====Back to community engagement, Ronelle discussed what another school has been doing (that she observed), they do a monthly parent night. Opened up a discussion about what community engagement does look like and should look like in our district.====

Priority four (non-certified training) was added to as well.
====Instructional Model: need to update short form, rubric is a “wish” but Cindy mentioned that is a long process to do because a rubric would take longer and then must be submitted to the Department of Ed. Principals/Sup decided to look it over and share their progress at the May meeting.==== ====Write Tools - ESU scheduled this training for us on August 9-10, 2016 in Valentine. The structure will be a review of the previous session but include specific information for the different grade levels and types of writing.====

Jennie Nollette mentioned to the co-chairs the school being featured at Rotary. Angie will follow up with Jennie to see when this is and if it is possible for us to present.
====ILCD: met last week, Cristen felt that it was a productive meeting, decided to stick with focusing on writing because it aligns with our school improvement goal, want updated training for 6 Traits Writing, wondering if rubric training is needed school-wide They are wondering if Ronelle would train at the high school? And Lindsey train at the middle school?==== ====A discussion was held as to grading writing papers at the various levels with all staff participation. The ES and MS mentioned grading in teams. Should high school bring this back? It has been many years since we have done this. Discussion was held that there would be more buy-in now for this process, due to Write Tools. Grading writing at all levels would provide more data points to study. This would also give data as to whether or not Write Tools is helping.====

Will we go past May for meetings? Most leaned toward no or meet later in the day if yes.
= = =March 1, 2016= Agenda for meeting: Minutes: Present: Peggy Medema, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Jeff McQuistan, Joanna Utecht, Cindy Wobig, Jeff Sayer, Cristen Witte, Jamie Isom, Angie Jordan, Suzy Beel, Andy Cronin, Danielle Arganbright Angie stated we will be inducting the new community SIP members (Colby Fletcher and Jenny Nollette) formally on March 15 at 7:15 a.m. at the high school. Nothing from the February meeting minutes was changed. An update was discussed on the teacher evaluation that is also our instructional model. A meeting was held yesterday to update it. The document is online in Google and will be shared with everyone else on the SIP committee. The document is modified, but we need to update the evaluation tool, etc. to make sure it lines up and matches. We found that what we have in place is already lined up pretty well with the other models we have looked at (Danielson). If we want to use an updated evaluation tool next year with the staff, we have to get it approved by the state, which could take awhile to get approved. Jamie suggested we have it done by the end of the school year if we want to have it in place by next school year. Jeff Sayer brought up wanting a place-mate/visual similar to Danielson. Joanna asked if the visual could be used more as a continuum, wanting more of a rubric to evaluate staff by. Several spoke up that they would like to see it more as a rubric. That is something the committee plans to keep on working on. Angie discussed the other improvement priorities we have and asked how we go about staying on top of those priorities. Jamie mentioned we will have to have a report ready for those improvement priorities by next March and that it’s not too early to start writing down our progress. Andy volunteered to make a Google Doc that lists our improvement priorities that is shared with everyone and will be a working document we can all contribute to. Lindsay discussed what some of the big takeaways were from the Education for the Future Data Training held in February. Two things we took from it were doing things for school improvement process not purely out of compliance and also staff buy-in to the process. Concerning staff buy-in, we particularly discussed Write Tools as a program that we have not really evaluated. Ronelle then discussed Write Tools and how we don’t want to see it go away. We thought it might be helpful to have continued training for staff and training for new staff. It was discussed how we can go about doing continued training, and it was brought up that the ESU would be a good route to go. Jeff McQuistan and Jamie talked about how they did already discuss this and think it’s a good idea. Peggy discussed the program Turn It In and the features available and talked about some teachers taking a look at it more closely. Peggy will send out a Doodle to a few teachers and see if they want to be involved (Lindsay, Ronelle, and Deb). Jeff McQuistan will help us get organized with the ESU and come up with a Write Tools training for the saff. Lindsay discussed wanting to have 45 minutes on the last day of inservice to talk to staff about where we are headed with school improvement. ILCD update—Cristen talked about that after the Data Training, she would like to use the Education for the Future process to guide ILCD.
 * New member orientation – overview, date and time
 * Update committee on revisions made to the Instructional Model
 * Continued discussion Improvement Priorities
 * Discuss Data Analysis Training in Feb. and co-chair ideas from it
 * ILCD update

=February 2, 2016= Agenda for meeting: Minutes: Present: Peggy Medema, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Suzy Beel, Jeff McQuistan, Joanna Utecht, Cindy Wobig, Angie Jordan, Andy Cronin, Jeff Sayer, Danielle Arganbright, Cristen Witte, Jamie Isom Nothing from the January meeting minutes needed to be changed. Welcome to Suzy Beel, our new board member on the SIP committee. Jenny Nollette is joining the SIP committee and Colby Fletcher is likely to as well. We will start inviting them once we have inducted them into the committee. We discussed the process for revising our instructional model (indicators of effective teaching). It is on Google, and a few have revised it. We still need to set a date to reconvene our small committee to look at the proposed changes. If teachers who are not on the committee have a suggestion, go to your administrator or committee member. Jamie will be sending out a Doodle to set up a time for the small committee to reconvene and look at the proposed changes to the indicators of effective teaching. We discussed the elimination of our Zimbra email by the end of the school year. Jeff McQuistan stated that they’d like the staff to have their email transferred over by June 1st. Stephanie Bernthal will be helping us transition. Jamie discussed our need to stay on top of improvement priorities, perhaps splitting them up among the SIP committee members. Jeff McQuistan offered to show us what the ESU did for their 2-year progress report. Jeff Sayer asked if we could brainstorm and write them up at SIP meetings. It was discussed that we could create a Google Doc with our improvement plan to share with everyone and allow people to contribute. There was a discussion about the improvement priority about increasing stakeholder engagement. Joanna expressed that if wrote down the process we are going through, that will make it formal. Such as, if we have a highlight night at the middle school, write down the process we used to come to that decision. Peggy brought up that it is easier to add things, like an expressed role of the stakeholder member on the SIP committee, then later delete it if needed. Jeff McQuistan added that it is ok to leave things in our improvement plan that did not work just to show we tried that. Back to the improvement plan, we agreed that it was a good idea to put each improvement priority in its own Google Doc. We just need to start writing down those things we do, like training non-certified staff. Jamie talked about involving staff in these decisions regarding the improvement priorities, how it will create more buy-in. She discussed having each staff member directly involved in working with one of the priorities. At the end, we could do a gallery walk so all staff can hear about all improvement priorities. Danielle discussed the idea of having staff start these groups at the end of the school year, just briefly to get them started. Then in August, they can bring ideas to their group to continue work on and have a better start to the year. But first, we will create a Google Doc with the improvement priorities on it so we can all add what we have been doing to work on those priorities. Concerning ILCD, next week at the ESU, all chair-members are going to meet to discuss their improvement plans. There are six people going to the Education for the Future training in February 16-17.
 * Welcome New Board Member - Suzy Beel – give overview of committee
 * Update on community member/stakeholder responses
 * Update on Instructional Model from committee
 * Improvement Priorities
 * ILCD update

=January 12, 2016= Agenda for meeting: -how to go about revision/editing Minutes: Present: Peggy Medema, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Cort Dewing, Ronelle Kilmer, Jeff McQuistan, Joanna Utecht, Cindy Wobig, Angie Jordan, Deb Obermiller, Andy Cronin, Jeff Sayer, Danielle Arganbright, Jamie Isom, Cristen Witte Nothing from November meeting minutes were changed. Concerning our instructional model, we decided in small committee that we are going to use our current teacher evaluation and plan to revise and edit that. Jamie will send out a Doodle to set up a meeting time to do that. Angie is going to send out the four improvement priorities to the steering committee. Angie brought up our next steps from AdvancEd and asked about the timeline of submitting our progress report on those next steps. Jamie and Jeff McQuistan explained that we have until next May to submit that plan. It will be set up similar to how we worked on ASSIST, probably one report from the district. AQUEST is our new state accountability model. The school improvement process workshop on February 16-17 at the ESU is going to be attended by Lindsay, Ronelle, and Andy. Some more may attend. Angie brought up how long chairpersons will remain chairpersons. She mentioned that it would be a good idea to get the next chairpersons involved soon, so they can become acclimated in time for the next accreditation visit. Angie brought up that Kyle Arganbright would like to be off this committee, and some names were thrown around to consider. Danielle brought up an idea that maybe instead of the community member attending every meeting, maybe the community member needs to meet separately with chairpersons. Danielle discussed what they did in Lincoln. A community member group met separately and reported back to the school improvement committee. It was discussed that the community group needs to be well-representative of the community, a person from the business world, a parent, etc. It was also discussed that it is important that they have meaningful things to work on. Cristen said it would be good to have two steering committee members involved in this committee. Peggy asked what do other schools do to involve the community. Jeff McQuistan said Ainsworth is involving students in the school improvement process. He said that they found it meaningful because students had a different perspective than what the teachers had. Cort and Jamie both said that it’s not like we are not doing anything in that area. Remember we are trying and do things to involve community. Cort mentioned that the community member’s job on the steering committee is similar to his, to listen and take what we do back to the community. Andy brought up that it would be good to look at who came to our community engagement meeting and see who was involved there. Ronelle said that the easiest way to include a community member in the steering committee is to not have a separate committee, but rather to include them in a more meaningful way at the meetings. Perhaps have a separate bullet on the agenda for them each week. Andy also said that it would be good to send them to an induction to make them more aware of what steering committee does. It was decided that we will look at who came to the community engagement meeting and start from there. It was discussed that we need to really establish their role on this committee before we go to them and ask them to be involved. It needs to be someone who can be here all the time so they really understand what our school improvement process is all about. Cristen mentioned that we can also look at other groups, community groups, that are established. They might be a good voice for the schools that reaches a large audience. When the committee gets together that is discussing the instructional model, we will look at a list of names for community members there. Cristen said that, concerning the ILCD, we will schedule a few meetings looking at the data piece, the writing, kids that are on IEPs and whether they are meeting their writing goals, etc. Jeff Sayer asked whether we are going to do the survey. Jeff McQuistan will look into what we need to do the Brad Giese survey again.
 * Instructional model – use of district wide Teacher Evaluation form
 * Improvement Priorities from AdvancEd
 * ‘Next Steps’ from AdvacEd
 * New Community Member
 * ILCD update

=December 1, 2015-Cancelled due to the weather.= Agenda for meeting: -how to go about revision/editing Minutes: =November 3, 2015= Agenda for meeting: Minutes: Present: Jeff Sayer, Peggy Medema, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Jeff McQuistan, Angela Jordan, Deb Obermiller, Cristen Witte, Cort Dewing, Jamie Isom, Kris Krilokowski, Andy Cronin, Cindy Wobig Nothing from the October meeting minutes was changed. Deb Obermiller wanted to clarify what exactly is an instructional model. We discussed whether we were given guidelines on what we need to adapt; what is an instructional model? Jamie clarified that the point is that we need a common language and framework to work in. An instructional model is a framework, gives everyone common language and understanding on how we do business. The evaluation is tied to the framework; it gives us a chance to make sure teachers are following these guidelines. Jeff Sayer agreed that a common language and practices are important. Angie read from our internal review feedback. The team wanted us to decide on something that we can use through the district, common language and practices; something that is documented and shared. It was mentioned that we need to start and look at what we are already doing and go from there. We have started this process in each building, but is it consistent district-wide? We discussed a school that uses Danielson’s evaluation tool but created their own instructional model based on things they found they already did from other models. Cindy reminded us that classrooms are different from kindergarten through senior year. She suggested starting smaller, picking five or so things that we do already. It needs to be a journey. A few mentioned that they do not want to wait too long to implement an instructional model. Jamie likes the idea of having the buildings figuring out what they already do through all the buildings. Jeff Sayer asked does this mean we need to get rid of things we find are important in each building but are not done in the district. Jamie said no; we can have different things throughout the grade levels. We created a committee to go through the buildings and what we already do. Jeff Sayer, Deb Obermiller, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Ronelle Kilmer, Andy Cronin, Jeff McQuistan, and Angie Jordan are going to make up the committee. The high school will go through their “what they do” before the committee meets. Jeff Sayer brought up Domain 2 in the Danielson model and asked what others thought about it. He likes Danielson. Lindsay agreed the Danielson was applicable to all classrooms. Jeff McQuistan brought up a 6-day training that is coming up on Danielson. Angie asked about the cost aspect. Jamie explained that we need to make sure what we adopt is effective; the cost is secondary to that. The Write Tools training was brought up and whether it has been effective. Jamie mentioned it is important that we do not do a one-shot training. Cort said it is important to help the students, so the cost is the cost. At the next school improvement committee meeting, we will be going through Domain 3 of the Danielson model. Angie discussed the next article for the newspaper about our accreditation. A brochure was mentioned, something where we can mention what we need to work on and what we do well. Perhaps have it done before parent teacher conferences in the spring. Jamie discussed the importance of making it clear why we do the school improvement process so people understand why we do what we do. Angie discussed making sure people understand we are above average in the AdvancEd system. The November early out will be dedicated to SMART Goals, C4L, and data. The high school will go over what they already do as a building in terms of an instructional model. Peggy said Data Dashboard will be ready soon. Some teachers will be able to pilot it and get training. ILCD—NDE rep was here to look over the target and improvement plan. She was impressed with our plan. Districts now do not have be done until the end of 2016, so we are a year ahead. Cristen goes to another training soon and will make sure we keep moving ahead. =October 6, 2015= Agenda for meeting: Minutes: Present: Jeff Sayer, Peggy Medema, Ronelle Kilmer, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Jeff McQuistan, Angela Jordan, Jamie Isom, Cort Dewing, Deb Obermiller, Joanna Utecht, Cristen Witte, Cindy Wobig, Kris Krolokowski, Danielle Arganbright No additions or corrections from the September minutes. We have NCA banners delivered, one for each building. The article Angie wrote was read for the staff. We decided the article sounds good, but Peggy needs to fix the graphic. The visual is important. The article will end up in the newspaper and on the webpage. It was decided that there would be more articles published later on. We have four improvement priorities that the team put in place for us. Angie read those aloud. Regarding mentoring new teachers, ESU is implementing TIP (teacher induction program) for our new teachers; it’s a regional program. Non-certified were at the last in-service and first in-service where we looked at data; Cristen has worked with them and talked with them, helping them better understand how to work with students. Regarding the instructional model discussion, we have begun trying to figure out where we are. The middle school/rural schools evaluated what was written out for the “what do we do?” and made some changes. These will be emailed out. The middle school/rural schools also evaluated domains 2 and 3 on the Danielson framework. Discussion ensued on whether we should have a blended model, incorporating things we do already and how that fits in the Danielson model. Elementary’s meeting got moved and so they have not looked at this yet. The high school has not looked at this yet either. Cindy spoke about a differentiation instructional model she came across; she spoke about worrying we end up with too large of an instructional model. It looks similar to many of the models, Danielson and Marzano. Jamie echoed that our model we decide on needs to be manageable. Some thoughts were shared that the Danielson model is simple and applicable to all classrooms. Jeff M. discussed the need to implement an instructional model first, then work on implementing the evaluation tool. He mentioned that the first activity for the Danielson training was very effective and perhaps would be valuable for our staff to do. Ronelle mentioned that she really liked the evaluation rubric; Lindsay agreed; they liked the idea of a continuum, rather than meets/doesn’t meet. By November, let’s come back with what we like or don’t like about the Danielson model, starting with domain 2 (a deep dive). Cindy and/or Jeff M. will be emailing an updated rubric from the Danielson model. Ronelle brought up that maybe we need to consider the staff and involve them in the process more. We discussed that we need to maybe do something with staff during our November early out. Our NDE rep for ILCD is coming out to review our Targeted Improvement Plan a week from Friday. On November 17, there is a conference for ILCD; Cristen will attend and then after that they will have committee meetings.
 * Instructional model – use of district wide Teacher Evaluation form
 * Improvement Priorities from AdvancEd
 * ‘Next Steps’ from AdvacEd
 * New Community Member
 * ILCD update
 * Improvement Priorities from AdvancEd
 * Continued review of Instructional model -Danielson Framework Domain #2
 * Review next article for the newpaper
 * November in-service
 * ILCD update
 * Article and publicity for AdvanEd accreditation (see attached article)
 * Improvement Priorities from AdvancEd
 * Instructional model, curriculum, assessment, environment from previous work done in the district fitting into Framework from Danielson
 * AdvancEd conference (in October)
 * ILCD update
 * articulate and implement an instructional model
 * develop and implement a process to increase effective stakeholder engagement
 * implement a formalized process for mentoring new teachers
 * train non-certified instructional staff in use of data

=September 8, 2015= Agenda for meeting: Minutes: Present: Jeff Sayer, Peggy Medema, Cindy Wobig, Angie Jordan, Dr. Isom, Joanna Utecht, Kris Krolikowski, Cristen Witte, Andy Cronin The meeting began with welcoming Joanna Utecht to the School Improvement committee and Kris Krolikowski. Mrs. Krolikowski informed the committee she will be attending meetings for intern hours. The first item discussed was ideas of informing the community of AdvancEd accreditation. Getting a banner for homecoming or looking into NCA for ideas. Dr. Isom discussed the idea of a series of articles and/or information to the public informing them of what AdvancEd is, what we have done, what the public would be interested in, what does AdvancED mean for students, what the district is doing well and what we continue to grow in. Also discussed was using PSA’s and waiting until American Education Week for some of our publicity. Brief discussion of what is planned for the September in-service. Principals will be working with staff in their buildings in the a.m. and a district in-service is planned in the p.m. Next, the Danielson Framework for Teaching conference was attended by the committee chairs and administration in August. Dr. Isom talked about what led up to why we attended and those who attended ran through their thoughts of the conference. The evaluation piece could be examined to possibly turn into something we would use. Nebraska promotes either Danielson or Marzano. Mrs. Wobig brought what our district has done already that fits as instructional model, curriculum, assessment, environment and trying to fit the two pieces together. Mr. McQuistan informed the committee some of the activities done at the conference that show ‘this is what is already being done but had to decide how does it ‘fit’ into one of the areas in the Danielson framework?’ It was decided that this could be looked at by buildings and see how we overlap what we are already doing. AdvancED conference in October was the next discussion in the meeting. Dr. Isom talked about how it is a good way for new members to get a better idea of what SIP is about and if they are interested to visit with their building administrator. Smart Goals were also discussed briefly and will be handled in individual buildings on the September 23rd in-service. An ILCD update was given by Mrs. Witte. She informed the group of the goal that has been submitted – to get to 50% of students with an IEP writing at proficient. The committee will be looking at NeSA writing and specific goals that are written within IEP’s. She also stated that ILCD would have a few meetings this year. The meeting concluded with Dr. Isom asking who received the final report from AdvancEd to view? Our district has two years to respond to the Improvement Priorities that are reviewed by AdvancEd council.
 * Discussion of other ways to inform the community of the AdvancEd Accreditation (Homecoming ?)
 * September Inservice
 * Framework for Teaching conference
 * Staff input at the in-service in August
 * AdvancEd conference (in October)
 * Smart Goal discussion
 * ILCD update

=May 5, 2015= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Present: Jeff Sayer, Peggy Medema, Melanie Steskal, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Ronelle Kilmer, Cindy Wobig, Cristen Witte, Angie Jordan, Andy Cronin Nothing was changed concerning last month’s meeting minutes. The AdvancEd Accreditation was discussed and celebrated with donuts from Jeff Sayer! The committee heard the overall IEQ scores for Valentine Community Schools. VCS scores were above the average so not only did we receive accreditation but we were above the average in all three domains. Jeff Sayer asked how we should get word out to the public about this achievement because we need to let our stakeholders know what an accomplishment this is. Suggestions included: booths at the Co. Fair, an insert for the paper, do a parade entry. Andy suggested some kind of sign that lets the public know not only about our AdvancEd accreditation but basic location of the schools. This is something that VCS is missing. Peggy and Angie agreed to visit with Jamie about the best way we could do this. The Improvement Priorities were discussed as well as the Opportunities to Improve. Ronelle shared some archived survey results from staff in 2006 that Jamie had. We were able to see some of the concerns at that time and how we have addressed them. Peggy answered questions about the Dashboard, the six tenets of AQuESTT and also stated that she would help put together a flier for the purpose of getting word out about AdvancED Accreditation if it is decided that we will go in that direction. ILCD update by Cristen with what was discussed and decided upon at Monday’s ILCD meeting. She went through the 3 impact areas and shared the competencies and areas of concern. The improvement plan in place for ILCD is to align with the School Improvement Goal and target NeSA writing since this was an area of concern.
 * AdvancED Celebration and Discussion on External Report
 * ILCD Update

=April 14, 2015= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Present: Jeff Sayer, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Peggy Medema, Melanie Steskal, Jamie Isom, Ronelle Kilmer, Jeff McQuistan, Cort Dewing, Danielle Arganbright, Cindy Wobig, Cristen Witte, Angie Jordan, Andy Cronin Nothing was changed concerning last month’s meeting minutes. The AdvancEd Standards powerpoint was handed out to the committee. The visit itinerary was also handed out. Jamie discussed the plan including the first night’s meal. The team will be based out of the Niobrara Lodge. The team leader also wanted a space in the high school to work out of--will be located in John Graham’s room. There will be two presentations, the Superintendent’s Overview (presented by Jamie) and also a Standards presentation (presented by Steering co-chairs). Jamie talked through each day. The core classrooms will be visited; each teacher needs to have a chair by the door as well as lesson plans. The final day, Wednesday, is when we are given the exit report. Jamie discussed the AdvancED Standards for Quality Improvement. Will go over at the Board Meeting (4/14). All SIP members were given a copy of the powerpoint. Each standard (5) divided into a specific domain (3). Domain 1: Teaching and Learning Impact: wiki, assessment schedule, PLC groups, using the data etc. Domain 2: Leadership Capacity: mission statement, school improvement goal (write tools), SMART goals (what to do with data), flow chart of SIP (when, where, and what took place), governing body, school leadership. Domain 3: Resource Utilization: has the resources needed to ensure success for students. Strengths and Areas of Improvement for each Domain Jeff suggested to add a slide to highlight the student performance under domain 1 and domain 2 adding a stakeholder feedback. Angie suggested adding something with ILCD data as well, possibly Domain 1. Don’t get too worried about the process. They will have an improvement goal for us to approach within the next 2 years. Systems Accreditation is K-12, systems put in place for all areas K-12. ILCD will present at next meeting after they meet in May. =March 10, 2015= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Present: Jeff Sayer, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Peggy Medema, Cristen Witte, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Cindy Wobig, Ronelle Kilmer, Cort Dewing, Jamie Isom, Jeff McQuistan, Angie Jordan, Melanie Steskal, Danielle Arganbright, Andy Cronin Nothing was changed from the January Steering meeting minutes. The Wiki was analyzed to look at changes. Discussed the updated improvement plan. Jamie brought up we need to look at our evidence and make sure we have artifacts/evidence to match up with every standard. Jeff Sayer did put together evidence plugged into our flowchart, so we have that document. However, we need to make sure we have everything in writing. We need to go back through our building self-assessments to identify what artifacts we have (based on those checklists). We need to “formalize” some of our artifacts, such as our assessment plan. Our report needs to be sent in by March 29th. We have until the visit to organize our artifacts. Jeff McQuistan agreed to organize the list of artifacts on the Wiki for us. We also need a link to our school website from our Wiki. Jeff Sayer brought up that we could add our evidence (from our flowchart) onto the bottom part of our improvement plan. Jeff McQuistan agreed he could do that. We have a team chair for our visit now, David, from Louisiana Tech. They are staying at the Niobrara Lodge. They have a workroom there, but they need a workroom here. They come on Sunday night and do dinner with their team and some of us from Steering. They are here Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. At one point, they want a board meeting that Wednesday to share their information to them before sharing it with the public. That Monday is mainly the ELEOT visits. They want to see every teacher, every classroom (20 minutes in a room). We need to make sure staff is aware why someone is in their room on Monday. They will want to interview different groups and here our executive summary first. Tuesday is stakeholder visits. They will talk to teachers, community, non-certified staff, students, etc. We get a little say in how to schedule these. Wednesday is for them to get the report done and come up with their recommendations. There was some concern for how they will get to the rural schools and see those, but it is their decision for how they will do that. Teachers need to be aware of the ELEOT. We talked about our early out coming up, March 25th. We talked about using that time to gather evidence and work on SMART goals. Regarding ILCD, there was a meeting on February 26th to start preparing for the ILCD goal that will be identified. The committee Cristen has organized is going through documentation. They are planning a day to review documentation to come up with the goal that has to be articulated by October. That will be sometime this spring. Danielle, Angie, and Lindsay will meet with Jeff McQuistan to talk about what needs to be changed on the Wiki.
 * Planning for External Team visit
 * ILCD update
 * Evaluate the Wiki
 * Logistics of the AdvancEd visit (including Stakeholder groups)
 * Discuss ELEOT
 * ILCD update

=February 20, 2015= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Present: Jeff Sayer, Melanie Steskal, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Jamie Isom, Angie Jordan, Andy Cronin, Ronelle Kilmer, Danielle Arganbright, Peggy Medema No minutes were taken. This was time for the Steering Committee to work on ASSIST.
 * Work on District ASSIST
 * Discuss Agenda for March 3, 2015 Steering Meeting

=January 12, 2015= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Present: Jeff Sayer, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Peggy Medema, Cristen Witte, Angie Jordan, Deb Obermiller, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Cindy Wobig, Ronelle Kilmer, Melanie Steskal, Cort Dewing, Jamie Isom, Danielle Arganbright, Jeff McQuistan, Andy Cronin Nothing needed to be amended from the December Steering meeting minutes. Jamie clarified that typically the board does not approve our school improvement goal. Lindsay explained where the district is at with our school improvement goal. We have simply rearranged the wording. Our school improvement goal is that all students will improve in writing and it all flows down to a strategy, SMART goals. We are still going to focus on data collection and analysis. Angie brought up how we need to make sure our staff understands where we are at with the school improvement goal. We are thinking this will come in February after the Steering committee looks at our district ASSIST. The schools are mostly done with their ASSIST. Jamie stated that the administration is going to work on the district ASSIST today and see where they end up. The goal was to come back to the Steering Committee by February with what we have done with the district ASSIST. That would give us time to adjust our internal review before it has to be submitted. Jeff Sayer brought up the Wiki to see what needs to be on their for our visit. We should make a committee to fine tune that. Jamie explained that they will look at us as a district first, then by schools. Jamie reminded us that this is not just to see what we’re doing right or wrong but it helps us see what we need help on. It forces us to look at that process and document where we’ve been. Angie asked about our action plan; what should we do next? It has just stopped. Cindy mentioned maybe we could just keep what we had on our old action plan and start anew. We need a Wiki committee and an action plan committee. Angie, Lindsay, Danielle, Ronelle—action plan and Wiki committees. Jeff McQuistan will hang around for the administration meeting right after the Steering meeting. Cristen Witte stated that at 8 a.m. on January 21st the ILCD Committee will have their first meeting, and they will go over a slideshow that does a training for all committee members. There will be a meeting on January 23rd for all of the ILCD chairs. They have to have their annual goal done by August 1st. They will look at data and have that done for the committee. It is now going to be called RDA (results driven accountability). Still continue to call it ILCD for now. Danielle asked what we put in for funding for Write Tools. The ESU paid for the training, but the school district paid for the books and provided the space for the training. Angie stated she will be gone for the February meeting as well as Ronelle.
 * School Improvement Goal
 * Building ASSIST
 * District ASIST
 * ILCD update
 * Miscellaneous

=December 2, 2014= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Present: Jeff Sayer, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Peggy Medema, Cristen Witte, Angie Jordan, Deb Obermiller, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Cindy Wobig, Andy Cronin, Kyle Arganbright Cristen noted that the November ILCD meeting was a chairperson meeting in Ainsworth, not a committee meeting (from the November minutes). Lindsay discussed an email back from Don from Department of Ed. about our school improvement goal. We discussed that chair-persons and admins overviewed the email and talked about what to do with our school improvement goal and we added that students will improve in Writing, Reading, Science, and Math. Cindy brought up her concern that their could be an abundance of documentation. She expressed we need to follow up with Don at the Department of Ed about that. She said we need to email Don and ask if all four content areas are listed on our school improvement goal, do we have to document improvement in all of those areas? Cindy and Angie will email Don to ask further questions. Angie brought up that Jamie wants a local timeline for ASSIST. Jeff Sayer reinforced our plan, which is to have buildings done by January Steering meeting. District ASSIST needs to be done by February Steering meeting. Concerning ILCD, the committee chairperson meeting was last month, and Cristen is trying to set up a time for the whole committee to meet. She said they need to get a targeted improvement plan by August 1st, 2015. She talked about joining the ILCD and school improvement committees; she said that our state is pushing for that. Other local schools have done that, and she’s not sure that’s what we should do, but it’s a possibility. ILCD is now RDA (results driven accountability).
 * Update on School Improvement goal
 * Local timeline for the Assist information for the SIP has a chance to review before submission
 * ILCD update
 * Miscellaneous

=November 4, 2014= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Present: Jeff Sayer, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Peggy Medema, Ronelle Kilmer, Cristen Witte, Angie Jordan, Cort Dewing, Jamie Isom, Deb Obermiller, Danielle Arganbright, Andy Cronin, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Cindy Wobig, Jeff McQuistan Minutes from October School Improvement meeting were approved. The Continuous School Improvement flowchart was handed out. It’s a flowchart that has all of our school improvement, in-service, etc. plugged into it. Jeff Sayer talked about the NCA conference and the goal builder and how we are waiting to hear if we are doing it correctly. Jamie commented that we have our out of state external review committee chairperson designated. We set up a timeline for our internal review to be finished. Schools need to be done by January 13th and district needs to be done by February 3rd. We want to have it done by then so we can have someone review it before it is due by March 29th. Jeff Sayer commented that we don’t have to make a Stakeholder Improvement Plan on ASSIST but everything else needs to be completed. We have a good start on all other components of ASSIST. Jamie stated that administration and co-chairs probably don’t need to meet every Monday—that time could be used for individual buildings to complete ASSIST. Jeff Sayer discussed the ELEOT, the observation tool the external review uses. Jeff McQuistan clarified that it is a student observation tool, not teacher, to look at the learning environment. It’s a 20 minute observation. They will likely try to get to every classroom. Concerning the early out on November 12th, we discussed time. The early out will be used for SMART goal time as that was what it was set up for. The time can be designated by building administrator. Cristen Witte talked about ILCD and the NDE clearly stating that they wanted it part of School Improvement. Jeff McQuistan will be helping with this. The ESU 17 ILCD Committee is meeting this Friday to start the cycle. The committee is comprised of people from all buildings—good representation from everywhere. Cristen stated we need to keep ILCD on our agenda monthly. Our ILCD needs to submit a targeted improvement plan yearly to NDE, and Cristen will keep us updated monthly. Jamie brought up that the State of the School Report came out on October 24th and encouraged all of us to look at it and make ourselves aware of what it says.
 * Update committee on actions of the weekly meetings when co-chairs met with administration
 * Discuss priorities & completion dates for Internal Review
 * Discuss NCA Conference meetings
 * Discuss SIP early out November 12
 * ILCD update
 * Miscellaneous

=October 7, 2014= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Present: Jeff Sayer, Melanie Steskal, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Peggy Medema, Ronelle Kilmer, Cristen Witte, Cindy Wobig, Angie Jordan, Cort Dewing, Jamie Isom, Deb Obermiller, Danielle Arganbright, Andy Cronin No changes made to the September meeting minutes. Little to no feedback about sending out the minutes to all staff but agreed that it was a good thing to do. Jamie Isom announced our AdvancEd visit will be April 26-28, 2015. Discussed how admins and co-chairs met last night and are preparing items for the visit. Organized data into the flowchart from Victoria Bernhardt. Plan on meeting again next week and subsequent weeks; next meeting we plan on putting the five standards into the flowchart. We have asked Jeff McQuistan to help put together information for the visit; he has experience with the visit as well as technology. We need to keep working on narratives; some of it is done, but we need to get it done across the board. We are still sticking with our timeline of getting it all done before Christmas. We presented our results from the August 6th inservice; agreed that we will present it to staff at our half day of inservice. Also decided we will present it at the October 14th board meeting. For our October 10th inservice, we will have work on smart goals, C4L, etc. For November early out (Nov. 12th), middle school will be working on progress monitoring smart goals. Peggy said the demo site for the data dashboard will be up and running by then. State of Schools will be released on October 24th and would be good to present that to staff as well (that day). Angie brought up that the purpose of our early outs is to have time for smart goals. Agreed that we want to ensure we provide that time to collaborate, progress monitor, etc. as staff requested that as we move forward through smart goals. We have signed up for Brad Geise (Education for the Future) again; so we will use their perceptions again in February. Discussed who had the Victoria Bernhardt book and who is missing it.
 * Sub-committee report the results from what was found when viewing the wiki responses posted at the data retreat
 * Report to the committee the plan and/or ideas that were decided on when co-chairs met with administration
 * Discuss Oct. 10th half-day in-service
 * Discuss November early-out
 * Miscellaneous

=September 9, 2014= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Present: Jeff McQuistan, Jeff Sayer, Melanie Steskal, Lindsay Wonnenberg, Cristen Witte, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Peggy Medema, Ronelle Kilmer, Deb Obermiller, Cindy Wobig, Angie Jordan, Danielle Arganbright, Jamie Isom, Andy Cronin
 * Discuss dates and times the Steering Committee meetings for 2014-2015
 * Discuss the Write Tools training, the data workshop and if requirements should be put in place to hold staff accountable for using the Write Tools training
 * September In-service
 * Review policies on member terms
 * AdvancEd Workshop training and dates
 * Calibrating Your School Improvement Effort – Brad Geise

We discussed the May minutes and no one had anything to discuss. Cristen Witte needs an email with Steering committee dates. The committee agreed that the Write Tools training was valuable. The schools are “embracing it.” We noted examples of its use in all buildings during the meeting. The administrative team has talked about holding staff accountable for Write Tools training. They discussed taking care of it by building; middle school is planning on documenting in instructional plans and rural staff in their lesson plans. We are seeing Write Tools used throughout the buildings. It will be represented in lesson plans or instructional plans. Jeff McQuistan suggested putting this information on the wiki (that we had the Write Tools training, how we are using it and documenting it). Peggy Medema teachers share how they use the training in their room. It was also suggested we have a roving reporter to document this. Data workshop went well; some feedback—need to make the graphs more accurate by showing from top to bottom rather than just the top. Prior to the external review, Jeff McQuistan will fix this so it is more reflective of the data. He commented that staff did a good job and had positive feedback. No one has looked at the feedback on the wiki, but we need to do that. We agreed to put a small group from the Steering committee together to look at feedback. Angie, Ronelle, Danielle, and Lindsay have agreed to sit on the committee. We will discuss this feedback with staff during October in-service. Concerning the AdvancEd visit this year, during the September in-service the high school needs to tackle Standard 3. They plan on doing standard 4 and 5 during October. Dr. Isom believes it is one report that the external team will see and that we should have all the pieces. We should do the building first (which is mostly done in all buildings) and then compile it into the district ASSIST. It was also brought up that we need to find a date for our visit. Reports will likely need to be submitted by or around February 1st. During the September in-service, co-chairs and administrators are getting together at 3 p.m. Information about Steering committee member policies was passed around. We discussed the community member on the Steering committee and identified Kyle Arganbright as our active community member but also identified Maureen Johnson as a possible community member. Everyone agreed to adding Maureen to the committee, and Angie is giving her a call. There was concern brought up about the chair position of the Steering committee. We are going to discuss the co-chair position during the September in-service during co-chair/administrative meeting. The Steering minutes need to go to all staff quickly after the meeting. Jeff, Jeff, Angie, Lindsay, and Andy are going to Norfolk for AdvancEd Workshop. Jamie is going sometime to an AdvancEd Workshop. Jamie brought up how the external team looks at our school in a rearview mirror. It’s important we are able to document why we did what we did during school improvement. We need to have this stashed somewhere. Jeff Sayer put most of the in-service information on the wiki. But we need to add the “meat” to what happened during those in-service times. Angie Jordan is going to bring the updated action plan to the September in-service to edit. Jeff Sayer mentioned maybe more Steering members need Brad Giese training. Many who had it are off the committee now. Jeff Sayer also brought up that if we use Brad Giese perceptions, we need to let him know soon. Jeff McQuistan said he called and had a follow up phone call that said we are in our 5th year, so we need to use AdvancEd surveys (which we did in the spring). Valentine Community Schools want to use the Brad surveys in the spring. Jamie mentioned that we need to use whatever survey for external team that was done within a year of our visit. Many questioned if we need to meet those certain percentages of involvement for each building or if it’s for the whole district.

=May 6, 2014= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Steering committee notes from May 6, 2014 Present: Ronelle Kilmer, Maureen Johnson, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Melanie Steskal, Peggy Medema, Lindsey Wonnenberg, Danielle Arganbright, Angie Jordan, Deb Obermiller, Cindy Wobig, Cort Dewing, Jeff Sayer, Jamie Isom, Dave Renning, and Jeff McQuistan via Google Hangout The Data Into Action book tells us how to do what we are already trying to do. It makes it easy to understand and talks about micro data rather than just macro data. Teachers can use microdata more in daily classroom decision-making. Steering committee can use this book as study guide. NDE is working with the Victoria Bernhart people. Cindy called NCA and found out we do not have to use the survey from AdvancEd if we do not want to; we just need something comparable. Some prefer to use the Victoria Bernhart survey as it has already been used with good results, but the data gathering and analysis may be a bit more difficult if we do not use the survey NDE provides on Assist. We will wait until the February PT conferences to survey again. Small groups can work on creating a new survey. August 6th inservice day will be used to train in writing and work on data with staff. Jeff McQuistan and possibly Rachel Labounty will be able to help with data work. We will need to work on self-assessment by buildings before school gets out. We will not meet as a steering committee this summer, but the co-leaders will.
 * Discuss __Data Into Action__ Book
 * Discuss option of using different survey other than the one provided from AdvancEd.
 * Discuss progress of Self-Assessment
 * Finalize Data Retreat Plan
 * Set the dates and times the Steering Committee will meet this summer

=April 1, 2014=

Meeting Agenda
Minutes: SIP minutes for April 1, 2014 Present: Jamie Isom, Dave Renning, Jeff Sayer, Cort Dewing, Melanie Steskal, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Maureen Johnson, Linda Schafer, Ronelle Kilmer, Deb Obermiller, Peggy Medema, Kurt Arganbright, Shane Allison, Danielle Arganbright, Lindsey Wonnenberg, Angie Jordan Jeff Sayer passed out Standard One. Cindy, Maureen and Angie did number 1. Lindsey said schools can do it how they wish, but the push is for collaboration in figuring out where schools are in each standard. Jeff had rurals in and did the self-assessment. They did standards 1-3. Assist site has a better form. Middle school and rurals will be doing the Assist one rather than the “workbook”. We need to look at the stake holder surveys first, then look at the standards. How much actual evidence do we need? It needs to be in your environment. They prefer it to be in ITS natural environment. There needs to be easy access to the information, such as the wiki, live binder, files, etc. SLDS update – this is the state longitudinal data system dashboard. We haven’t been able to put data on it yet. SLDS is working with powerschool to link all of our information together. The action plan is updated, but will include all old information from oldest to newest. The idea is to lead with the past – outlining the history of our story – a living document. Sometime in July, we will have a data retreat. Staff will be able to look at what was done in July during the August Inservices.
 * Self Assessment
 * Update on SLDS
 * Updated Action Plan
 * Discuss a data retreat date
 * Progress on Rural ASSIST
 * Miscellaneous-Results from parent survey

=March 4, 2014= Meeting Agenda Minutes: SIP minutes for March 2014 Attending: Jeff McQuistan, Peggy Medema, Deb Obermiller, Cindy Wobig, Linda Schafer, Melanie Steskal, Maureen Johnson, Jeff Sayer, Cort Dewing, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Dave Renning, Danielle Arganbright, Lindsey Wonnenberg, Ronelle Kilmer, Jamie Isom, Angie Jordan We need to decide how to address the 5 standards of the self-assessment with Staff. Once a month, we will have staff take the self-assessment – these are the same standards as were on the parent survey – maybe these could be on a Google form, collaboration in PLC’s or a teacher meeting. Building vs. district accreditation – external team will look at district paper work. We need to make sure the buildings collaborate to create the district paper work. We should do building first, and then compile the information into district assessment. We can try to do standards 1 and 2 before school gets out. We may have a summer data retreat with the steering committee, and then take it to the Staff. Steering committee will need to meet in the summer as well, on the first Tuesdays of the months (as a suggestion), so not to lose momentum. NDE is considering using MAP testing as the state assessment instead of NESA. Parent/Student/Teacher conference survey results – the elementary school got together to discuss the results. Maureen handed out discussion highlights. We have great Staff and need more technology. The board approved the mission statement when presented at the February board meeting. There were positive comments. Education for the Future is this Thursday (March 6) at 3:00 pm CST and will be broadcast at the middle school.
 * Plan how to address each standard from the NCA AdvancED Self-Assessment Workbook
 * Discuss a data retreat
 * Parent Survey Results form PSTC
 * Discuss Mission Statement and board approval
 * Education for the Future with Brad Geise on March 6

=February 4, 2014= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Steering committee meeting minutes for February 4, 2014 Present: Dave Renning, Jeff Sayer, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Kyle Arganbright, Jeff McQuistan, Ronelle Kilmer, Deb Obermiller, Peggy Medema, Danielle Arganbright, Lindsey Wonnenberg, Angie Jordan The meeting began with a summary power point about the main issues and trends each sub group submitted from the Wiki responses for the SMART goal book. See one of the co-captains if you want the notes from this power point! On February 13, administration will get together and discuss the power point and find all the main points. Time to work and training seem to be the biggest theme. Jeff McQuistan said we would be right on track by going through the wiki responses and actually doing something about each one of them – answering questions, finding the information requested, etc. Administration can work on finding training for SMART goals to get everyone on the same page. Peggy said NDE is putting together a dictionary of common data terms so everyone can be on the same page with the wording of things. This may help with trainings. Concerns are whether we are “putting the cart before the horse” and rushing into SMART goals without enough training. Jeff McQuistan said we need a data retreat. Middle School would like some more training before putting any more work into SMART goals. High School is working on goals by department and Elementary School is working on writing goals by grade level. All schools will be doing the parent survey from ASSIST during parent teacher conferences. =January 6, 2014= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Minutes for the Steering Committee Meeting – January 7, 2014 Present: Jamie Isom, Cindy Wobig, Dave Renning, Jeff Sayer, Cort Dewing, Melanie Steskal, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Maureen Johnson, Linda Schafer, Jeff McQuistan, Ronelle Kilmer, Deb Obermiller, Peggy Medema, Billie Murphey, Danielle Arganbright, Lindsey Wonnenberg, Angie Jordan Subgroups and chapter assignments were assigned for discussion and compilation of the questions and comments presented on the SMART goal wiki. Groups will get together on their own time and get this done. Elementary School shared the goal of writing across the grade levels. This goal came from combining the research that has been done on grading and recording and the need for improvement in writing across the ESU. We want to focus on learning not so much on a grade. ESU is planning some things to help all their schools in writing instruction. January in-service – administration will plan that day by building. Sub groups and PLCs will have time to meet for discussion on chapter 5 in the smart goal book. The action plan needs to be updated. Surveys and perception data – the AdvancED website has surveys that we don’t have to recreate. Administration sat down with committee co-chairs and discussed AdvancED process. There is a lot to do before the visit. We need to get started on it. We need to have a discussion on the surveys for parents during the PT conferences. Will the survey be given paper/pencil, computer, email link, or a combination of all? =December 3, 2013= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Steering committee notes for December 3, 2013 Present: Jamie Isom, Cindy Wobig, Dave Renning, Jeff Sayer, Cort Dewing, Janell Stoeger, Maureen Johnson, Linda Schafer, Jeff McQuistan, Peggy Medema, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Clara Martinsen, Danielle Arganbright, Angie Jordan, Lindsey Wonnenberg, Deb Obermiller, Ronelle Kilmer, Kyle Arganbright, Billie Murphy In discussing sub committees for SMART goal WIKI responses, an idea was presented to the School Improvement Committee to have all members divide into groups, dividing up the chapters, and discussing the comments on the WIKI. This was agreed upon and groups will be assigned, along with a chapter to discuss – to be done by the February meeting. Lindsey showed a power point summarizing her notes from the AdvancED conference she, Angie, and Jeff McQuistan attended. We are up for accreditation next year and she learned several things that need to be taken care of before the internal and external reviews in 2015. We need to be making sure we have a mission and vision statement and start inputting information into ASSIST. If you would like more information or to review the power point, please ask Lindsey, I am sure she would be willing to share it with you! Jeff and Angie attended a session on data recording. They learned how to create the documents needed for ASSIST. Our school is already Rule 10 accredited, and we are working on becoming AdvancED accreditation, which includes the rural schools. Lindsey also showed us parts of the ASSIST website. She also discussed Elliott, which is an anonymous teacher evaluation tool that isn’t really a teacher evaluation tool! It is a tool to do a quick check on classrooms to see if school goals are being met. There was a discussion on the calendar for the next school year. Suggestions were that we have time added in for school improvement and PLC group work time. Jeff, Jamie, and Angie attended the October teleconference for Brad Geise. It was a review of the SIP continuum, problem solving and data, hunches and hypotheses, and flow charts. It was a good review of Victoria Bernhart. This process is very similar in purpose to ASSIST and AdvancED. =November 12, 2013= toc Meeting Agenda Minutes: Steering Committee Meeting minutes Present: Jamie Isom, Cindy Wobig, Dave Renning, Jeff Sayer, Cort Dewing, Melanie Steskal, Janell Stoeger, Maureen Johnson, Linda Schafer, Jeff McQuistan (by video), Peggy Medema, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Dana Anderson, Clara Martinsen, Danielle Arganbright, Angie Jordan Teachers are posting and asking questions concerning the Wiki for SMART goals. We need a sub committee to get these responses compiled and questions answered. This committee, consisting of Jeff, Danielle, Lindsey, Jamie, Angie, Janelle, Melanie and Cindy, will meet and have the responses compiled by the February Steering committee meeting so we can go over them. The compilation will then be shared with the staff at the February inservice. The school improvement workshop participants will present next month. In the mean time, we can start looking over the Assist program. We are leaving the mission statement and vision statement alone for now. Jeff provided an article about mission and vision for us to read. Administration will be discussing the smart goal pilot groups. Cindy has a plan for the elementary school to work with the grading and reporting committee. Middle school is leaning toward math and reading with something for the non core subjects to work on. Rurals have concerns and if we have any suggestions on how the rurals can do smart goals, let Jeff know. Peggy reported on the data pilot program. The timeline is to have it all ready by spring. She will be attending a meeting in Lincoln next week. When using the data dashboard, we should be able to input anything we want to track about students. Teachers will be able to see it, use it, and input information if Power school doesn’t input it. =October 1, 2013= Meeting Agenda Minutes: Minutes of the October 1, 2013 steering committee meeting Present: Jamie Isom, Cindy Wobig, Dave Renning, Jeff Sayer, Cort Dewing, Janell Stoeger, Maureen Johnson, Linda Schafer, Jeff McQuistan, Deb Obermiller, Peggy Medema, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Danielle Arganbright, Lindsey Wonnenberg, and Angie Jordan The Assist program has community surveys to replace the ones off of school city. Danielle, Lindsey and Angie are going to a meeting next week and will learn more about Assist. Jeff McQuistan compiled all the responses from the SMART goal book questions and emailed them to Lindsey and Angie. The question was asked if staff should look at them. It was decided that the steering committee would look at the responses before the next steering committee meeting and discuss it at the meeting. Several rural teachers have used SMART goals. The thought is that we need to focus on the positive rather than the negative/weaknesses. Maybe if we set smaller goals in smaller groups, it would work better. Angie and Jamie sat in on the Education for the Future meeting. It was good to listen to. He talked about perception data this time. Mrs. Johnson had a conference call for NDE. They are restructuring the entire process. Parent surveys will be done this year for the RDA (results driven accountability). Mrs. Johnson has sent in some data already this year. We are looking for suggestions for a community member for steering committee. Billie Murphy is willing and Kyle Arganbright, Robert Joseph. Amanda Long was suggested. We are to email in suggestions for community members. We need to have a data retreat – maybe some time in May or summer. We will focus on data all day. All of our data is not in until the end of the school year. The October inservice is on October 11 for ½ a day. The plan in not set yet, but the BCBS representative will be here. Administration will figure out what we are doing for inservice. =September 10, 2013= Meeting Agenda > Minutes: Minutes of the September 10, 2013 Steering Committee Meeting Present: Jamie Isom, Cindy Wobig, Dave Renning, Jeff Sayer, Cort Dewing, Melanie Steskal, Janell Stoeger, Maureen Johnson, Linda Schafer, Peggy Medema, Shiloh Hanzlicek, Danielle Arganbright, Lindsey Wonnenberg, and Angie Jordan Valentine Community Schools has been chosen to be a pilot school for the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS). We will end up with a dashboard that can be used to look up all information about a student: grades, test scores, demographics, attendance, and hopefully things like unit tests and DIBELS scores. We watched a Student GPS Dashboard video showing what we could expect to see on this dashboard. During the September inservice on the 25th, we will have some time to work on the Smart Goal book with our PLC groups. We will also view a short power point about Smart Goals to motivate the groups and keep the idea of Smart Goals fresh in our minds. We will be piloting Smart Goals in January. We need to decide how to do this- choosing groups to pilot, administration picks the groups, groups volunteer? Maybe a PLC from each building can pilot Smart Goals. We had a discussion about putting VCS on Facebook. The idea is to get our name out there in a positive manner more often. Peggy looked to other schools to see what they are doing with Facebook. These schools had positive things to say, reminding us that someone needs to monitor and delete negative posts and comments. Some schools have Twitter accounts, as well. Our Technology Committee doesn’t seem very interested in having our school on Facebook. The question was who would spend their time monitoring the site. Angie and Lindsey will be attending the AdvancEd Nebraska Conference in Kearney on October 7 and 8. They will relay information to the steering committee. Joanne Nelson would like to be off the steering committee. Bring ideas to the next meeting for community members who would be interested in being a part of the steering committee. Jeff McQuistan created a wiki for the Steering Committee. September 19 is the next date for Brad G.’s Education For Learning web conference at 3:00 Central Time
 * Summarize the main issues/trends reported back from subgroups about the Wiki responses - Discuss what to present to staff at the next in service
 * SMART Goals - discuss what each school has planned
 * Parent Survey - finalize plans for PSTC on February 12
 * Education for the Future with Brad Geise on January 20
 * Miscellaneous
 * Subgroups and chapter assignments for the Wiki responses to SMART Goal book questions and discuss the best way(s) to examine the PLCs posts.
 * SMART Goals - Elementary school will share their goal
 * January 22 Inservice Plan
 * Miscellaneous
 * Revisit sub-committee idea for Wiki responses to SMART Goal book questions.
 * School Improvement Workshop - summary from Mrs. Wonnenberg and Mrs. Jordan
 * New community member - welcome - discuss School Improvement purpose, answer questions
 * Education for the Future - summary of Brad Geise teleconference - Problem Solving
 * 2014-2015 School Calendar - School Improvement time each month for PLCs and SMART Goals
 * Miscellaneous
 * Wiki responses to SMART goal book questions – who and when do we examine responses? Sub-committee needed?
 * School Improvement Workshop – summary from Lindsey and Angie
 * Revisit mission statement/vision
 * SMART goal pilot groups – administrators plan
 * New community member suggestions for Steering Committee
 * Education for the Future – Continuous School Imp. with Brad Geise – Tuesday, November 12, 2013 –3:00
 * Miscellaneous
 * Perception Data – Gallup
 * Wiki responses to SMART goal book questions – who and when do we examine responses?
 * Chapter 1.1
 * Chapter 1.2
 * SMART goal – decide who should pilot these and how to go about helping them get started
 * Education for the Future w/Brad Geise
 * ILCD update
 * New community member for Steering Committee
 * Data workshop/retreat (May in-service?)
 * Miscellaneous
 * Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) – Peggy Medema can inform committee of what she knows about the design and piloting
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">Here are some video tutorials that demonstrate how the new dashboard can be used once we have it all up and running
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">StudentGPS-Overview @http://vimeo.com/64654612
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">StudentGPS-Campus Improvement @http://vimeo.com/64656962
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">StudentGPS-Intervention Planning @http://vimeo.com/64656963
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">StudentGPS-SST/ARD Preparation (SST meeting (general education student) or ARD meeting (special education student) @http://vimeo.com/64656968
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">StudentGPS-Parent/Teacher Conference @http://vimeo.com/64656969
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">StudentGPS-Attendance and Truancy Monitoring @http://vimeo.com/64663300
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">StudentGPS-Student Goal Setting @http://vimeo.com/64741845
 * September in-service – questions concerning:
 * time as a whole district
 * how much time
 * continue thinking of what PLC’s will pilot Smart Goals
 * Smart Goals – discussion on who, what, where, when
 * Facebook for VCS
 * AdvancEd Nebraska Conference in Kearney Oct. 7 – 8
 * New Community Member for committee
 * Miscellaneous