Superintendent Briefing
March 2019
North Platte Public School District Strives toward GREATNESS
A team that believes together achieves together. We believe in each other.
GREAT teams are not only positive in the beginning but throughout the journey. We will continue to stay positive together through all the adversity, challenges, setbacks, and issues.
A team that stays positive together succeeds together.
Teams that simply stay positive, one day at a time, end up accomplishing a lot over time.
It’s powerful when we believe in our leaders, but to be a great team I believe it’s even more powerful to believe in each other. If you want to accomplish great things together, we must believe together.
As a team, make sure we encourage each other. Cheer each other on. Support each other. When we encourage each other, we make one another stronger and we make the team stronger.
Great teams are collectively positive.
To be a positive team, all of the team members must cultivate optimism within ourselves and share it with each other.
Staff Member of the Month
Award Presentation
Tina Hanson & Jeff Nemecek
Award Presentation
Tina Hanson February Staff Member of the Month
Tina Hanson, Title I teacher at Cody Elementary, deserves to be recognized as the Teacher/Staff person of the month. Tina is a Great Title I instructor and is always willing to share her Greatness with her fellow Title I teachers in the district as well as all other District staff members as well. Tina has shown excellent leadership skills by leading staff trainings, working with all Title I staff members in need of assistance, and even modeling how LLI should be utilized for administrators who want to make their staff even better.
Mrs. Hanson also does a Great job of building relationships with students. As a Title I teacher, she doesn’t always come into contact with many students that she doesn’t see daily. However, she volunteered to do daily crossing guard duties at our busiest intersection to help ensure the safety of our students. This allows her the opportunity to build positive rapport with many students that she doesn’t usually have contact with as well as building positive rapport with parents. Volunteering for this duty shows how Great Tina is at building relationships and also what a Great team player she is!
Mrs. Hanson is also the Cody Elementary CIP Leader. She is always right on top of any task that assigned to her in this role. ---Jeff Nemecek, Principal, Cody Elementary School.
School Business Partner:
The February award was sponsored by Ladybug Crossing. Staff members are awarded a gift basket full of items donated by the sponsor and a gift card, candy and balloons from the North Platte Public Schools Foundation as well as a bouquet donated by Prairie Friends and Flowers. Staff members are awarded monthly throughout the school year and are recognized at the annual Education After Hours each spring.
NPPSD Safety Committee
If you have a building safety/security request that should be considered, please send it to Stuart Simpson the safety committee chair and the committee will discuss it at their next monthly meeting.
The safety committee meets monthly to discuss safety and security around the district.
Staff members that serve on the committee:
Stuart Simpson, Chair
Tami Eshleman, Education Representative
Brian Tegtmeier, Technology Representative
Jeremiah Johnson, SRO, Law Enforcement
Brandy Buscher, Student Services
Lori Coburn, Custodial Director, Building surveillance
Safety Update - Hug & Go
North Platte Public Schools continually enhances the safety and security in our schools. The district enhanced the entrance at Cody Elementary with a 'Hug and Go' area. Students and parents can come inside a warm area to drop off their preschoolers, coats and backpacks, 'Hug and Go' area provides a safe and secure enter to the school. Stuart Simpson, Executive Director of Finance, Facilities and Operations.
McDonald Elementary Student Success
McDonald students that met their Spring MAP Growth goal in Reading or Math when they did their Winter testing. These students have had new goals created for them to see if they can reach those when they test again in the Spring. Hard work pays off! --Mr. Benjamin, principal.
Special Olympics Unified Schools
Each school within North Platte Public Schools has received funding to promote inclusive schools through a program with Special Olympics Unified Schools. This program is called Unified Champion Schools. A committee has been planning activities throughout the district that promote this message. High School students Jared Gies and Nathan Franz have been visiting all the schools in the district spreading the message of what it means to be a Unified Champion School. Their message of "Choose to Include" is a powerful one. A Unified Basketball Fun Day was planned for February 23rd but had to be rescheduled until March 2nd because of the weather. Other events will be happening in the months to come. -- Peggy Romskek, Director of Special Education.
Expanded Learning Opportunity
On February 8th, Kids Kub Director, Carrie Lienemann attended the Beyond School Bells Expanded Learning Opportunity (ELO) breakfast briefing at the historic Ferguson House in Lincoln, NE. This briefing highlighted the vital role high school and college students are playing to help create and lead exciting, engaging and inspiring after school and summer STEM learning experiences and opportunities to expand the engagement of college & high school students in STEM-rich ELO programs across the state.
This breakfast briefing was part of Beyond School Bells annual meeting of ELO communities from across the state, so in addition to Senators and Legislative staff, the Ferguson House was full of ELO supporters representing fifteen of Nebraska’s urban and rural communities.
Kids Klub is proud to be ahead of the game in employing both high school and college students, as well as partnering with several different high school and college programs including, Skills USA, NPHS Musical students, Key Club, and the MPCC Lady Knights Basketball team. --Carrie Lienemann, Director of NPPSD Kids Klub.
Nebraska Wesleyan Honors Festival
NPHS Students Jack Carlson, Carlye Stopkotte, Elliott Purdy and Parker Tonkinson were chosen by audition for the Nebraska Wesleyan Honors Festival which took place on February 9th, 2019. --Vikki Carlson, Director of Secondary Teaching and Learning.
President's List at Mid-Plains Community College
The following North Platte High School students qualified for the President's List at Mid-Plains Community College during the 2018 Fall Term. To make the list, each student had to complete 12 or more applicable credit hours in college-level courses and maintain a grade point average (GPA) of 3.9 or greater on a 4.0 scale.
Jack Carlson, Lucas Friedrich, Haley Jackson, Rebecca Lindley, Kaitlyn Ostrander, Nathan Ostrander, Sarah Phares, Mirabella Pigati, Bailey Roeder, Keifer Smith, Ryan Sorenson, and Jade Vak.
Snow Removal
Maintenance and custodial staff work hard to remove snow from our 15 school properties. They get to work at 5:00 a.m. and keep working until everything is done and that takes about 5 hours. Once the main drives are cleared, custodians go back to their respective buildings to get ready for students and staff. Maintenance staff continues on clearing the other properties until finished. We are better together, and together we accomplish great things. Thank you for all your hard work. -- Lori Coburn, Director of Maintenance & Custodial Services.
The District would like to acknowledge Director of Maintenance Eugene Purley's service. He had worked for NPPSD since 1985. Our thoughts are with his family.
Share Carts at all North Platte Schools
Stopping hunger in the United States is on many people’s minds in this Country. Here in America many students struggle to find affordable, nutritious food on a consistent basis in the amounts needed for a healthy diet. Close to 40% of the edible food produced and prepared in this country ends up in the Nation’s Landfills without it ever reaching the dinner table. To help with this hunger crisis, Sodexo Schools in North Platte Public Schools, has set-up Share Tables or Carts in all Cafeterias. A Share Cart allows the students to return any unwanted food, unopened packages and whole fruits for other students to eat or drink during that meal period.-- Larry Young, SODEXO Nutrition Services.
Elementary Fine Dining Season
The Sodexo NPPSD Team concluded the Elementary Fine Dining Season with Buffalo Elementary on Valentine's' Day. We provided 8 Fine Dining Trainings and Fine Dining experiences to all of the NPPS 5th graders, approximately 325 students and over 50 guests. Our first event was Jefferson on 11/20 and concluded with Buffalo on 2/14. Many thanks to everyone involved with making this an incredible event for everyone. --Larry Young, SODEXO Nutrition Services
North Platte Public Schools College and Career Initiative
North Platte Public Schools is working on developing a NPPSD Career & College Initiative. Each year, components of the initiative will be implemented in order to accomplish the district’s purpose of preparing students to be productive, responsible citizens.
North Platte Public Schools College and Career Initiative is a concept that focuses on preparing our students to become productive responsible citizens. We have a short period of time, thirteen years, to accomplish this purpose. Elementary schools are focusing on career awareness, middle schools are focusing on career exploration, and the high school is focusing on academies and internships to prepare student to be career and college ready.
NPHS Career Internship Program
Amy Sabatka, NPHS Careers Instructor/Internship Facilitator, is creating some great internship opportunities for NPHS students. The purpose of the career internship program is designed to provide students with on-the-job training that will empower students as they pursue their career goals.
For Information about the NPHS Internship Program . . .
Amy Sabatka
308.535.7105 (school)
308.530.9609 (cell)
Are you taking the opportunity to learn about the District and reading this briefing? The first staff member to email sfurley@nppsd.org ....and include the word "intern"....will get a $5 Scooter's card.
North Platte School District School Improvement – The Nebraska Framework
A school improvement process is a systematic on-going process involving planning, implementation, evaluation and renewal of school improvement activities to meet local and statewide goals and priorities. All accredited schools in Nebraska must have a school improvement process in effect according to Rule 10-009.01. The process includes a periodic review by visiting educators who provide consultation to the local school/community in continued accomplishment of plans and goals. In accordance with Rule 10-009.01B each school must have an external team visit at least once every five years.
The North Platte School District will be hosting the External Team on April 29, 30, 31, 2019. All North Platte Schools will be visited on Monday, April 30, 2019. Principals and school CIP team members will be preparing for the visits.
NPPSD Positive Behavioral Interventions & Support
North Platte School District is working with Nebraska Positive Behavioral Interventions & Support (PBiS) by planning and training for an implementation target of 2020-21. All schools are developing school-wide behavior plans via school based PBiS teams during the 2017-18 and 2019-20 school years.
North Platte Public Schools is focusing on improving attendance by implementing interventions -- “Dare to go Five Below”. A NPPSD Attendance Task Force has been assembled that includes key leaders within the community. Mayor Livingston wrote and signed NP Community Proclamation challenging the NP Community to collectively support this initiative. The police chief, the sheriff, the county attorney, and other city and county officials are participating on the task force team.
NPPS - MTSS
NPPSD is currently in the process of developing a more effective and efficient Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) process that is systemic using our current problem solving process at all levels – district-school-PLT-teacher-student. The first challenge is ensuring everyone in the district understands the district’s purpose and having structures and processes in place to implement the MTSS process effectively and efficiently. The district is currently going away from the traditional SAT model to IDEAL Student Plan (ISP) using the District’s current continuous improvement process at the student level. We are integrating this process into our Professional Learning Team meetings.
Retirements
North Platte Public Schools will be saying goodbye to thirteen certified staff members as they enter into Retirement at the end of the 2018-2019 school year. We are grateful for their contributions to the students, families and staff of our district. These thirteen staff members have combined 414 years of experience in education and 326 of those years have been served with North Platte Public Schools. -- Dr. Eshleman, Associate Superintendent.
If you see any of these soon to be "retirees", please let them know how much they will be missed:
· Kim Aurich - Lincoln Elementary
· Barb Fruhwirth - Eisenhower Elementary
· Greg Fruhwirth - Washington Elementary
· Jim Harms - High School
· Dawn Hess - Adams Middle School
· Jeff Hess - High School
· MaryLynn Horst - High School
· Melanie Lehmkuhler - Cody Elementary
· Jim Orcutt - High School
· Kelley Stahl - Lincoln Elementary
· Patty Thompson - High School
· Dee Tuenge - High School
· Dee Ward - Adams Middle School