001I looked at there so the one that we are recommending is parent square and that one there is a little bit of a higher cost in year one due to that implementation but as you can see their implementation cost was significantly lower than all the other companies as well and with that is because they have everything built into this one platform that truly is comprehensive of a platform so this will be our mass communication system which does our current like we have now a phone text and email that we sent out one MTH way it will have two-way text messaging that our teachers and coaches can use both with parents and students um and that one what is nice with parents square is they actually purchase for mine so it functions exactly like what mine
002does which is something that I think a lot of us are already used to using as a platform with other different organizations that we're involved in but um because there's a lot of other companies that they had the two-way messaging but parents or students would have to download an app in order to see those messages with parents Square you get the choice that it would come in as a text message or you can also see those in a parent app as well and then we would have our websites and then also when we're doing messaging we could do newsletters that functions a lot like our sore newsletters so like our Badger update that currently goes out that's a newsletter and our school newsletters so right now we only have sore for 10 users with this
003every teacher or principal and secretary would be able to do newsletters in that same way so I think that kind of helps with that consistency across levels as well for when our parents then their kids transition from elementary to Middle from middle to high are used to that same type of consistency with that communication and then the last few like I said was the websites so all of our websites would switch to a new platform as well but what's nice with that being connected when they send a newsletter out they click a button and it automatically goes to the website so it makes it a lot easier and a less less people involved too with upda I want to just add on on the two-way messaging so I think St called that text messaging obviously
004is through their app it's two-way instantaneous if I'm a coach I want to send something out to all the players or whatever and they can respond back right away those would all be documented that all be District um we could access everything that's ever communicated through this and so it function the exact as an email or anything else even though it's instantaneous to a messaging so the security side of that is it based on number of users so for example as we grow will that cost remain stagnant or is that going to increase over time yes so right now with the one that we have selected was parent Square we worked with them to actually do a multi-year contract to see if I could get a discount um and so we did so at a
005three-year one they lock Us in that price per student for three years with the ability to extend that to 5 years so we would be we have the ability to stay at that price for five years I you see on there part of the cost difference and for reference we're uh just over 14,550 bucks right now for all the different apps that perform these same Services um and so it is going from about 145 up to 182 183 once you get to year two the implementation is kind of a onetime cost obviously get everything integrated over um which you know is an increase but then we're going to lock that in for 3 to 5 years and so it you know that's how those contracts work but I also think benefit just EAS usability between
006everybody that you don't have to go now this is Messenger now this ismore now this is the website now this is this that it makes sense for versatility any because I mean for our secretaries and for myself when we send our sore newsletters when it's in the body of the email you don't just create the email right there and click send you have to Copy Source Code and paste it in and make sure it formats and then so there's a lot more steps and a little bit more complicated to where with it all being in one it will be a lot easier and less steps for people sometimes I need to be reminded those newsletters and information that go out and how pretty they look that doesn't just happen there's a lot some work that
007goes into it so appreciate Stacy and all of our building administrative assistance that it's it's a little bit of a process to get something changed so and like I said with the more we only have 10 licenses that we currently pay for um so like our our uh teachers especially our elementary they love pretty newsletters um and they love to use like canva or like anything like that and you have to have a license to do the sore newsletters and so with this we don't have to pay for additional licenses that newsletter platform to create those is built right into this which also can incorporate Cana so we're getting more for what we're paying for as well any more questions all right I move to approve a three-year agreement between benington public schools and parent
008Square as presented second uh R call Christie yes Joe yes Steve yes Jeremy yes yes motion approved all right on to our uh last piece here discuss consider and take action on BPS certified staff appraisal document good evening Shannon Tindle director of Elementary education and thank you Tim for noticing that I'm the last thing between you guys in the beautiful weather out there so I will try to be concise it's all good it's all right I'm here tonight to present on the Bennington instructional model and seek approval of an updated appraisal framework for our teachers so this revision process began in the winter of 2023 about 2 years and it was prompted by initiative by the state of Nebraska to make sure that every student had access to a highly qualified educator and also we
009hadn't Revisited our appraisal System since 2018 so we thought it was time to do some updates and so we developed a committee of 24 Representatives which included classroom teachers and Specialists building administrators and District administrators and we started the process by auditing our current uh appraisal system making sure that it aligned to Nebraska rule 10 and what our expectations were as a district for Teacher evaluation and our board policy and then we did some background work on um different research and evidence-based practices we look at the Nebraska teacher and principal performance standards Marzano's instructional framework and then and danielson's framework for teaching two of the leading educational researchers in this area and so we began to develop our appraisal framework of 2025 up here you'll see the board policy 40608 and we really focuses focused
010on the board's purpose of teacher evaluation you can see it on there it's to improve instruction guide staff development activities and make employment decisions and so with those three purposes in mind from the Board of Education we developed three outcomes that the committee HED to reach the first one to define a benon instructional model what is good in teaching and learning in benon what's unique to us and the second thing was de develop performance rubrics to rate our teachers on their Performance Based on that instructional model and third a process for evaluation and so the first outcome was our instructional model and you can see the graphic up on the board it is a circle graphic and we defined three eight or eight practices that we thought were most important to teacher and student success
011in the classroom you can see it's a circle model because they're all interdependent and connected and if one of those pieces is left out then it it decreases the effectiveness within our classroom and so the B is in the middle because this is the Bennington way this is what we find most important for teaching and learning in Bennington I'm going to go into a little bit of those eight components the first two are the learning environment and the learning objective and that helps set up the classroom and you can see under the each one of those components we had specific indicators So within the learning environment we talked about student relationships student experiences Collaborative Learning environment routines procedures and and conduct and student ownership all those are important for the learning environment and I'm not
012going to read every one of those indicators to you but then we talked about the learning objectives the next thing talks about the planning and preparation lesson design and focused instruction are the major components and then under each of those components are the indicators we would look for the next to talk about delivery of instruction a gradual release of responsibility and active learning for our students and you can see those indicators and then finally is monitoring and feedback and assessment an important in component to our instructional model Stacy if you'll hit that so we dug in even deeper we have the eight components of our instructional model and under those then we have the indicators and Stacy if you'll keep going down um if you would click on one of those the components the learning
013environment we further defined so our principles knew what to look for in the classroom when they're evaluating teachers and what it look like for students to be experiencing those indicators in the classroom and so we took the the component the learning environment and then the indicators and we did teacher evidence and student evidence and we broke it down for each one of those eight components making sure we had clear communication and expectations about throughout our system yeah all right the second part of this is the performance rubrics and you can see that the eight components of our instruction model are also represented in our rubrics we have the learning environment the first two components of our instructional model but planning and preparation instruction assessment and then finally a professionalism we developed five rubrics to RAR
014teachers on on each one of those indicators a change from from our 2018 to 2025 is we used to only have four evaluation rubrics when we did our background information and looked at best practice we decided we were missing an important component of instruction and learning and that's assessment so this time we added an assessment rubric and so that would be a change for this year some other changes we we made were um four performance levels in the old 2018 appraisal model we only had three we had we had Exemplar or exceeds we had meets and then we had did not meet standards we thought there was a level missing between meeting a standard and not meeting a standard and that was devel veloping we think teachers can be developing and that's where our professional
015development comes in place and so we wanted to mark them developing if a teacher would Mark does not meet standards that would put them we would work with HR and put them on maybe a a development plan a plan of assistance what we call it in education but we do feel like they can be moving towards developing to be effective and so we did add that column to our appraisal rubrics and then you can see there's one at the bottom um for each one of our rubrics something else we we added was um words that describe so you'll see under example Exemplar cons consistently meets under effed generally demonstrates effort under developing and fails to under there to clearly help our principles defining our teachers in the classroom all right so the last outcome that
016we wanted to do is have our total appraisal framework and the steps we would go through so teachers knew what was expected of them and how we would evaluate them through the year it is required to give your staff annual notice where they are on the evaluation or appraisal cycle and so every year our principles have a meeting and let our teachers know where they're at in the cycle there is two um cycles that is defined within our framework it is a probationary teacher and a permanent 10year teacher and so a probationary teacher is in their first three years of uh within our system a teaching within our system a permanent is after year for of employment you you have the option to become permanent and then when I say the option if there was
017any concerns with that educator we maybe would take keep them in probationary status all right we have there is a difference between a probationary teacher and a permanent teacher and you can see that our probationary teachers receive two formal evaluations during an in during the year and that is full of for a full instructional period they also receive four formal walkthroughs after year one they create a professional learning plan and what that does is address our professional development they take areas that their principal gives them for areas of growth within the summited and they make a plan to improve and so that addresses like I said the professional development piece of that our permanent teachers are a little different once you hit permanent status in therefore and thereafter you're formally evaluated in a 3-year cycle
018and you receive one formal evaluation for a full instructional period you also receive an overall summative when you're in that threeyear cycle every year you still continue to receive four informal walkth through observations and are provided written feedback on those and you develop your professional learning plan every year which we call you'll hear us call it P all right anytime any you develop a new process or initiative the implementation is very important so the committee developed a plan for implementation the first thing we have to De develop our administrators and and their understanding of the new staff appraisal process and so on June 4th and 5th we're bringing in a trainer from our ESU that work directly with Charlotte Danielson one of the leading researchers in this area and she will work on collaborating and
019um with our principles for common language giving feedback how do you write up a strong observation what do you look for in that in that appraisal process and then we'll introduce it to our staff which we have already introduced to our staff the instructional model they were very excited about it and we introduced it but this will be a ongoing process and a focus of our professional development and then when we're back to school sessions we will work on the appraisive system and helping them understand the process they'll go through and what the expectations are we have developed a professional development plan for next year each quarter focusing on one of the eight components or focusing on two of the eight components each quter focusing on professional development so in quarter one we will do
020some professional learning on learning environment what does that look what are the indicators what are the expectations when a principal goes in there what they're looking for and learning objectives and you can see the next quarter 2 three and four how we have that laid out and then finally um we'll be ready at the beginning of the year to implement this pending board approval part of our process also was nde had to First approve this so this has been sent to nde our rubrics and the framework and our instructional model and they have approved that the next process would be asking for board approval so we can implement it in the fall of 2025 all right I want to go back to our purpose and the purpose statement of the board and our board policy
021with teacher development which we think we addressed improved instruction um defining that instructional model was very important for us and the focus what we're looking for and what we value most in the classroom and then what we're always trying to do is retain and hire quality Educators and we think the system has addressed those three purposes that the board set forth I just want to leave you we know the most important component to anything as that teacher in the classroom and so with that CH Japanese proverb better than a, days of diligence that it is one day with a great teacher and that's what we we strive getting for is that children have access to Great teachers and we think they already do but we think this appraisal process will also guarantee that even more
022any questions for me uh so this was back in 2018 uh how long was the one in place prior to this one that's putting on spot no I didn't know if you knew about chance I do Tim kind of when I came in 19 years ago there was no formal appraisal process and so Stan Turner the high school principal then me the only Elementary principal did what we thought was right we observed teachers we wrote them up we gave them feedback but there was no rubrics to follow and so through that process in year two or Well Chad came and he was part of the process so when I was three years into it so gosh I'm going to date myself in you're 16 and I'm not doing the math um we we developed rubrics
023and so that was in place for I'd say about 11 11 years and then we revised the MTH not right probably seven years and then in 18 we revised and now we thought it was time again to revise so it's come a long way in the 19 years I've been here no that's very good anybody else have any questions I just want to add this is something that curriculum committee has seen several times we talked about throughout the process we definitely work with them getting to before it got submitted to the state to see if it was appropriate or not and so say thank you our C committee for giving input and helping through the process as well and obviously Dr Tindle and her team have put a lot of work into this for just
024this was one of the first things being on the board I was asked to do is look through and review this with the curriculum committee so I appreciate the diligence and the work that's been put into it it's fun as you click through and you see like then this leads to this many things then this leads to this many things like if you could you couldn't be any more clear with what expectations are I our will appreciate that thank you good job there's a motion I move to approve the Bennington appraisal framework as presented second you christe Jo roll call please Joe yes Steve yes Jeremy yes Tim yes Christine yes motion passes all right uh we will uh kind of let some other dates out here for regular meeting April 14th for our board
025meeting at 6:00 here uh committee meetings uh curriculum americanisms March 10th 5:15 policies March 24th at 5 and uh major important date tomorrow for this District V absolutely all right I move to adjourn the meeting second chrisy yes Joe yes Steve yes Jeremy yes Tim yes thank you everyone