Education Council Meeting Minutes

EDUCATION COUNCIL

Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 9:00am
Host site: NDE Board Room, 6th Floor, 301 Centennial Mall South, Lincoln
Remote sites: ESU 13, 4215 Avenue I, Scottsbluff, NE;

ESU 9, 1117 East South St., Hastings, NE;

Metro Community College, Omaha, NE;

Schuyler Community Schools Administrative Office, 401 Adam St., Schuyler, NE

MINUTES

MEMBERS PRESENT:

Mr. Derek Bierman, Northeast Community College (Lincoln site)

Mr. Matt Chrisman, Mitchell Public Schools (Scottsbluff site)

Mr. John Dunning, Wayne State College (Lincoln site)

Mr. Steven Stortz, Alt. for Stephen Hamersky, Daniel J. Gross Catholic High School (Lincoln site)

Dr. Dan Hoesing, Schuyler Community Schools (Schuyler site)

Mr. Steve Hotovy, Nebraska State College System (Lincoln site)

Mr. Greg Maschman, Nebraska Wesleyan University (Lincoln site)

Mr. Gary Needham, Educational Service Unit 9 (Hastings site)

Mr. Mary Niemiec, University of Nebraska (Lincoln site)

Mr. Randy Schmailzl, Metro Community College (Omaha site)

Dr. Bob Uhing, ESU 1 (Lincoln site)

LIAISONS/ALTERNATES PRESENT: Dr. Kathleen Fimple, Mr. Brent Gaswick, and Mr. Gary Targoff

MEMBERS/LIAISONS ABSENT: Mr. Burke Brown; Ms. Brenda Decker; Mr. Mike Carpenter; Yvette Holly, Dr. Mike Lucas; and Mr. Darren Oestmann

CALL TO ORDER, ELECTRONIC POSTING, LOCATION OF OPEN MEETING LAW DOCUMENTS, ROLL CALL, INTRODUCTIONS

Co-Chair, Gary Needham, called the meeting to order at 9:05 am CT. The meeting notice was posted to the Nebraska Public Meeting Calendar on December 12, 2014. The meeting agenda was posted to the NITC Web site December 12, 2014. The Open Meeting Statutes were located on the southeast corner of the NET Board Room. Ms. Lopez-Urdiales called the roll and found 10 voting members or alternates present. A quorum was reached in order to conduct official business. Members and guests introduced themselves.

CONSIDER APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA FOR THE DECEMBER 17, 2014 MEETING*

Mr. Uhing moved to approve the meeting agenda as presented. Mr. Stortz seconded. Roll call vote: Bierman-Yes, Chrisman-Yes, Dunning-Yes, Stortz-Yes, Hoesing-Yes, Hotovy-Yes, Maschman-Yes, Needham-Yes, Schmailzl-Yes, and Uhing-Yes. Results: Yes-10, No-0, Abstained-0. Motion carried.

Ms. Niemec arrived to the meeting.

CONSIDER APPROVAL MINUTES OF THE FROM THE OCTOBER 15, 2014 MEETING*

Mr. Dunning moved to approve the October 15, 2014 minutes as presented. Mr. Hotovy seconded. Roll call vote: Uhing-Yes, Schmailzl-Yes, Niemiec-Yes, Needham-Yes, Maschman-Yes, Hotovy-Yes, Hoesing-Yes, Stortz-Yes, Dunning-Yes, Chrisman-Yes, and Bierman-Yes. Results: Yes-11, No-0, Abstained-0. Motion carried.

2015-2017 BIENNIAL BUDGET - SUPPLEMENTAL REVIEW OF THREE PROJECTS FROM THE DEPT OF EDUCATION

Project Summary Sheets and Agency Response, Full text of the project proposals, NITC Tiers (for background only)

Consider Review Comments on behalf of the Education Council*

Mr. Rolfes provided briefing on the NITC review process. There were late proposals – three from the Department of Roads that were reviewed by the State Government Council and three from the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) that the Education Council will need to review. Of the three projects, two are interrelated, 13-02 and 13-03. Education Council input will not go to the NITC but directly to the Budget Office and the Legislature. The Technical Panel has also done a technical review with their comments. The Governor’s Budget Office and Legislative Fiscal Office will need the Council’s comments regarding the programmatic importance of projects. Each agency budget also receives a public hearing by the Appropriations Committee.

Chair Needham requested that NDE provide history and summary of the project. Brent Gaswick and Dean Folkers from NDE were present to answer questions from the Council.

13-01 Department of Education, Nebraska eLearning Project

Executive Summary: The Nebraska eLearning Project would center on the creation and procurement of high quality electronic learning objects for distribution to PreK-12 public schools at no cost to schools, in support of the statewide BlendEd Initiative, the NITC committee’s digital education goals and as an enhancement to the Data Dashboard currently being developed by NDE, while providing an in-depth, hands-on professional development process for Nebraska teachers, pre-service teachers and content specific undergraduate students.

The project is a concept at this point with three tiered phases:

· Tier 1 - Creation of a Learning Object Repository (LOR)

· Tier 1 – Professional Development

· Tier 3 - Dashboard Integration.

The project has four major goals:

· Successfully integrate access to instructional content and professional development activities to student assessment data as part of an individualized learning platform. (Integrate the Data Dashboard with content).

· Provide high quality learning objects, lessons or books equally to all Nebraska preK-12 schools at low cost or free of charge.

· Develop and provide high quality professional development to current preK-12 Nebraska Educators and Pre-service education students.

· Establish long term partnerships between preK-12 education, state agencies, postsecondary institutions and ESUs

To assist with this project, the Department of Education plans is to organize committees consisting of key stakeholders representing K12, NET, Higher Education entities, Educational Service Units, the Educational Service Unit Coordinating Council (ESUCC) to assist with the creation of a LOR and content creation. The project is about individualizing learning content for students in both public and private schools, as well teacher professional development training. Mr. Gaswick stated that NDE would like to tie the concept of content to assessment. Dr. Uhing informed the Council that two years ago the ESUCC worked together to develop a content repository but there was no funding to implement the system. Mr. Targoff noted that NET has a statewide repository of over 100,000 objects and has users in every single county accessing this service. Meta-tagging must be consistent for the Dashboard to integrate via multiple LORs. Some Council members termed this a high risk endeavor at this point. NET developed the platform they have in their content system and their vendor has agreed to work with NDE and ESUCC to assure integration.

Mr. Folkers stated that Nebraska is part of the State Education Technology Directors Association and that one of their priorities is sharing content management. There are a number of other states who have received Gates Foundation funding for their efforts in this area. Text books and curriculum are not the same. Instructional support (designers and technical) is important as well. Smaller school districts must have the same opportunities to use quality content. Mr. Chrisman stated that teachers’ time is also an issue. You can build it but it may not be used due to time constraints. He recommended that, if funded, the project get this information in front of “new” teachers coming out of Higher Education institutions in Pre-Service Training. A comment was made regarding the absence of “collaboration” in the project proposal. It was also stated that more information on the Return of Investment would be beneficial.

Mr. Dunning moved to submit the following comments to the Legislation regarding 13-01 Department of Education, Nebraska eLearning Project. Mr. Hotovy seconded.

EDUCATION COUNCIL COMMENTS

1. The Council recognizes that a significant amount of work has been done by ESUs (e.g. Safari Montage), NET (e.g. PBS Learning Object Repository), and other Open Education Resources (e.g. NROC-National Repository of Online Courses), inside and outside the state to develop readily accessible digital content. The Council feels that full stakeholder engagement will be essential for a successful, efficient and effective implementation of a state-wide e-learning initiative for k-12. As such, this project must involve all stakeholders in the strategic development of the effort to capitalize on the opportunity for shared resources and prevent the chance of duplicate efforts.

a. Project 13-01 is very ambitious and may be under-resourced in a couple areas, in particular teacher development, instructional support and content development.

b. The element that appears to be missing is a content portal that permits federated searching of existing content repositories that aligns with Nebraska State Standards.

c. The potential promise of replacing printed textbooks with digital content would permit cost avoidance and a continuously updated textual base to align and support Nebraska’s academic standards.

d. The professional development and training of teachers to use the content portal and learn to upload teacher-produced and student-produced content will be a critical component and will dependent on leveraging school district and ESU partnerships.

e. The instructional support and real-time assistance for teachers to move their content to a digital format will also be a critical consideration.

f. Higher education needs to be engaged in the full spectrum of teacher training, from pre-service teachers to graduate credit and summer content development institutes for teachers, if this initiative is to be successful.

2. The Education Council recommends that these projects, if funded, be designated by the NITC as Enterprise Projects, with monthly project updates and continuous monitoring, at least initially.

3. The Education Council also would welcome quarterly updates of these projects before the Council.

Roll call vote: Bierman-Yes, Chrisman-Yes, Dunning-Yes, Stortz-Yes, Hoesing-Yes, Hotovy-Yes, Maschman-Yes, Needham-Yes, Niemiec-Yes, Schmailzl-Yes, and Uhing-Yes. Results: Yes-11, No-0, Abstained-0. Motion carried.

13-02 Department of Education, Education Data Systems Capacity Building

Executive Summary: The recent Nebraska Education Data Systems study, in response to Legislative Resolution 264, found that Nebraska spends an estimated $100 million annually for technology systems, software systems, and accountability data submissions by the public school districts and the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE). The systems and applications are largely focused on satisfying Federal and State accountability reporting requirements and do not directly contribute to supporting teaching and learning. The districts submit annual collections of data to support accountability to the state using a combination of automated and manual methods. An estimated 655,200 hours are spent by districts preparing the required collections for each year’s accountability data submission. Each district has selected its own set of administrative, teaching and learning, and back office applications and there is a large disparity in the number of applications available in small districts versus larger districts due to budget, staff, and capacity. Outside of Nebraska’s largest districts, the digital tools are poorly integrated, there is little support for data-driven decision-making, and modern tools are not available to support instructional improvement necessary for the state’s education initiatives of blended learning, teacher and principal evaluation, career readiness, and continuous school improvement. Nebraska’s network of Educational Service Units (ESUs), the ESU Coordinating Council (ESUCC), and Network Nebraska are all contributing to improving the capabilities and the efficiencies of the data systems for the districts. However, the coordination, support, and access for systems can be dramatically improved and serves as the basis for this multi-faceted approach to develop a statewide data system that builds long-term capacity, efficacy, and efficiency for the system of education. The study established 10 recommendations that included five work streams; leverage work conducted using the federal $4.3 million SLDS grant scheduled to end June 2015.

The proposed implementation roadmap for the Nebraska Education Data System estimates a three-year investment of $41,960,110, roughly evenly split across the three years. The rollout plan targets a phase in process over three years that could include 50 districts the first year, 150 the second year, and 245 during the third year resulting in cost savings and efficiencies that will also provide a financial return from substantially-reduced accountability costs and from reduced technology costs to districts. The projected cumulative net return for the investment over five years is $44.8 million. However, the primary benefits from the recommended investments will come from a greatly improved instructional system that improves student performance leading to greater student success.

13-03 Department of Education, Instructional Improvements Systems

and State accountability reporting requirements and do not directly contribute to supporting teaching and learning. The districts submit annual collections of data to support accountability to the state using a combination of automated and manual methods. An estimated 655,200 hours are spent by districts preparing the required collections for each year’s accountability data submission. Each district has selected its own set of administrative, teaching and learning, and back office applications and there is a large disparity in the number of applications available in small districts versus larger districts due to budget, staff, and capacity. Outside of Nebraska’s largest districts, the digital tools are poorly integrated, there is little support for data-driven decision-making, and modern tools are not available to support instructional improvement necessary for the state’s education initiatives of blended learning, teacher and principal evaluation, career readiness, and continuous school improvement. Nebraska’s network of Educational Service Units (ESUs), the ESU Coordinating Council (ESUCC), and Network Nebraska are all contributing to improving the capabilities and the efficiencies of the data systems for the districts. However, the coordination, support, and access for systems can be dramatically improved and serves as the basis for this multi-faceted approach to develop a statewide data system that builds long-term capacity, efficacy, and efficiency for the system of education. The study established 10 recommendations that included five work streams; leverage work conducted using the federal $4.3 million SLDS grant scheduled to end June 2015.

Projects 13-02 and 13-03 are very similar but the Budget Office recommended it be broken into two projects. The two projects have ten goals:

· Goal 1: Make security, privacy, transparency, and the proper use of data the core of the Nebraska Education Data System implementation.

· Goal 2: Unify the data collection requirements into the Nebraska Education Data Standards (NEDS) to minimize the reporting burden on districts.

· Goal 3: Require application vendors and other sources to provide data in a standard form specified by NDE directly into the NEDS. Adopt a Nebraska Education Data Standard in collaboration with the NITC.

· Goal 4: Leverage and strengthen Nebraska’s ESU network, the ESUCC, and Network Nebraska to host, maintain, and sustain the Nebraska Education Data System, to support a statewide virtual help desk, and to train the educators in it is use.

· Goal 5: Leverage the state-level market to influence vendors, negotiate lower prices through competition, provide consistent functions and pricing across large and small districts, and expand the number and quality of instructional applications.

· Goal 6: Invest in providing education intelligence - access to actionable insight - through a warehouse, business intelligence tools, and increased internal capacity for districts, policy makers, and researchers.

· Goal 7: Invest in an integrated data system that spans the districts, the ESUs, and NDE to support continuous education improvement.

· Goal 8: Integrate staff data from district and state data sources, link teachers to student performance and success, and add additional data to better support teacher evaluation and professional development.

· Goal 9: Invest in the licensing, integration and training of an Instructional Improvement System that is cost-effective for districts of all sizes.

· Goal 10: Develop the staff and processes necessary to sustain the Nebraska Education Data System.

The agency has a five year plan to accomplish these goals. Ms. Stortz stated that at the present time parochial schools are not allowed to upload their data into the system. Mr. Folkers was not sure why this is and would like to have further discussions with parochial schools.

It was commented that the proposals are more “concepts” with no information on the implementation. Five year seems very ambitious to accomplish the goals. There are a number of dependencies with external vendors but questions the time.

Mr. Hotovy moved to submit the following comments to the 13-02 Education Data Systems Capacity Building and 13-03 Instructional Improvements Systems. Mr. Dunning seconded.

EDUCATION COUNCIL COMMENTS

Projects 13-02/13-03

1. The Education Council recognizes the value of Project 13-02 and 13-03 and encourages the appropriate funding to move these projects forward to improve the Nebraska educational system. Benefits include significant capacity building, a much better integration of data, and increased usability for teachers and administrators.

a. The Council feels that the projects may be under-resourced as proposed.

b. The Council has concerns that the resulting projects may not be inclusive of all public and nonpublic students.

c. Five years is incredibly ambitious to implement such a significant project(s)

i. Key failure points include dependencies on outside vendors to become EdFi and single sign on compliant.

2. The Education Council recommends that these projects, if funded, be designated by the NITC as Enterprise Projects, with monthly project updates and continuous monitoring.

3. The Education Council also would welcome quarterly updates of these projects before the Council.

Roll call vote: Uhing-Yes, Schmailzl-Yes, Niemiec-Yes, Needham-Yes, Maschman-Yes, Hotovy-Yes, Hoesing-Yes, Stortz-Yes, Dunning-Yes, Chrisman-Yes, and Bierman-Yes. Results: Yes-11, No-0, Abstained-0. Motion carried.

NETWORK NEBRASKA UPDATE

Project Management Report (12/1/2014). Mr. Rolfes submits the Network Nebraska monthly project report to the NITC Technical Panel. The project is operating smoothly with no risks indicated. Currently, 94% of K12 and HE are participants. After this summer, the project will be considered a completed project. It will be a matter of operational aspects that will need on-going oversight.

NNAG Meeting Notes (12/10/2014). The group is discussing the cost recovery model. Since the Network’s inception, it has the same monthly cost for all entities but recently issues have have arose that challenges the cost recovery system. For example, some participants are using much larger Internet bandwidth where others do not but they are still paying the same as the larger user. Discussions will continue regarding the cost recovery model.

E-rate Modernization. The FCC is implementing major changes across the nation. Approximately $10-$11 million per year could be coming to Nebraska school districts for internal connections and Wi-Fi. Last Thursday, the FCC raised the program funding cap to $ 3.9 billion plus 2 billion left from prior years. Beginning FY2015, $35 million of these dollars will be used for equipment upgrades for internal connections within Nebraska. Mr. Rolfes and Ms. Witt provided workshops to districts and private schools about the E-rate modernization changes.

RFP 4862. On December 10, the RFP was released. Bids will be opened January 2^nd. Another RFP 4871 was released for commodity equipment purchases that local entities can participate in if they wish.

NITC ACTION ITEMS

Task Force Membership. Members were asked to make sure they were on the right task groups to match their interests. Task Groups were asked to meet in late January or early February to report their goals for 2015 per the Council’s Action Items.

Review of 2014-16 Action Items. This agenda item was tabled until the next meeting. Members were asked to review these at their Task Force meetings. Mr. Rolfes reminded members that the NITC budget can pay for video conferencing, meet-me-bridge audio conferencing meetings for Task Groups. Some of the action items have been addressed by the NDE IT project proposals that were reviewed today.

SUBSECTOR UPDATES

State Colleges, Steve Hotovy. The State College Systems office has hired a data analyst as well as to look at a strategic statewide reporting system. Chadron State College is doing an equipment and WAN system upgrade via the Office of the CIO. Peru State College is considering a wireless upgrade with installation occurring this summer. It is anticipated that a master lease program as well as state contracts will be utilized. Wayne State College also has a shared position that works system-wide integrating with NeSIS.

Community Colleges, Randy Schmailzl. Metro Community College released an RFP for their own Wide Area fiber Network. It was awarded to PinPoint. The college is expecting a 5-year cost recovery. Metro is involved with the development of a digital library in Omaha. The opening will be in a year but it has already generated a lot of interest in the business community. Northeast Community College is collaborating with Wayne State College on IT projects. The Community Colleges have agreed to have a monthly IT group meeting to share ideas and collaborate whenever possible.

Independent colleges. There was no report.

University of Nebraska. The University is still in deliberation about their system-wide LMS. The RFI went out and is being evaluated. Currently, the University is using Blackboard. Jim Zemke is on the review committee. It has been determined to extend the contract with Blackboard for another three years. In the meantime, other options will be explored. The Distance Education Symposium is scheduled for May 14, 2015. Ms. Niemec would like the Council to consider doing something similar statewide. The search for a new University President is still underway. The holiday close down is from Dec 23-Jan 2.

K-12 public & private. Mr. Stortz stated that he is encouraged that hopefully the Council will positively affect state policy regarding private K12. Mr. Uhing informed the Council that the ESUCC has been piloting LMS systems. A decision of what to purchase will be made this March. Districts will have the option using whatever LMS system they like. The ESUs provide technical support for statewide initiatives and local school districts. In January, BlendEd is conducting training that is available to ESU and school district personnel.

Dr. Fimple announced that Dr. Michael Baumgartner is the new Director for the Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education. He would like to attend an Education Council meeting. SARA (State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement) has a process in place to provide courses between states. The State must be approved to participate in SARAH. In addition, they must be approved by the state’s Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education. The same applies for distance learning courses. SARAH is attempting to omit the requirement to get each state’s approval to utilize their courses.

AGENDA ITEMS FOR THE 2/18/2015 MEETING CONSIDER LOCATION(S) FOR THE 2/18/2015 MEETING

The next meeting will be held in February with the following agenda items:

· Action Items

· Task Force Reports

· Update or Guest Speaker Recommendation at each meeting (New Administration possibly)

· Internet2 Report, Mike Ruhrdanz

· Legislative update

If there are ideas for more agenda items, members were asked to contact Mr. Rolfes or one of the Co-Chairs.

ADJOURNMENT

Mr. Dunning moved to adjourn. Dr. Uhing seconded. All were in favor. Motion carried.

The meeting adjourned at 11:28am CT.

Meeting minutes were taken by Lori Lopez Urdiales and reviewed by Tom Rolfes, Office of the CIO/NITC.