The Bancroft-Rosalie School Board of Education met Monday October 10 at 7:30 pm.
Superintendent Cerny reported on the success of the Rosetta Stone program for advanced foreign language students. Some students will be able to complete more than two semesters of foreign language credit during the school year.
The Band will be taking a trip during the summer of 2018. An itinerary and pricing for a 4 day trip to Nashville was presented to the board, with a price quote of $867 per person.
The Pathways 2 Tomorrow consortium is looking at forming a Joint Public Agency in order to sustain the program after grant funding ends. The JPA would allow school districts to designate levy authority to the ESU to fund the program.
Dr. Cerny will be attending the INaCOL (International Association for K-12 Online Learning) Conference in San Antonio October 26-28. He is submitting a State Innovation Grant application to the Nebraska Department of Education for $75,000 each year for three years to incorporate more Competency Based and Blended Learning principles into the Bancroft-Rosalie School curriculum. The first year would be in science and involves identifying the critical concepts to be taught at each level, determining the on-line and print resources that would be used to teach each concept to mastery, and developing an assessment that will measure mastery of each concept. The mastery system is already in place for elementary reading, english and math, but the alignment of on-line resources (IXL, for example) needs to take place in years two and three of the grant.
The School will be partnering with the Neihardt Historic Site on a Community Forestry Project. The project will be part of a Lower Elkhorn NRD project to remove two dead trees on the Neihardt site and plant up to 10 new trees. The design will be developed with the assistance of Lower Elkhorn NRD Forester Pam Bergstrom.
In new business, the school board reviewed the school insurance program and the transportation program.
The board approved the Bancroft-Rosalie Education Association as the exclusive bargaining agent for teachers for 2018-19. Mike Nottlemann will contact the BREA to begin the teacher negotiations process at the beginning of November.
The school board approved a Bancroft-Rosalie junior high wrestling to begin after Christmas. Mr. Sovde will coach the team and he has 4-5 students interested in competing. The season will run during the third quarter, between junior high basketball and track seasons.
The board approved the waiver of the fine arts requirement for 5 students that have schedule conflicts.
