Nebraska Department of Education transition to ACT for state assessment

Last spring High School Juniors in Nebraska took the ACT test as their state assessment. Previous year's took the NeSA test. This article from NDE describes the transition from NeSA to ACT.

NATIONAL BLUE RIBBON HONORS AWARDED TO FOUR NEBRASKA SCHOOLS

Congratulations to Pender Elementary School. Welcome to the Blue Ribbon Club. Four Nebraska schools have been named as National Blue Ribbon Schools for 2017. The recognition is based on a school’s overall academic performance or progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups. The four Nebraska schools were among 342 schools nationwide recognized by the U.S. Department of Education for demonstrating that all students can achieve to high levels. The Nebraska schools that were honored are: · Calvert Elementary School, Auburn Public Schools in Auburn · Dundee Elementary School, Omaha Public Schools in Omaha · Paddock Road Elementary School, Westside Community Schools in Omaha · Pender Elementary School, Pender Public Schools in Pender

Basketball subdistricts

Basketball sub-district and district assignments have been released by the NSAA. The teams are the same for both boys and girls. In basketball, the winners of subdistrict 3 and 4 will play to go to state. This is different than volleyball. In volleyball the 12 subdistrict winners and the next four wildcards are all seeded 1-16 and play one game to go to state. The winner of our volleyball subdistrict has the possibility of playing any of the other subdistrict winners or a wildcard team, depending on our final powerpoint average. The location of those games are determined by the two schools playing.

IXL Smartscore

IXL is an online practice program that we will use to reinforce the curriculum again this school year. IXL has been purchased for all Pre-12 students. The program will allow us to individualize the learning experience for students so that they can work at their own pace to master the material we will cover. Your child can sign in from home by visiting www.IXL.com on any computer and entering the username and password provided by the school. There are even iPad and Android apps to allow your child to practice on the go! How is a student’s SmartScore adjusted as he or she practices? We often get asked why the SmartScore is lowered in larger intervals as students approach a score of 100. We recognize that every student learns at a different pace, so the SmartScore doesn’t penalize students heavily for missed questions early in their practice sessions. Once students begin to understand the skill and consistently submit correct answers, their SmartScore goes up and IXL presents more challenging problems. Then, in order to reach a SmartScore of 100, students must answer a certain number of questions correctly and consistently, including the most difficult problems within that skill. This is to ensure that students truly understand the material (and that they aren’t just guessing correctly!). A little bit of struggle to reach mastery can be worthwhile – once the students hit 100, they’ll know their practice has paid off and that they’ve really earned that score!

TC Thunder Conference Golf Champions

TC Thunder girls Golf team takes East Husker Conference Championship Saturday in Oakland Paige Peters – Conference Champion Mariah Petersen – Runner-Up

Grant funds available for House demolition in Bancroft

Cuming County Economic Development has grant funds available to assist with the demolition of old houses in Bancroft. There are $18,000 in funds available. Grants will pay 50% of demolition costs up to $5000 per house.

The Nebraska Department of Education submits state Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan to the U.S. Department of Education

News Release from Nebraska Department of Education

The Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) has submitted the state’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan to the U.S. Department of Education for review. ESSA was signed by President Barack Obama in 2015 and requires states to set their own long-term achievement goals.

The ESSA planning process provided Nebraska an opportunity to blend the recently-developed Strategic Vision and Direction and its accountability system, AQuESTT. Nebraska approached the ESSA plan by considering where to focus federal resources to better support struggling schools, historically underserved students, and the recruitment and development of highly-effective educators.

Under the plan, Nebraska’s overall 10-year goal is a 50 percent reduction in the number of students not proficient on the statewide assessment. The plan also sets specific achievement benchmarks for subgroups of students and a target for a four-year graduation rate of 94.4 percent for all students.

Further, ESSA requires states to create an accountability system that identifies schools most in need of support and intervention.  Nebraska’s plan uses AQuESTT to track indicators including academic achievement, academic progress, graduation rate, progress for English Learners, and chronic absenteeism to help determine school quality and student success. ESSA mirrors the state’s own efforts to improve its schools Most In Need of Support to Improve, or Priority Schools. In the future, Priority Schools will continue to receive support (state-funded improvement activities) as will roughly 24 schools identified as In Need of Comprehensive Support and Improvement, qualifying them for federally-funded improvement activities.

Nebraska’s ESSA plan was created through extensive outreach including a statewide listening tour held in seven locations from Scottsbluff to Omaha, online partner facilitation resources, and an online feedback survey with more than 1,700 responses. NDE staff also engaged in productive dialogue with Governor Pete Ricketts and received a letter of support from the Governor and from Senator Deb Fischer.

A more comprehensive look at Nebraska’s plan can be found on NDE’s ESSA website: https://www.education.ne.gov/ESSA/index.html.

Column on Substitute teachers from the Nebraska Legislature Education Committee Chair

We introduced Legislative Resolution (LR) 130: an Education Committee study to examine issues related to the use and availability of substitute teachers. Last year, Senator Erdman’s LB568 in the Education Committee and Senator Kolterman’s LB415 in the Retirement Committee brought to our attention policy issues concerning substitute teachers in our state’s public-schools.

When introducing LR130, I started with the premise that teachers want to teach and they take pride in their classroom results. They would prefer to be in the classroom! Therefore, the questions we posed were: 1) what can we do to maximize teachers’ time in the classroom? 2) What policies can we pursue to assure that there is smooth transition in the classroom from teacher to substitute? 3) Could policy changes help lower last year’s $35 million statewide cost for substitute teacher?

Believing that the real-life experiences of local school superintendents were the best source of background information, we sent out a questionnaire to all 244 school district superintendents. Response was good. At the hearing, we invited testimony from school organizations: Nebraska State Education Association (NSEA), Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA), Educational Service Units (ESUs), Nebraska Association of School Boards (NASB), and the Department of Education (NDE).

When asked how many days teachers are absent from the classroom, the answer was on average 10.5 to 12 days. Considering many teachers prefer to be in their classrooms, the average was unexpectedly high. A school official who testified stated that the total days a public school student is taught by substitute teachers is equivalent to one of their 13 years in public school. Life does happen and as expected, illness and the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) (up to 12 weeks) accounted for over 50% of the absence from the classroom. Other major reasons were: continued education requirements for certified teachers for professional development and training for state mandates on assessments, curriculum, student testing, school safety, and standard reviews. Also attributed were new training requirements for numerous state edicts, as examples; suicide awareness, bullying prevention, date rape prevention, restraint and seclusion, and concussion protocol.

The trend towards teacher contracts allowing for personal days instead of strictly sick leave and family emergencies was also mentioned as a reason for increased teacher absences. When asked if NSAA high school activities were a major factor for demand of substitute teachers, the answer was no: those events are mostly scheduled around school days. Some isolated rural districts were affected by travel time to events. Also mentioned were, an increase in junior high activities and all day club activities of Future Farmers of America (FFA) and Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA).

We discovered that after allowing for the expected 5-6 days of illness and family leave, the question remained of how can we keep teachers in the classroom the other 5-6 days they are now absent? Scheduling training days by ESUs and the NDE during non-classroom times seems to be the quick answer. That answer may mean adding more non-classroom days to employee contracts or simply scheduling training during the summer interim. A consideration of moving away from the trend of giving paid personal days in contracts and instead returning to a policy of allowing for administrator approved paid absences may be another answer.

With that said, for the immediate future we still need to find ways to expand the pool of available substitute teachers. Most of the responders to our survey said allowing recently retired teachers the ability to substitute immediately would help immensely; the stickler is, the IRS requires a bona fide separation from like employment when retirement is drawn. State law defines separation for public school teachers as 180 days. NDE did attempt to address the problem this year by increasing the number of days a local substitute can teach from 45 to 90.

To be a local substitute, one must have at least 60 credit hours of higher education including an hour of an approved human relations course. It was suggested that 120 days should be considered. If you have inkling to teach, check with your school, you may qualify to substitute teach.

Climbing Mount Meru July 2, 2017

I thought I would share the journal notes from my trip to the summit of Mount Meru in Tanzania.

Day One

Picked up at Mwangaza. Stopped for sun crème (sunscreen) at store in Usa River area. At Momella Gate entrance to the Arusha National Park I waited 2 hours for enough hikers to 

form a group. 

Baboons were around the waiting area. One sat four feet from me waiting to steal my food if he could.

Our group left Momella Gate at 12:30 pm. There were three other hikers- a French woman who lives in Canada, and a Belgian couple working in Dar Es Salaam, Joris and Jennifer.

The Park Ranger attending to the group was “Good Luck.” He's the one with the rifle.

My guide was “Honest” and he is from Moshi, Tanzania. He's a Cubs fan I guess. The other man was a porter.

The trail followed a road most of the way to the first huts where we stayed the night.

At 2:15 we stopped to rest at “Fig Tree Arch.”

Two Norwegian brothers joined the group later in the afternoon. They lived in Tanzania several years as children of missionaries and were mid-twenties.

We passed several monkeys in the trees. Blue monkeys were jumping from tree to tree as an old white bearded monkey called to them.

A large long tailed Colubus monkey with a small baby clinging to it was sitting watching us go by.

Buffalo dung piles littered the road in spots, but no water buffalo were seen. We were told the buffalo like to walk the road, reminding me of Yellowstone, where buffalo also walk the road. One of the guides said one pile of dung was from a giraffe. I have no idea how he could tell, it all looked the same.

I was the oldest in this group of mountain climbers. One of the Norwegian boys was named John, so the Park Ranger called me “Papa”- grandfather. They took care of me, my guide carried my backpack for a while, not that he needed to.

I slept very well that night. 

The long walk tired me and dinner was very filling- tea, chicken soup, small pieces of fish, fried potatoes, vegetable salad (carrot, cucumbers and peppers), and cooked vegetables (carrots and green beans). There was too much food to eat, but the guide said eat as much as I could to get ready for the next two days.

The food and the altitude cause lots of gas, so I am taking acid reducer before every meal the next two days.

My phone is at 65% and this is the last place to charge, so if I want pictures, the ranger will need to charge the phone before we leave.

Day 2

I woke with a dry mouth, reminding me that I need to drink more water today.

Today was much harder. It is steep and took four hours to get to Saddle Hut- our second camp. Breakfast at 7 am, leave at 8. Arriving at Saddle Hut at Noon.

Four hours walking the winding trail to Saddle Hut. 

It was really hot and dusty. I put sun crème on my face before we left. Walking in a short sleeve shirt, I wanted to put sun crème on my arms, neck and ears, but I had packed the crème in my large pack that the porters took to the next camp. Luckily Jane from France let me use some of her SP 50+.

It was very windy when we arrived at Saddle Hut. I imagine it will be cold when we leave for the summit of Meru after midnight.

After resting, the group climbed Little Meru and come back to camp.

 It was one and a half hours up and back and will help us acclimate to the altitude.

 Jane, John and Oerich from Norway, and their guides.

Day 3

Wake up at Midnight. Hike to the summit starts at 1 am. What a time to come down with food poisoning/traveler’s diarrhea. I didn’t feel like eating any breakfast. Just some soup.

 Hiking in the dark was a but unnerving. Honest would say “on the left is very steep.” I had a headlamp, but I focused on the two feet walking ahead of me.

I felt so sick that I stopped to sit for a few minutes and told the rest of the group to go on. I thought about turning back, but Honest convinced me to keep going- “It’s only a little farther”. Rhino Point- somewhere halfway to the summit from Saddle Camp.

After several toilet breaks- choo is Swahili for toilet, one of the words I remembered- I felt better, leaving behind reminders of my presence on the mountainside. Nothing like leaning against a rock and letting go. Luckily, I had wet wipes and Honest handed me a roll of toilet paper. No pictures of this.

It was harder than I anticipated. There were rope chains to help trekkers as they made their way over and around the exposed mountain, requiring me to pull myself along the edge of the bare rock. The final ascent to the summit involved climbing a rock wall.

Honest and I reached the summit at 6:45 am. Sunrise was at 6:30- which is why you leave camp so early. The others passed us on their way back- it was too cloudy to see the sunrise, so I didn’t miss anything. We sat on the summit for five minutes- took pictures and headed back the same way we came.

We arrived back at Saddle Camp at 9:30 am, and was congratulated by Good Luck and Jane who had waited outside of camp for me to arrive.

I had two hours to rest before we started back down the mountain for the first hut. All downhill, we made it in 2 hours- the others seemed surprised I was able to keep up with the fast pace. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, worried that it would quickly pass through me. That didn’t help my energy level.

We still needed to walk to Momella Gate. Honest suggested I call a Land Rover and catch a ride rather than walk the rest of the way. I agreed since I was too tired to walk.

When we arrived at the gate, our ride wasn’t there. He was having difficulty with his pass to get into the park, so Honest called a taxi to take us to the pass gate. I shared a taxi with two Tanzanian men, one who smelled of alcohol and the other was muslim. At the pass gate, I was driven back to Mwangaza to rest before I flew back to the USA.

Leaving the park, we passed troops of baboons by the side of the road.

The driver is wearing the red hoodie.

Vocational Rehab services for students

Vocational Rehab will be at Bancroft-Rosalie School the first Thursday of every month.

School Board Summary

The Bancroft-Rosalie Board of Education met Monday, September 11, 2017 at 7:30 pm in Bancroft. Two public hearings were held prior to the regular monthly meeting. The first hearing was the 2017-18 school budget hearing, followed by the Property Tax Request hearing. During the regular board meeting, Superintendent Cerny presented the August transportation report, 2018 valuations, and the Enrollment Option report In new business, the board approved the 2017-18 school budget as published. The General Fund tax rate was set at 0.6729, the Building Fund levy was set at 0.0234 and the Qualified Purpose Fund levy was set at 0.0058. Mike Pommer was contracted as the school auditor for 2017, 2018, and 2019. Several people at the meeting spoke on the BRLD coop agenda item. Dr. Cerny presented options regarding academics, athletics, and activities for the board to consider as they prepare for the joint BRLD coop meeting October 5 at 7:00 pm in Lyons.

Nebraska Benchmarks for state ACT test

Below are the ACT test benchmarks approved by the Nebraska Department of Education for student proficiency. The ACT test is given to 11th grade students to measure proficiency in English Language Arts, Math, and Science.

September School Board Meeting Agenda

Prior to the meeting there will be a Budget Hearing at 7:30 pm and a Tax Request Hearing at 7:40 pm.

School Income Guidelines for Free/Reduced Meal Prices

The Nebraska Department of Education’s Nutrition Services office has announced the Income Eligibility Guidelines for free and reduced price meals for persons unable to pay the full price of meals served under the National School Lunch, Breakfast, Special Milk, and Child and Adult Care Food Programs.

Bancroft Harvestfest this Saturday

Lots of activities and food options this Saturday in Bancroft.

Rosalie Village Newsletter

This months Rosalie Newsletter