School Board Update
January 23, 2020
Meeting Overview
Items Approved by the Board
- Fiscal Year 2018-2019 Audited Financials
- 2020-2021 School Calendars
- 2020-2021 Director of Administrative Services and Human Resources Agreement
Full board agenda can be found here
School Board Showcase - Cambridge Intermediate School
The Cambridge Intermediate School Showcase was presented by Principal Scott Peterson and teacher Mrs. Young. After observing that the students in her class craved emotional connections with their classmates, Mrs. Young began piloting a new social emotional learning program in her 5th grade class. The new program, Second Step, encourages students to develop empathy, skills for learning, emotional management, and problem solving through daily lessons that can be practiced both at school and at home. Mrs. Young concluded by sharing stories of how she has already seen the positive effects of this new program in her classroom.The full presentation can be found here.
It's a GREAT day to be a Bluejacket!
Superintendent's Report - Dr. Rudolph
As mentioned in Director Kampa’s report to the School Board, we are currently holding discussions and meetings with district administrators regarding next year’s budget. With the information regarding the audit now complete, we are gaining a better understanding of our current financial situation and can plan accordingly. As we move forward with our financial planning, we will do so with a calculated approach which begins with enrollment projections, followed by a look at anticipated changes in staff that we are aware of at this time (retirements, resignations, etc.). An analysis of these factors in conjunction with current and proposed programming will provide us with the information that will help us make decisions about any additional adjusting that needs to take place. I am thankful to Director Kampa and his team for their work to be diligent and thorough as we begin the budgeting process.
Thank an Advisor/Coach Week
With the support of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Minnesota State High School League, the Minnesota Interscholastic Activities Administrators Association and the Minnesota State High School Coaches Association a campaign of gratitude will be launched next week to recognize the amazing work that our advisors and coaches do to mentor, support, guide, and educate our students. This campaign will take place from Jan. 27 through Feb. 2 and is designed to promote, recognize and support the thousands of advisors and coaches across Minnesota that are making an integral, positive and lifelong impact on youth in the classroom and athletic settings.
In recognition of Thank An Advisor/Coach Week, we honor and support the Cambridge-Isanti advisors and coaches for their commitment to students and families, and for their tremendous contribution to cultivating The Bluejacket Way. Our students are direct beneficiaries of your hard work, sacrifice, and effort. GO BIG BLUE and THANK YOU!
Administration Report Highlights
FINANCE AND OPERATIONS
by: Christopher Kampa
Finance
Things are moving fast in the Finance department. We are looking towards FY2021 and creating budgets for next year. We have met as an administrative group, and individually with our principals, to discuss budgets and enrollment. We will meet with the principals individually again this week to discuss staffing. We are trying to build a strong collaboration between the buildings and district office in setting next year’s budgets. After enrollment and staffing projections have been reviewed, we will conduct a budget bootcamp to make decisions about next year’s programming as it relates to the budget. This will allow managers and principals to present ideas and examine the budget impact.
Food Service
We are in the process of putting together RFP/competitive bid materials for our grocery, dairy, produce and bakery vendors. Given our current financial situation, we feel it is important to confirm we are receiving the best value for our students. We will post the RFP in our local paper, but we will also perform outreach to ensure we are capturing the universe of potential suppliers to receive the best pricing. We conducted our presentation of the University of Minnesota Great Trays program on January 21st. The program is an eight-hour course designed for hourly staff to learn various nutrition, marketing, and program management skills for the food service program. We have seven interviews this week and are looking to find new team members for Isanti Middle School, Cambridge Middle School, and Cambridge-Isanti High School. We are also finishing the required annual onsite reviews of all locations, which is due each year by February 1st.
Transportation
We held an in-service day on January 21st to discuss pre-trip requirements and procedures. Our drivers are also in the process of completing the annual mandatory tests required by the School Bus Division of the Minnesota State Patrol. We currently have one open route that is being filled by a sub driver and there is one driver in training. Similar to Food Services, we are evaluating our purchased services to identify areas where we can potentially realize possible pricing improvements. In the past, we have had difficulty attracting vendors to provide fuel services. This is one of our largest Transportation expenses, so we are in the process of searching for additional vendors to provide RFP responses, which may lead to better pricing.
Building & Grounds
Our custodial and grounds crews continue to do outstanding work in cleaning and maintaining our facilities. The extra snow is keeping our grounds crews busy ensuring our sidewalks are safe for our students and staff as well as keeping our custodial crews busy cleaning the salt and dirt being brought in from outside. Over the break our crews were able to play catch-up from the every-other-day cleaning cycle along with addressing maintenance items that needed attention. We are in the final stages of planning our major summer projects and obtaining bids from contractors.
Woodland Campus
Construction is speeding up and we are still on pace to complete the project by June 1st. The exterior shell is nearly complete and interior construction is now in full force. Most of the slab-on-grade has been poured. HVAC, plumbing, and electrical crews are on site. We still expect the construction costs to be under budget.
COMMUNITY EDUCATION
by: Dave Maurer
Early Childhood programs continue to see large enrollments. Preschool has 417 students enrolled, which is the most we have ever had. ECFE is running all but 1 class, with additional sections added for classes that have proven popular and in demand.
This is a busy time with registrations coming in, classes starting and summer program planning starting. Several new, unique classes have been offered with good response from our community.
TEACHING & LEARNING
by: Dr. Brenda Damiani
Professional Development
All license staff participated in a full day of professional learning on January 21. The morning started with building focused learning. Topics included elementary literacy, middle school assessment and grading practices, and high school PBIS and Schoology. Content area teams participated in content specific session focused on standards and consistent practices. MDE specialists worked with the art and music departments and received positive feedback from participants. The afternoon offered break-out sessions under the theme of Conditions for Learning: Creating Safe, Healthy, and Supportive Schools. All staff attended the Cultural Competency session and then choose two additional sessions. Here are some comments from staff:
“Wonderful speaker! He really got us thinking about being culturally responsive within my classroom.”
“I feel more prepared to work with Multilingual learners and their families after attending this session.”
“Vaping is an epidemic of huge proportions. We are going to need to start education at a younger and younger age.”
“Wow! I made a decision to get to know my students better. Understanding where we come from is part of who we are and how we handle it.”
“Reviewing these positive strategies is very helpful because it helps me to reflect on what I'm saying to students, what is my body language showing, what tone am I using, etc. It was a great!”
Data & Assessment
The district Data and Assessment Committee met on January 14, 2020. The main focus of the meeting was to start planning and designing a comprehensive balanced assessment system using formative, interim, and summative assessments. The group agreed that we will need to put together a smaller task force in order to get all of this work done. The group also discussed the implementation of common assessments throughout the district. These assessments would add consistency and fidelity to benchmark testing in the district.
Technology
The technology team continues to work the development of the C-I Schools website redesign in preparation for the February District Tech Advisory meeting. During the December District Tech Advisory meeting it was determined that the school district needs to migrate it’s website to a new platform due to the end of support for the Drupal 7 platform. After discussing the various options and costs, it was determined that a mock of the new website would be created for review by the District Tech Advisory team in February.
During January, the technology department is accepting ERATE proposals for equipment and internet service for the Woodland Campus. This program will help save 60% on the costs associated with these resources.
The Blended Learning Team has been meeting to discuss the collection of the Chromebook insurance and the plans for delivering content to students through Schoology and/or Google Classroom at the middle school level for the 2020-21 school year. This team is also beginning to evaluate potential devices for the next round of Chromebooks that are needed to be added to our fleet.
STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES
by: Julie Williams
Special Education Advisory Council (SEAC)
SEAC had their second meeting of the year on 1/13/20. As you may remember, this is a new advisory council as it is required by statute for districts to have an advisory council comprised of parents of students in special education. In the past, our district was part of the council ran by Rum River Cooperative. Our group grew in numbers for the second meeting as we had a great turnout! We were able to look at the feedback from a parent survey that was sent out in December. From this it was evident that SEAC would like to sponsor a few workshops for parents this winter/spring. The group also discussed having additional resources added to the website for families. I will also be creating a packet of information to give parents who are new to having a child in special education. We will meet again in the spring for our 3rd meeting of the year.
Pyramid Model
Early Childhood Special Education and Preschool are collaborating to learn more about the Pyramid Model Consortium on Jan 21. The Pyramid Model for Supporting Social Emotional Competence in Infants and YoungChildren (Fox, Dunlap, Hemmeter, Joseph, & Strain, 2003) is a positive behavioral intervention and support framework early educators can use to promote young children’s social and emotional development and prevent and address challenging behavior. We are excited to be able to access resources, support and professional development from the low incidence regional project and MDE for this as it is a state initiative.
Contact Us
Email: dist-communications@c-ischools.org
Website: c-ischools.org
Location: 625 Main Street North, Cambridge, MN, USA
Phone: 763-689-6188