Ely Addition Survey Results Clarification

I would like to clarify the survey results provided by the Pierce County Tribune as reported in the October 23, 2021 and again in the October 30, 2021 issues. The Tribune included survey results from their Facebook page that asked the following question: Do you approve of plans to expand the Ely Elementary School campus? What wasn’t included was the total number of people that took the survey. At the time of the publications, according to the Pierce County Tribune’s Facebook Page, this survey was taken by less than 30 people. After these results were published in the paper, I have been asked if that data came from the survey issued by the school, and why the data was different than what the school provided in the Fact Sheet that was recently mailed to district residents. In short, the survey data provided by the Tribune on October 23^rd and October 30^th were not the surveys conducted by the school district.

The following information comes from the survey that was sent out to all stakeholders in September. The school district mailed 1,905 surveys and the survey was able to be taken online or by paper. The district received 543 completed surveys. This was a good return rate and provided the district with valuable information on how the district residents feel about the Ely Elementary Addition. Survey data indicated that 68% of residents who took the survey support the addition and renovations at Ely Elementary. The resident data included the following subcategories: 1) Staff Residents, 2) Parent Residents (Non-Staff), and 3) Non-Parent Residents (Non-Staff). Staff Residents or those who work for the school district support the project at a 94% rate and 5% were undecided. Parent Residents that do not work for the school district support the project at a 77% rate and 8% were undecided. Non-Parent Residents or those that do not work in the district, and are not parents support the project at a 56% rate and 15% were undecided. When you include all of these data points together (543 completed surveys) 68% support the proposed addition and renovations at Ely Elementary.

Based on the feedback from the survey results, the school board moved forward to call for a referendum vote that will occur on December 1, 2021, at the Rugby High School Gymnasium from 9:00 am – 7:00 pm. Ely Elementary has significant space issues and the proposed addition and renovation will add the following: 1) classroom space for students with special needs, 2) classrooms for band, choir, and courses in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), 3) update existing classrooms to provide more square footage for large-group and small group instruction, 4) redesign car and bus traffic, which will keep students safer during busy pick-up and drop off times, 5) install updated safety features at the main entrance, 6) expand the undersized cafeteria to provide students more time to eat, 7) expand and enhance recreation areas by renovating the current gym and playground areas to improve physical education and large group music opportunities. The school district can address all of these needs and it will represent no tax increase over the current level. We can accomplish this by using $1.3 million in one-time COVID Relief Funds to help buy down the cost of the project and leverage the expiring debt on the 2010 Rugby High School Project. In short, the current mill levy will not increase.

It is important to note that there are three opportunities to participate in public meetings to hear more information and help voters to make an informed decision. We will conduct our final public meeting on November 17^th from 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm at the Ely Elementary Gym. We are also providing tours during the school day on November 17^th from 9:30 am – 1:00 pm. If you are interested, please RSVP by calling 775-5757. If you cannot attend, I recommend visiting our school website at https://www.rugby.k12.nd.us/domain/2165 to find more factual information about the project. You can view a recorded video of the 1^st public meeting held on October 27^th. The referendum vote will occur on December 1, 2021 at the Rugby High School Gymnasium from 9:00 am – 7:00 pm. If you have further questions about the referendum, you can reach out Mike McNeff at 701-776-5201, or reach out to the following chairs of the Ely Elementary Citizen Committee, Carlie Johnson, Cory Geiszler, and Suzie Schmaltz.

Family Update - Welcome Back!

 Dear Families, 

We have a lot to be proud of in the Rugby Public Schools. Our motto—every student, every day—is really paying off. Rugby students score above state averages in reading, math, ACT, and graduation rates. We accomplish this while spending less per student than the average district in the state. We are extremely pleased with this rare combination of top performance coupled with responsible spending. We hope you enjoyed your summer break! The school year will begin soon, and we are looking forward to welcoming back our learners and educators for the 2021-2022 school year. I have some important highlights to share with you. 

Ely Elementary Addition

The school board is planning on moving forward with a referendum vote on adding an addition to Ely Elementary that will help with existing needs. The school board has been developing a solution since 2018 and hired a firm to develop a capital maintenance plan for the elementary school. A Citizens Committee was created and the following areas of need have been identified: create a safer solution for busing and car traffic, add specially designed spaces for students with special needs, redesign classroom spaces for flexible learning to meet the changes to teaching and learning, increase the size of the cafeteria, improve the playground space and increase the size of the gym. 

The School Board and district administration believe now is a good time to consider a bond referendum for the following reasons.

• The proposed Ely projects can be completed with no increase to the current tax level.
• Interest rates remain near historic lows.
• Federal COVID-19 relief funds can be used to offset costs for local taxpayers.
• The District will soon be debt-free.

The School Board will be gathering feedback from the community through a survey that will hit your mailboxes soon. These results will help inform the Citizens Committee and School Board to make the best decision to meet our needs at Ely Elementary. 

Health and Safety Plan 

We are required to update our Health and Safety Plan in response to COVID-19. The school board approved the plan recommended by our Health and Safety Committee on August 10th. The full plan can be found on our website or you can access it here: https://www.rugby.k12.nd.us/domain/2149  

The following topics are frequently asked questions related to COVID-19:

Are masks required? No, masks are recommended for students and staff. 

Will the district require students and staff to quarantine? Yes, the district will require a quarantine for only those that test positive and those who are identified as household contacts. Close contacts identified at school will not be required to quarantine. Parents should continue to monitor their children and keep them home if they are sick. 

Online Grading Portal Change

The school district will be transitioning away from Powerschool and into a new grading system called Empower. This change will provide more access for parents and students and aligns better with our standards-referenced initiatives. This transition will occur over the first month of school. Parents and students will be given access within the first few weeks of school. We appreciate your patience as we implement this new system. 

Mental Health Counseling / School Nurse

We know the COVID-19 Pandemic has likely increased rates of anxiety and depression. We will continue to provide a trained expert on mental health for our students. Our school district will provide individual and group therapy for students at the Rugby Early Learning Center, Ely Elementary, and Rugby High School. If you are concerned about your child’s behavior(s) please contact your respective school to get more information on this program. A school nurse will be contracted for the 2021-2022 school year, you can contact Sam Wentz at 701-776-6783.

Contact info

You can follow me on Twitter at @mdmcneff and visit my blog at http://mikemcneff.blogspot.com for current school-related articles or news. We appreciate your flexibility and understanding as we head into the 2021-2022 school year. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions at (701)776-5201 or send me an email at mike.mcneff@k12.nd.us 

A reflection on the past year

It's been close to a year since our world changed abruptly due to the COVID-19 virus. This time last year we thought that this would be a short-term situation and that it would all be over in a matter of weeks. Little did we know at the time how long term the situation would become. I was interviewed recently by KMOT and was asked to reflect on our experiences over the last year. This caused me to look back at my emails, notes, agendas, and planning documents. It became an opportunity for me to reflect on the past year and all of the challenges, logistics, and frustrations we faced.

On March 9, 2020, we asked educators to talk to children about COVID-19 in their classrooms and help reduce their fears and anxiety. We began instituting a mandatory handwashing schedule at both the elementary and high school. Cleaning and disinfecting were ramped up by teachers and custodial staff. Food service changed, we no longer allowed self-served foods and this greatly reduced our lunch offerings. Attendance incentive programs were suspended at both schools. We placed travel restrictions in place for students and staff until April 3rd (little did we know that this would remain in effect for the rest of the year). We started to educate ourselves and others on the importance of handwashing, cleanliness, and staying home when sick (which was hard to get used to for many). We began talking about masks and face coverings (yikes). If you traveled out of the state at the time you had to quarantine for 14 days. This was only the beginning...

Thinking back, I could feel a cloud that hung over the week of March 9^th – March 13^th last year. Cancelations and state shutdowns were occurring across the country and there was talk within the superintendent circles that North Dakota may shut down as well. I can remember the somber feeling at the regional basketball tournament at the time. Our team had just advanced to state, but all in attendance were uncertain of the future. Schools were eventually closed by Governor Burgum on March 15^th (today). It was a Sunday evening, this left us scrambling to get a plan together. We went to work the next morning with teachers and began planning the next two weeks. Immediately we were thinking about the students and how we could educate them. We quickly realized that we needed platforms to help us deliver instruction remotely. We began researching Google Classroom and Zoom. Those two platforms became the delivery models that we continue to use to this day. We worked quickly to develop content that could be accessed easily by students and parents. At this point, we didn’t have a directive from the state, we felt we needed to provide our families with something at home. We worked quickly and were able to provide course content remotely a week later. We held our first Facebook Live on March 19^th to update families – close to 700 people connected to hear our plan. Facebook and the Live feature became our social media platform to share and gather information with our school community. We held around 7-10 Facebook Lives over the next year.

Logistics was a challenge from the beginning. I am so THANKFUL for our people, I was feeling overwhelmed with the immensity and our team pulled together to problem solve. Within a few days, we were able to provide breakfast and lunch deliveries and pickup sites, we took our show on the road 😊. Our food service staff did a tremendous job making this happen.

We were very concerned about student mental health. Our kids were isolated and their school year had just come to an abrupt end. There was so much uncertainty for them, would their activities continue, would we have prom, would we have graduation? Our counselors began calling their regular visitors to begin connecting remotely. Our therapist modified her schedule as well to meet her student’s needs.

Equity was a major problem at the beginning of the pandemic. Many students lacked high quality internet. We worked hard to provide free internet to those that could not afford it, the internet companies were great to work with! Remote learning was not appropriate for many students with special needs and the pandemic exposed equity issues that existed in our district. Some students lacked the support at home to log in or complete their work at home.

We needed to get technology deployed to families that did not have a device. We issued around 200 total Chromebooks for families throughout the spring of 2020. Our teachers needed training, we were not ready for a full remote learning transition. Fortunately, we had local experts (our educators) that were able to get all staff up to speed and comfortable with technology. We worked quickly to get our content uploaded to our remote learning platform. Students were able to access content by March 23^rd from our school website (a week later). Educators prepared lessons that were tied to the remaining essential standards. We began having conversations about how long should students spend on a device, what was appropriate? How would we mark attendance? How should we grade them? What about security issues related to Zoom?

Eventually, we were required to create a distance learning plan that was to be implemented by April 1^st. We began to realize that we may end the year in this distance format. We started talking about the "new normal” which later became a cliché. As we progressed in this new environment, we learned along the way through trial and error. Week by week we got better together, and these experiences prepared us for the 2020-2021 school year.

It’s hard not to get emotional when I reflect on these experiences, I am so proud of our district. We have been able to be in session all school year face to face. I could not have done this alone, and I am so grateful for our educators, support staff, parents, and students at Rugby Public Schools. We have navigated what might be the most challenging experience we will likely face in education in our careers. We have done it with a positive and “whatever it takes” attitude. We still have a way to go with this pandemic, but I am confident that we can handle whatever gets in our way. Little did we know how real the last line of our vision statement would become: Our vision is to create a safe and caring environment in which all learners are engaged with authentic, innovative, standards-referenced learning centered on collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. Every learner will be empowered to pursue personal excellence and make a positive impact in an ever-changing world.

Thank you!

Mike

Instructional Rounds

Medical rounds have been used in the world of medicine for many years for improvement. Instructional rounds are a spinoff of this process. We began researching a more robust process for our teachers to observe each other and improve their practice in the spring of 2020. We started with our Teacher Leader Academy educators and have since rolled out a formal process for this school year. Our two instructional coaches (Mrs. Seykora and Mrs. Hager) have provided a simple five-step process to follow for our teachers. We are currently targeting our newer staff and their PLCs. 

1. Identify a problem of practice

Your PLC will identify a problem of practice. The problem of practice is something that would make a difference for student learning if you improve it. A rich problem of practice includes:

• Observable goals 
• Actionable goals (is within the teacher’s control and can be improved in real-time)
• A broad strategy of improvement (school, system)
• High-leverage actions (if acted on, student learning would be significantly increased)
• A focus on the learning you want to see, not teaching (focus on students, not teachers)

2. Observe the team's practice

Each PLC will observe all team members; also, you may observe other teachers.  You will try to improve learning in a network, not evaluate any educator. Be descriptive, not evaluative. Focus on what students are actually doing, not what the teacher has asked them to do. 

Questions to help identify what evidence will be collected and shared:

• What are teachers doing and saying? 
• What are students doing and saying? 
• What kinds of evidence would the group like to gather for the host teacher? 
• What did you hear and see? 

3. Observation debrief

The purpose of the debrief is to consider the collected evidence together and to move from agreeing on what people saw to eventually agreeing on what learning would result from what they saw. There are three steps to the debrief: description, analysis, and prediction. 

Basic principles for debriefings: 

• Stick to evidence
• Designate a facilitator/timekeeper and a note taker
• Debrief by questions or by classroom
• Share talk time (everyone speaks once before anyone speaks twice)

4. Reflection

Individual teachers should continually assess where they are at concerning the learning goal. What support do they need? Is student learning effective as a result of the goal? 

5. Next level of work 

Group members think together about what the resources should be and what kinds of support will best meet the needs of teachers to move instruction to the next level (i.e., Watch Lincspring lessons together, read research on the topic, record sample lessons, etc.). 

Here is the guiding document we have developed to guide this process in our district. 

If you're looking for an excellent resource on this topic, you'll want to check out this book: Instructional Rounds in Education