Board starts with celebrationby Mary Le Arneal The North Bend Central Board of Education opened its meeting with a Celebration of Excellence, hearing from career and technical education program teacher Katie Wright. She showed a video featuring former students talking about how the program had helped them. Career ed was first introduced at NBC in 2016. Wright is finding that this put NBC “ahead of the curve” as she has schools asking about the NBC program while working to get their own work-based learning program started. High/middle school principal Brenda Petersen reported on federal Perkins grant dollars received through ESU 2. Three teachers received funds: Roy Wright $1,615 for an electronic raceway, DJ Mottl $5,007.50 for a printer to make tags for plants in the greenhouse and Katie Wright for RelalityWorks Employable Skills Cards. Petersen, family and consumer science teacher Alyssa Nelson and Katie Wright are slated to tour neighboring districts who have updated their family consumer science kitchens to a professional culinary kitchen. NBC would be able to apply for a ReVision Grant up to $100,000 to help with this project down the road. Petersen said grants have been used to give students opportunities to visit colleges and other career planning events during October. The grants will help pay for transportation and meals. Elementary principal Tessie Beaver reported on the monthly in-services held and what they are working on and goals they have set. School nurses Beth Vrana and Alyssa Muller are working on health screening for all elementary students and middle school students. They have received a vision screener with a grant from the North Bend Central Foundation to improve the screening process. Dr. Frank J. Riha will be providing the dental screening. The board viewed the information that Jon Baher had gathered about baseball programs at other schools as well as the poll of NBC students. Baher was unable to attend the meeting and the board decided to delay any action until he was available. Justin Taylor voiced his opinion, neither negative nor positive. “Sports, sports, sports,” Taylor said. “A lot of money goes toward sports. I’d like to see some go to the arts. It’s time we give attention to the other kids, coaches, teachers in those fields. These are my thoughts speaking for a minority group.” Dr. Dennison Bhola presented to the board via Zoom about the Community Needs Assessment. He is the CEO of Psychometric Solutions and with Dr. Galen Boldt has formed a partnership offering survey and assessment services for school districts. They will provide NBC with a mixed methods research model, which will utilize qualitative data collection, quantitative data collection, and a comprehensive report that the school can use to drive decision making in the future. This process will include small focus group meetings with selected individuals, town hall style meetings for the public, and unique surveys sent out to all stakeholders, including students, alumni, parents/guardians, school staff, local business owners, and all other interested patrons. The board voted to take part in the project at the cost of $21,700. Board members will each submit a list of six people they recommend for the focus groups by Oct. 30. The board voted to add Prime to their Infinite Campus offering. This will allow the school to collect information, and parent signatures prior to the beginning of the school year. Parent/guardian will enter the information directly into Infinite Campus and it will go to appropriate places. Currently the elementary school enters all data by hand so Prime will allow for greater efficiency and more timely data collection. The board Capital Improvement Plan, a plan for big expenses for the next 10 years. Superintendent Patrick Ningen asked the board to make a decision on track pole vault mat replacement. After some discussion, the board approved of Ningen to work with the coaches to select the right mat system for NBC needs less than $37,000. In other business the board:
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