The Southwest Nebraska Distance Education Network met on November 4, 2008, at  the Sandhills Convention Center in North Platte. 

At the beginning of this meeting, the chairperson announced and informed the public that a current copy of the Open Meetings Act was posted.

The meeting was called to order at 10:25 a.m. by Director Shirley Schall.

Roll call was taken with the following in attendance:   Arapahoe, Arnold, Callaway, Cambridge, Chase County, Dundy County-Stratton, ESU 15, ESU 16, Eustis-Farnam, Hayes Center, Hershey, Medicine Valley, Mid-Plains Comm. College, Mullen, North Platte, Ogallala, Perkins Co., Southwest, Sutherland, Thedford, Wallace, Wauneta-Palisade. 

Absent:   Arthur County, Brady,  Hitchcock County, Hyannis, Maxwell, Maywood, McCook, McPherson County,  Paxton,  Southern Valley, and Stapleton.

Also present were Shirley Schall, Distance Education Director, and Barb Hidy, Distance Education Assistant.  Guests:  Chad DeWester and Melissa Engel, ESU 16; Gordon Roethemeyer, DEC; Jared Blackman and Shane Gerhartz, ESU 15; Ron Cone, ESU 10; and Craig Peterson, ESU 11.

Legal Notice:  Notice of this meeting was given in advance by publication in accordance with Network approved method for giving notice of meetings.  Availability of the agenda was communicated in the publicized notice.  All proceedings of the meeting, except as may be hereinafter noted, were taken while the convened meeting was open to the attendance of the public.

Additions and Approval of the agenda:  No items were added to the agenda.  A motion was made by Hershey and seconded by Callaway to approve the agenda.  The motion carried unanimously on a voice vote.

Approval of Minutes - The minutes from the November 6, 2007 meeting were distributed to those present as well as being posted on the Distance Learning web site.  A motion was made by Cambridge and seconded by Mullen to accept the minutes as presented.  The motion carried on a unanimous voice vote.

Public Comment - There were no requests from the public to comment.


OLD BUSINESS

E-Rate Update - Shirley stated that the 2007 e-rate process has been completed and funds received.  She has received notice that the 2008 year e-rate application has been approved. The amount to be received is  approximately $596,000 which will be used to pay yearly line charges.

2008 RUS Grant - The RUS Grant written by Shirley earlier this year was awarded in the amount of $391,840.   These funds will be used to purchase equipment for a content channel with large screen HD monitor for the distance learning rooms and to replace the 12-year-old bi-amp equipment in each DL room.

The window for the 2009 RUS grants should open sometime in December.  Shirley indicated that another grant may be written depending on the timeline and guidelines posted when the application window opens.

Virtual Field Trips - Shirley announced that the SNDEN website now has a list of Virtual Field Trip resources available for schools.  Links are posted with the Field Trip information.  Field Trips may be free or require a fee.  To review the links on our website, go to:  http://www.snden.org/VirtualFieldTrips.html.  Superintendents requested that Shirley send out the list of links to them via email so they could share it with staff.

N-ROC (National Repository of Online Courses) - Gordon Roethemeyer explained that N-ROC is a growing library of high-quality online course content for students and faculty in higher education, high school and advanced placement.  Omaha Public Schools has worked on developing the courses and aligning them to standards.  Currently, there are 37  online courses:  14 AP; 17 college foundation; and 6 high school foundation.  OPS is reviewing 6 GED courses for later addition.   A three-year membership covering Nebraska Schools was paid for by the Partnership for Innovation through Carl Perkins funds. 

Hippocampus is a content repository of interactive tutorials which can be used by all teachers.  Math and science content are emphasized and activities are aligned with popular textbooks.  The Hippocampus website can be found at www.hippocampus.org.

February 11th Online Learning Keynotes/Class - On February 11th, two locations will host nationally known speakers and the “Instructional Design for Teaching via eLearning” course.  Participants may sign up for just the keynote session or the keynote and Instructional Design course. 

At the ESU 3, Omaha location, Dr. Shirley Waterhouse will speak on “The Power of eLearning” from 10:15-11:00.  The Kearney location will feature keynote speaker Janine Lim presenting, “The Power of Collaboration” from 11:00-12:00 CT.  There will be a videoconference connection between the two sites for the keynote speeches.  Interested participants should register online at http://www.esupdo.org and choose the distance learning link.  Brochures were passed out to all administrators in attendance.

Renovo Clearinghouse - The clearinghouse for courses on the Renovo website is currently being updated with new features and should be finished by Thanksgiving.  Through the clearinghouse, schools can request classes and find open classes being offered by other districts in the state. 

Incentives for DL Classes - Mr. Roethemeyer discussed the need to match course titles on the curriculum reports with the title scheduled on the Renovo system to make verification for incentive fund purposes easier.  It was noted that you must send or receive a K-12 or dual credit class with at least one student outside your district to qualify the class for incentive funds.  Distance education units are figured per class, not per site involved.  Incentive funds may be doubled for sending classes to designated sparse or very sparse districts.    Applications for incentive funds may be completed during second semester when the window opens, but will not be verified until after June 1. 

NEW BUSINESS

Proposed Equipment Line Item – Shirley stated that during the last two ESU 15-ESU 16 Administrative Council Meetings, the superintendents discussed the reinstitution of the Depreciation Fund that the Southwest Consortium had kept as a line item in its yearly budgets.  They asked that this item be brought before the full Network membership at its Fall Meeting. 

Over a nine-year period, this fund, originally set at $1,500 per site, was used toward the purchase of new pieces of equipment that were installed at all sites, and as a repository for funds to use toward the IP network conversion at all locations.   Such funds, if reestablished, would go toward the next upgrade of each Network site or for updating aging pieces of equipment in all classrooms between major upgrades.  This money could also be used as matching funds for schools in a future federal RUS grant.
 
A motion was made by Chase County and seconded by Dundy County-Stratton for each school district to contribute $3,000 per DL room annually, beginning in the 2009-10 school year, to a designated DL equipment depreciation account.  Discussion continued.  A question was asked about DL carryover funds that were transferred to ESU 16 when administration changed hands.  Marge Beatty distributed a financial report showing expenditures and receipts including the carryover funds.  The question was called by Hershey.  Motion passed on a majority voice vote with 20 ayes and 2 nays.

Contracts 2009-10 - Discussion was held on the cost  and contracts for DL services through ESU 16 during the 2009-10 school year.  Marge would like to prepare contracts and have them out the first part of January. 

A motion was made by Wauneta-Palisade and seconded by Thedford to advise the ESU 16 Board to issue contracts to schools in the Southwest Distance Education Network for DL services in 2009-10.   Motion carried on a unanimous voice vote.

The contract cost being considered is the same as last year at $17,400 per classroom plus the $3,000 for the depreciation fund that was just approved.  Total would be $20,400 per classroom.  Shirley stated that there may be a change with USF apportionment that came about through an audit recently.  She said the auditors interpretation of the rules required districts who file e-rate as a consortium to apportion USF reimbursement funds according to the discount rate of each entity.  The superintendents felt verification of this interpretation was needed before any action to change our process is taken.  It would be their preference to continue cost-averaging but will comply with any guidelines that are mandated.  There was discussion of holding off on the contracts until information can be gathered, however, ESU 16 would like to have the board take action on issuing contracts by December.  One superintendent suggested that there may be a way to apportion funds and then repay the amount to pay the video line charges as a whole.  More information will be gathered but at this time, consensus was to issue contracts and amend later if needed.

A motion was made by Hershey and seconded by Perkins County for ESU 16 to issue contracts in the amount of $20,400 per classroom for distance learning services,  which includes the fee for Network Nebraska membership.  ESU 16 requested a roll call vote.

Voting Aye:  Arapahoe, Arnold, Callaway, Cambridge, Chase County, Dundy County-Stratton, ESU 15, ESU 16, Eustis-Farnam, Hayes Center, Hershey, Medicine Valley, Mid-Plains Comm. College, Mullen, North Platte, Ogallala, Perkins Co., Southwest, Sutherland, Thedford, Wallace, Wauneta-Palisade. 

Voting Nay:  None

Absent:   Arthur County, Brady,  Hitchcock County, Hyannis, Maxwell, Maywood, McCook, McPherson County,  Paxton,  Southern Valley, and Stapleton.

SW Network Internet Changes - Ron Cone discussed changes that were made this past summer including how the southwest area connects to network.  Equipment was moved from Kearney to College Park in Grand Island which allowed an ATM circuit between North Platte and Grand Island to be disconnected resulting in savings of $3,000 a month.  Mr. Cone discussed bandwidth available.  Decreasing cost of bandwidth has allowed GNENC to purchase more for the ESU 10, 11, 15 and 16 area.  Individual schools are able to purchase extra bandwidth individually if needed with an additional megabyte now costing approximately $38.01 per month.  Discussion was held on prioritizing services on the network and questions were asked by some of the larger schools about bottlenecks on the network.  Ron said they needed to do some troubleshooting to identify and resolve the issues those schools are having.

A diagram of Network Nebraska was distributed and explained.

Possible 2009 RUS Grant - Shirley will watch for the window on applications to open and make a decision at that time on writing another grant.

Adjournment - The chairman declared the meeting adjourned at 12:35 p.m.



_______________________________       
Barbara Hidy
Distance Learning Assistant