Educational Service Unit # 13
SERVING THE PANHANDLE OF NEBRASKA
September, 2016 Newsletter
Scottsbluff Site
Scottsbluff, NE 69361
Phone: (308) 635-3696
FAX: (308) 635-0680
Chadron Site
Crites Hall
Chadron State College
Chadron, NE 69337
Phone: (308) 432-6495
Sidney Site
1114 Toledo Street
Sidney, NE 69162
Phone: (308) 254-4677
FAX: (308) 254-5371
Mission Statement
Educational Service Unit #13...
Striving to achieve educational excellence for all learners
through strong partnerships, service, and leadership.
ADMINISTRATION
ESU 13 to Celebrate 50th Anniversary in the 2016-17 School Year
ESU 13 officially kicked off the 2016-17 school year on Tuesday, August 16 with new employee orientation. Various staff trainings continued on Wednesday, August 17th with CPR/First Aid, Asthma and Anaphylaxis and Medication Administration training. Thursday, August 18th was a staff work day as well as department meetings.
Friday, August 19th, was the all staff in-service day with this year’s focus on ESU 13’s 50th Anniversary of Serving the Panhandle” We begin the year with a renewed focus on our mission of “Striving to achieve educational excellence for all learners through strong partnerships, service and leadership.” ESU #13 Goals for 2016-17 are:
- Enhanced learning by promoting best practice, innovation and systems of support.
- Expand collaboration and communication.
- Commit to accountability by implementing systemic and systematic methods for collecting, analyzing and reporting impact.
Throughout this school year, in recognition of our 50th Anniversary, I will be sharing with you the history of ESU #13.
In August of 1965 the Nebraska Legislature passed LB 301 creating 19 Educational Service Units (ESUs) to provide supplementary educational services to member school districts. Each ESU was to be governed by a Board of Education, appointed by the Governor, to implement the ESU concept. The first ESU #13 Board, consisting of six appointed members, held an organizational meeting in February, 1966. Their first responsibility was to hire an Administrator (CEO). In June of 1967 they hired Dr. Udell Hughes.
ESU #13 has been housed at several different locations throughout the course of conducting educational business. The first office space was the former Duling Optical building at 1815 Avenue A in Scottsbluff. Several months later the offices were moved to the fourth floor of the Nebraska Public Power Consumer Building on the corner of 18th and Broadway. It was either a hike up the four flights of stairs or a ride in the trusty Otis elevator cage to get to work every morning. It was during this time that the Meridian Program for special needs students ages 5-21 was housed at Northfield School in Gering.
The big move in location came in 1973 when ESU #13 purchased the former St. Christopher Child Care Center from the Grand Island Diocese. Negotiators in the deal were Bishop Sullivan (Grand Island), Bill Whitehead (local representative), and Dr. Udell Hughes. Purchase price for the facility and approximately eight acres of land was $115,000. Payments were $825 per month for a period of 25 years. This new location afforded much more space for employee offices and for student center-based services such as the Meridian program and a preschool program. In 1986, ESU #13 sold .30 acres at $11,000 per acre to the State of Nebraska Department of Roads for right-of-way access.
The history of ESU #13 is an amazing story to tell and one I believe most readers will find interesting. Especially, how the programs offered at ESU #13 have changed over the years as the needs of students have changed and the requests from our member school districts and community partners to support them has changed.
Not all ESUs across the state offer all of the same programs. All 17 ESUs are required by state statute to offer the “Core Services” which include staff development, which shall include staff development related to improving the achievement of all students including the achievement of students in poverty and students with diverse backgrounds; technology, including distance education services; and instructional materials services.
Next Month I will continue sharing the history of ESU #13 as we celebrate “Serving the Panhandle for 50 years.”
Educationally yours,
Jeffrey D. West
Hampton Inn Staff members, three ESU #13 staff, and Esu #13 students participated in a month long pre-employment training opportunity through a NE VR grant. Funding was provided by NE VR to increase pre-employment skills and work abilities for youth. Grant Coordinator, Pam Brezenski, worked with Becca Gorsuch, Hampton Inn General Manager, to create positions for students to gain experience. Nine young adults from across the Panhandle were able to experience the process of completing an application, interviewing for a job, training for a position, and performing tasks related to their jobs. Positions were developed to allow students a minimum of a four hour paid working experience and consisted of Housekeeping Assistants, Maintenance Assistants, Breakfast Attendants, Laundry Support, Cart Stocking, and Room Detailing. The Hampton Inn General Manger, Becca Gorsuch, was excited to offer the opportunity to area youth. She shared that staff grew in their leadership abilities throughout the program.
SOAR (Sharing Opportunities and Achieving Results)
SOAR would like to welcome Sixpence staff to our professional development department.
Sixpence Sprouting Success program is funded by the Sixpence Early Learning Fund and by funds from the Legislature that are ear-marked for at-risk infants and toddlers. Sixpence has a few different types of grants they dispense/manage and this program (through Gering Public Schools, Sidney Public Schools, and Chadron Public Schools) was lucky enough to be awarded 3 of the 6 Childcare grants dispensed back in March 2016. These grants have to be awarded to school districts, but the programming piece is being contracted out to ESU 13. So…. what exactly will Sixpence Sprouting Success do? A variety of things! This grant has never been awarded before and since the panhandle program is a combination of 3 grants it is completely unique from the other recipients and has also added some pieces to the plan. The Childcare grants received are focused on helping existing childcare centers and in-home daycares to provide higher quality care for infants and toddlers aged 0-3. This will be done by providing coaching to both the directors and individual teachers in our partnering centers. Much of the coaching is going to be based on results of the partnering programs’ baseline evaluations from the Step Up to Quality. Since that is the quality rating and improvement system that Nebraska has in place, the Sixpence Early Learning Fund decided that it only makes sense to use that assessment piece rather than recreating the wheel.
Renee Carlson (Scottsbluff office) I am originally from the Omaha area and I attended Peru State College for undergraduate and graduate school. In 2008 I earned my BS in Elementary and Early Childhood Education and then in 2011 I received my MA in Curriculum and Instruction. From 2009-2014 I taught Kindergarten and 2nd Grade for Central City Public Schools along with being the Cheer & Dance Coach and an active NSEA member. I moved to Kimball in 2014 and taught 1st grade for 2 years while being active on many committees. During this time I met my fiancé and after our engagement decided I needed to look for new opportunities in education; I was hired in April 2016 to be the Program Coordinator for the Sixpence Sprouting Success Program here at ESU 13. I live in Mitchell with my little Shih Tzu puppy, Murphy and love to spend time with my friends, fiancé, and my fiancé’s family. I really love to bake, read, play and sing music, and follow football & baseball. All of my family is still in the Omaha area so I am getting acquainted with I-80 on a very personal level. J
Dawn Terrell (Scottsbluff office) I live in Henry at the moment with my dog named Sparky, who I love to take walks with. I am also involved with my nieces and nephews’ lives. My twin nieces are 16 and my nephews are 5, 4, and 21 months. All of my family live around Angora, NE so I spend a lot of time going back home to help out or celebrate events. Along with walking my dog and spending time with my family, I enjoy traveling and seeing new places. I have been working in and around early childhood for about 15 years. I started my education by working in a preschool internship in Paisley, Scotland and have continued to pursuit early childhood education to finish my master’s degree. I taught preschool in Morrill for the last nine years before moving to the Sixpence program here at ESU 13.
Sam Fisher (Chadron office) My name is Sam Fisher and I came to the ESU world from the Head Start and Early Head Start world in Chadron (Northwest Community Action Partnership). I have a Bachelor’s degree from Chadron State College in Child Development. I'm completely passionate about our young children of world and love to help support and guide other professionals to provide the best possible care for children. I am married and have two children to keep me busy. Together we have a small plot of land east of Chadron and spend most of our free time renovating and maintaining our farm house. I've learned that nothing is impossible and with hard work and imagination any dream can be achieved. I'm happy to be a part of the ESU 13 team and excited to see what this grant will do for the panhandle and our youngest and most at risk population.
Angie Luppen (Sidney office) I came to ESU a little over a yer ago with the Head Start program. I taught Head Start for nearly 15 years. A year ago I moved to Early Development Network as a Service Coordinator. In August I joined the Sprouting Success with Sixpence team. I graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in Elementary Education. I have been married for 26 years and have three children. My husband and I love spending time with our three (soon to be 4) beautiful grandchildren.
Special Education Department
Morgan Nortness-Paraeducator in Meridian
Glenda Heinrich-Job Coach in LifeLink
Head Start/Early Head Start
TECHNOLOGY
Thank you ESU-13 staff for reporting suspicious email and web popups. You reports help us all avoid installing or running malicious software on our network. Here are some additional tips for email and web security.
Ways To Avoid Phishing Scams
1. Guard against spam. Be especially cautious of emails that:
* Come from unrecognized senders.
* Ask you to confirm personal or financial information over the Internet and/or make urgent requests for this information.
* Aren’t personalized.
* Try to upset you into acting quickly by threatening you with frightening information.
2. Communicate personal information only via phone or secure web sites. Do not divulge personal information over the phone unless you initiate the call. Be cautious of emails that ask you to call a phone number to update your account information as well.
3. Do not click on links, download files or open attachments in emails from unknown senders. It is best to open attachments only when you are expecting them and know what they contain, even if you know the sender.
4. Never email personal or financial information, even if you are close with the recipient. You never know who may gain access to your email account, or to the person’s account to whom you are emailing.
5. Beware of links in emails that ask for personal information, even if the email appears to come from an enterprise you do business with. Phishing web sites often copy the entire look of a legitimate web site, making it appear authentic. To be safe, call the legitimate enterprise first to see if they really sent that email to you. After all, businesses should not request personal information to be sent via email.
6. Beware of pop-ups and follow these tips:
* Never enter personal information in a pop-up screen.
* Do not click on links in a pop-up screen.
* Do not copy web addresses into your browser from pop-ups.
* Legitimate enterprises should never ask you to submit personal information in pop-up screens, so don’t do it.
Advanc-ED staff survey results
Psychology Department
Dads play key role in child development
Contact(s): Claire Vallotton , Andy Henion
Fathers play a surprisingly large role in their children’s development, from language and cognitive growth in toddlerhood to social skills in fifth grade, according to new findings from Michigan State University scholars.
The research provides some of the most conclusive evidence to date of fathers’ importance to children’s outcomes and reinforces the idea that early childhood programs such as Head Start should focus on the whole family, including mother and father alike. The findings are published online in two academic journals, Early Childhood Research Quarterly and Infant and Child Development.
“There’s this whole idea that grew out of past research that dads really don’t have direct effects on their kids, that they just kind of create the tone for the household and that moms are the ones who affect their children’s development,” said Claire Vallotton, associate professor and primary investigator on the research project. “But here we show that fathers really do have a direct effect on kids, both in the short term and long term.”
Using data from about 730 families that participated in a survey of Early Head Start programs at 17 sites across the nation, the researchers investigated the effects of parents’ stress and mental health problems such as depression on their children. Parental stress and mental health issues affect how parents interact with their children and, subsequently, childhood development.
The study found that fathers’ parenting-related stress had a harmful effect on their children’s cognitive and language development when the children were 2 to 3 years old, even when the mothers’ influences were taken into account. This impact varied by gender; fathers’ influence, for example, had a larger effect on boys’ language than girls’ language.
Another key finding: Fathers’ and mothers’ mental health had a similarly significant effect on behavior problems among toddlers. Further, fathers’ mental health had a long-term impact, leading to differences in children’s social skills (such as self-control and cooperation) when the children reached fifth grade. In fact, fathers’ depression symptoms when children were toddlers were more influential on children’s later social skills than were mothers’ symptoms.
In sum, the findings contribute to the small but growing collection of research affirming the effects of fathers’ characteristics and father-child relationship qualities on children’s social development, rather than just the fathers’ residence in the home or presence in the child’s life, according to the paper published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly.
Tamesha Harewood, lead author on the paper in Infant and Child Development, said fathers, in addition to mothers, should be included in parenting research and family-intervention programs and policies.
“A lot of family-risk agencies are trying get the dad more involved, but these are some of the things they could be missing,” said Harewood, a researcher in MSU’s Department of Human Development and Family Studies. “When the agency is talking with the dad, it’s not just about providing for your child economically, but also to be there for your child, to think about how stress or depression might be influencing your child. In order to understand and help children in their development, there needs to be a comprehensive view of the whole family, including both mom and dad.”
Alternative Education
Enjoy the VALTS 1st Quarter Newsletter!
http://pub.lucidpress.com/4861eedd-ecce-4597-8317-71b6afe6c47c/
Migrant Education
We have a few staff changes this year. Janie Garza will be our new secretary. Cristal Perez will be our School/Home Liaison working with migrant students at Bluffs Middle School. Amy Cheney has just been hired as our new recruiter for the northern region. Amy comes with a background in substitute teaching, coaching, and census work. She will recruit and serve migrant families in Sioux County Schools, Crawford Public Schools, Chadron Public Schools, Hay Springs Public Scools, Gordon-Rushville Public Schools, Cody-Kilgore Public Schools, Valentine Public Schools, Keya Paha County Public Schools, Arthur County Public Schools,McPherson County Public Schools, Mullen Public Schools, Stapleton Public Schools, and Thedford Public Schools.
Here is our August / September newsletter: