FINDING A WAY to get Better

The YPS Board of Education approved my professional goals for 2015-16. I'm simply trying to find a way to get better. This is going to be a very important school year for us as we have multiple initiatives that we need to implement in a seamless fashion. It's an honor to work for YPS, its students, staff, parents, patrons, and school board.

Here are my goals for the upcoming year:

Communication/Visibility/Public Relations

• Communicate on a consistent basis and at a high level with all employees through face-to-face interaction, e-mail, memos, meetings, and other effective methods

• Be a visible presence in all YPS facilities on a regular basis
o Conduct walk-throughs in each classroom on at least a quarterly basis

• Be visible and approachable at school activities

• Make our staff and community aware of all the good things going on at YPS through guest columns to the newspaper, the use of social media, the YPS website, email, phone calls, handwritten notes, and other pertinent methods of communication

• Continue “Community Coffee” meetings each quarter to reach out to our patrons and heighten communication between the school system and community
o Will have two “Community Luncheons” and two “Coffees” this year in hopes of showcasing LunchTime Solutions over the lunch hour

• Use Twitter (York Duke Power,) Facebook, and the school website to showcase YPS
o 1,509 followers on Twitter in August 2015 compared to 1,199 followers in July 2014
o 1,545 “likes” on Facebook in August 2015 compared to 1,163 “likes” in July 2014

• Interact with local business leaders on a regular basis through service club meetings, luncheons, invitations to school activities, and special occasions

• Continue to strengthen the YPS/City of York working relationship

• Continue to strengthen and broaden working relationships with staff members

• Continue to communicate with patrons and statewide officials about ongoing school finance concerns as they relate to an over-reliance on local property taxes

Instructional Leadership

• Help enhance our new teacher mentoring offerings
o Follow-up professional leave day on September 25th

• Work towards increased academic opportunities for all students

• Continue to work with First Five Nebraska, Buffett Foundation, and others to pursue expanded birth-to-five programming



• Help manage PreK-12th grade School Improvement Plan and Initiatives
o Continue to help expand professional development opportunities for all staff and make sure our professional development plans tie directly to our school improvement goals

• Help improve student achievement scores on local, state, and national assessments
o Percentage of students that met/exceeded proficiency on NeSA-Math tests have increased from 67% in 2011 to 77% in 2013 to 84% in 2015

o Percentage of students that met/exceeded proficiency on NeSA-Reading tests have increased from 69% in 2010 to 82% in 2013 to 87% in 2015

• Continue to help emphasize technology integration across the curriculum to enhance learning with actual lesson objectives as opposed to “just a new, neat app”

• Continue to work with state leaders about our local concerns on the amount of instructional time lost due to what we see as excessive assessment/ranking requirements

• Help ensure that our “instructional model” game plan is highly effective for our students and staff and helps improve our school district

• Help ensure our new work certification programming venture with NCTA, Reinke, and CVA is the game-changer we think it will be

Financial Leadership

• Make sure we end each fiscal year with more money received than spent

• Communicate effectively with board, staff, and community about our budget and how we’re doing throughout the year in regards to receipts and disbursements

• Make sure YPS pursues at least two $10,000+ grants each semester

• Grow Depreciation and Building Fund accounts

• Build up cash reserve so we can better handle state aid fluctuations
o Cash reserve had a negative balance of -$995,591 in 2009
o Cash reserve had improved to a positive balance of $491,041 in 2012
o Cash reserve will grow to over $900,000+ as we enter 2015-16


District-Wide Leadership

• For all employees, be a role model that exhibits honesty/integrity, a strong work ethic, high expectations for self and others, and enthusiasm

• Challenge, support and assist administrative team in their continued efforts to lead their buildings and departments forward

• Continue to solicit input from others as often as possible

• Work on comprehensive post-graduate survey to report how YPS students are doing after high school graduation

• Continue to help YPS broaden its “legislative footprint” through STANCE and active involvement at the State Capitol