South Tama School Baord - (seated) Michelle Yuska, president, Mark McFate, vice president. (Standing- Jackie Dvorak, Alan Kline and Penny Tyynismaa.

The South Tama School Board met at the Sac and Fox Tribal Center on Oct. 18 as they do annually.

Delores Ryan, TLC Facilitator and the Instructional Coaches, Mentors and Model Teachers presented information on their leadership roles and implementation of TLC responsibilities.

Differentiated Accountability is Iowa’s accountability model designed to provide support for public districts, accredited nonpublic schools and Area Education Agencies when and where they need it most.

As the Iowa Department of Education plans for the transition from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), they will be merging the ESSA accountability plan into the Differentiated Accountability model.

Goals for the Instructional Coaches include:

improvement of student achievement by strengthening instruction.

promoting collaboration by developing and supporting opportunities for teachers in STC to learn from each other.

cultivate professional growth and effective teaching by providing pathways for career opportunities that come with increased leadership responsibilities.

retain effective teachers by providing enhanced career opportunities.

attract promising new teachers by offering competitive starting salaries and offering short term and long term professional development and leadership opportunities.

Instructional coaches are willing to help all teachers.

Secondary coaches are Seth Koch and Kathy Wilkerson. Elementary coaches are Kevin Nelson and Keely Upah, and Special education coach is Joy Schirmer.

Model teachers include Scott Bolen who teaches high school health and coaches several sports. He graduated from STC and returned to his hometown to teach.

Karen Mixdorf from the Middle School is a special education teacher.

She had been working at the STC schools for thirty three years. Karen works with the 7th and 8th grade students.

Marilyn Rippy is the elementary music teacher. She used to teach music at the middle school, but only teaches at the elementary level now.

The Differentiated Accountability model is built to support compliance with state and federal law as well as build capacity in five conceptual areas essential to continuous improvement in education, Assessment and Data Based Decision Making. Universal instruction, intervention system, leadership, and infrastructure. These areas are all used with an emphasis on literacy in pre-Kindergarten through sixth grade during the 2016-2017 school year.

Healthy indicators are things measured to help determine whether a particular conceptual area may need more investigation. For each conceptual area they would like to have at least one healthy indicator and not more than three. Healthy indicators are like screening tools in that they can give information, but the school feels they need to dig deeper to understand what is really happening within any conceptual area.

For the 2016-2017 school year, Iowa’s Statewide School Improvement Team determined which districts, nonpublic schools, and AEAs would be offered Universal, Targeted and Intensive supports in the areas of Assessment and Data Based Decision Making and Universal Instruction by using Healthy Indicator data. Supports for Intervention System have not yet been determined but will be identified in November after the close of the Fall screening window. Districts and schools will be notified of Intervention System Supports no later than November 30, 2016.

All districts and non-public schools will be invited to attend one day regional trainings in Assessment and Data Based Decision Making. Districts and nonpublic schools that screened at least 80% of learners in grades Prekindergarten through 6th grade, will be invited to attend one and two day regional trainings in Universal instruction. Priority registration at these trainings is given to districts and schools receiving targeted or intensive supports, t hen registration is opened to districts and schools receiving universal supports as well.

Each training should be attended by a team from the district or nonpublic school. Recommended team members include the superintendent of schools, curriculum director, elementary principal, instructional coaches, teacher leaders and others who help make decisions about literacy instruction, assessment and data use.

Personnel

Contracts approved were for Denny Novotny and Ellie Dolezal, both for Orange Rooster routes, effective October 7, 2016, Novotny for the AM route and Dolezal for the PM route. Hana Kucera has a contract for third grade teaching effective October 13th.

Volunteer Coach will be Levi Hunerdosse for Wrestling starting in November 2016.

The board approved an application to request allowable growth and supplemental aid for negative special education balance for the current school year for the South Tama District qualifiees.Any school district may request make the request.

The supplemental aid payment is calculated by the Department of Management after all special education balances have been finalized. If a district has a positive special education balance, they do not have the ability to request allowable growth and supplemental aid. The district’s school board must approve seeking allowable growth and supplemental for a negative special education balance.