Published: Monday, September 17, 2012 1:08 AM CDT

Published: Monday, September 17, 2012 1:08 AM CDT

Published: Friday, September 14, 2012 1:09 AM CDT

After over a year of planning and tweaking, Mount Marty College’s new Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction (M.Ed.) program is set to have open houses to further develop the curriculum and enhance the direction of the program.

The college’s goal is to carry a program that is consistent with the school’s Benedictine liberal arts traditions and designed specifically for teachers who are already in the classroom and wish to stay there, MMC President Dr. Joseph Benoit said at a press conference to introduce the program this winter. Such a program is different from most other Master of Education degrees, he said.

“What we’re setting out to do here, and what the education faculty have developed with a program, is one that takes a classroom teacher and helps them become an even better classroom teacher, which is what our faculty are really tied to in their goals, and our students, I think, will benefit,” he said.

Drs. Nicholas Shudak and Deborah McCuin, who both helped develop the program, recently sent out invitations to teachers in the area to invite them to an informational open house on the program scheduled for Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. in the Roncalli Welcome Center in Yankton.

“We’ve invited teachers in the area that don’t currently have their masters degrees,” Shudak said. “We’ve taken a look at who those people are and if they’re still teaching in the area and sent them postcard invitations in the mail. The open house is still open to anyone in the area, and not just teachers.”

The open house will allow Shudak and McCuin to give people some background information about the program and its characteristics. They will also tell people how the program was designed and why it was designed the way it was.

“We will also tell the audience members at the open house why they should be interested in the program, why it’s unique and what separates its from other programs in the area,” Shudak said.

Shudak said this program is unique because it is designed specifically for the practicing classroom teacher and that they’ve tried to design the program to be in line with the Charlotte Danielson framework for effective teachers, with each course addressing one of the domains in the framework.

The program will incorporate compressed summer classes and allows teachers to use their classrooms at school as a site for a course. The summer courses will be three weeks, with one day of face-to-face interaction and the other days involving online work.

Programs are tentatively scheduled to start in the summer of 2013.

“The reality is that through the admissions process and the open houses, we are going to try to find a start date that works best for the teachers enrolled in the program,” Shudak said. “Many teachers in the area have received the program warmly and are excited that it’s a two year program. They’re also excited that they get to use their own classrooms as a site for their coursework, as opposed to having to travel to a campus during the school year.”

McCuin said the program is really data driven, which makes it unique and separates it from a lot of programs throughout the country.

“Having a program that’s data driven will teach the teachers how to use their own student data and their own students’ needs to drive the changes in the instruction that they might decide on,” she said. “Each course will be very dynamic and will changed based on who is in the class.”

Shudak said about 80 teachers were invited to the open house from throughout the area, and they recently set up posters in teachers’ lounges and work rooms to promote the open house.

“I’m hoping for a decent turnout, during the planning process we received a lot of emails about the program and when it will start,” he said. “We are really looking to open houses to tweak the final aspects of the curriculum. We want the curriculum to be applicable to teachers. It won’t work for everyone all the time, but we’re really trying to make it relevant.”

One way that they are trying to keep the program relevant for teachers is by requiring them to use the data they take from their classrooms as part of the program content.

“In the summer course we will come up with areas that teachers would like to try a new strategy and technique for their classrooms,” McCuin said. “It’s real data based on real research and teachers will implement what they planned over the summer in their classrooms.”

The program will offer three different tracks — a course only option, portfolio option and a thesis option.

“We’re hoping the open house will help flush out the rest of the curriculum,” Shudak said. “Teachers not currently working can still be part of the program for recertification courses.”

McCuin added that MMC officials are going through local school districts to appeal to the potential students they are trying to reach.

The program was developed as part of the MMC master plan.

“We are trying to do a decent job creating a program that is convenient for teachers over a two year period,” Shudak said. “We constantly ask ourselves how we can provide a unique program that stays up to date with the trends in teaching.”

He added that it is always a challenge to keep up with the changes in education.

“I think we’ve setup a program that has an impact and allows teachers to engage in genuine research,” he said. “Our program is more two collegiates working together, rather than a student to teacher, like traditional programs.”

McCuin said she is hoping teachers come to the open house because that’s where officials will get the input on the summer dates to meet and any potential changes to the curriculum. They want to ask teachers how they will want this to be a program they would want to be a part of.

“We’re hoping to provide the local teachers with a service so they can perfect their craft,” Shudak said. “There are a lot of people out there that love teaching and want to improve their teaching, this program will give them those tools and resources to become better teachers.”

McCuin thinks the program could have big impacts for teachers across the region.

“I don’t know a teacher that doesn’t work on school things over the summer. This helps direct and focus their work and allows them to get credit for what they do anyway,” she said. “Then they get to go and try the new strategies in their classrooms. Only teachers know the problems they see in their classrooms. They are the experts there.”

Follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal

Published: Thursday, September 13, 2012 1:09 AM CDT

The Yankton School District (YSD) school board  unanimously approved the operating budget for the 2012-13 school year at its meeting this week.

The 2012-13 general fund budget of nearly $14.9 million represents a reduction of over $1.7 million, or a 10.6 percent decrease, compared to the 2011-12 adopted budget. The 2012-13 decrease to the general fund, compared to 2011-12, is primarily due to the utilization of health insurance reserves from YSD’s self-insurance fund, in addition to the reduction of positions.

In order to cut back, the district cut three teaching positions, a dean of students position, eliminated fifth grade coaching positions and froze the classified and administrative salaries for the third consecutive year, along with year two of pay freezes for certified coaching and advisory  positions.

“For the current budget implemented by the board on Monday, we have made efforts at reducing the budget,” YSD business manager Jason Bietz said. “The source of our problems is in the general fund, as it related to the cuts that were implemented a couple years ago by the legislature.”

Bietz added that YSD officials are constantly evaluating how many students they are serving and the ways in which they can be served more efficiently.

“Right now we have our class sizes set at such a point where if we had the resources we would love the additional staff,” he said. “When enrollment has dropped, we’ve responded by making adjustments to teaching positions accordingly.”

On Aug. 31, enrollment at YSD was 2,691 students. This was up from 2,665 in September 2011, and 2,632 in May 2012.

The official student count for state aid funding will come on the fourth Friday of September, and enrollment typically changes from the beginning of the school year until that date.

“We take the number of students we have in the district on the 4th Friday in September for the official count,” Bietz said. “The first day of school count always fluctuates from where it is on the fourth Friday.”

YSD has been experiencing a decreasing student enrollment since the 1997-98 school year, when enrollment was at 3,341 students. Enrollment has declined nearly every year since then.

School districts across the state are allotted $4,490.92 per student, a number that is subtracted from the local tax effort in the community. The end result is the amount of state aid a school gets to operate.

“It’s a very complicated formula,” Bietz said. “Every year, the per-student allocation number is at the center of discussion for the legislature when they discuss school funding.”

Bietz added that the biggest thing people need to understand is YSD is trying to make the most out of what they have right now.

“Right now, we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he said. “We’re going to be on a cliff and what we’ve done with this budget is push the cliff out a year or two.”

He added that the district is going to need more revenue from what was cut out of education funding a few years ago.

“We’ve been wrestling with revenue shortfalls for so long it’s just a foregone conclusion that we’re going to be looking at how we can get things done for less,” Bietz said. “The outlook on having new money handed to us from the state or federal government is not promising, so we will continue to look at cutting things where we can.”

With changes to the district’s health insurance policy, YSD should save about $500,000 a year to the internal services fund.

“When you manage your health insurance program, it gets funded by our operating budgets,” Bietz said. “We are utilizing our own reserves from the health insurance fund now to keep our general fund intact now.”

Changes to the health care plan will go into effect Jan. 1.

“When the health insurance fund gets to a place where we have to reposition how it is funded, we will be on the cliff with our general fund,” Bietz said. “We are just prolonging the fiscal cliff.”

The district will move from the First Administrators insurance plan to Wellmark. YSD will also change over from the two-tier system they are currently operating to a four-tier model.

The current two-tier system covers employees and their families, while the new system will allow for more flexibility. The four-tier model has an option to cover a single policy member, employee and spouse, employee and child(ren) and a family option.

Under the new four-tier structure, some families would have savings, but others could end up paying more out of pocket if they must have a hospital visit.

“Our health plan has been a success,” Bietz said. “We’ve been self-funded for 11 years. If we weren’t self-funded we would have had the reserves in place that we’ve had. If we didn’t have the savings to lean on, we would have had to implement cuts a few years ago.”

Bietz said the district will be at a crossroads in years ahead.

“Eventually you have to make adjustments to balance the budget,” Bietz said. “There will be many challenges going forward.”

Over the past few years, YSD has eliminated more than a dozen teaching positions and several bus routes. The district has also held the line on school supplies for more than a decade.

“The state has been paying less than they were, while taxpayers have been paying more than they have been in the past,” Bietz noted.

He added there is a ballot issue in November which could bring additional revenue for education and Medicare, if voters approve.

“They have not quantified it specifically down to the district level, but the early estimates based on sales data in 2011, was it could produced upwards of $1.8 million a year for the Yankton School District,” Bietz said. “That’s just an estimate coming from the Department of Revenue. We are watching this closely because it could have a huge impact on where we go further.”

“The problem hasn’t gone away, we are still dealing with the cuts enacted by the 2011 Legislature.”

Follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal

Published: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 1:09 AM CDT

The Lewis and Clark Recreation Area experienced a record number of visitors this year.However, Jeff Van Meeteren, the regional park supervisor for the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks (GF&P) thinks that numbers could have been higher than they were.

“The numbers we had this year were good, but I was hoping they would have been a little higher than they were,” he said.

He added that there is still an opportunity to raise the numbers this fall.

“We have had fantastic falls the last several years, so there is still a chance the numbers rise even higher.”

So far from Jan. 1 to Labor Day this year, the number of day visitations to the park, measured by counting the number of cars that come in, is up nearly 5 percent from where it was in 2011.

However, the key indicator to numbers at the park comes from the amount of campers staying on the grounds,

“The camping unit is really our bread and butter number,” Van Meeteren said. “The nightly camp unit numbers is really one of the key numbers that we count.”

This year, the number of campers at Lewis and Clark is up 8.3 percent from 2011. Chief White Crane camping numbers are up 11.8 percent from last year, while Pierson Ranch numbers are up 9.6 percent from last year as well. All told, when compared to last year, numbers are up an average of more than 10 percent. Van Meeteren added that he was hoping numbers at Lewis and Clark would have been up closer to 10 percent.

“Everything will be up a little bit from last year because of the flooding we experienced,” he said. “We also have been measuring back to 2010, which was the prior record season.”

When looking back to 2010, the numbers at Chief White Crane and Pierson Ranch are right about at where they were that year. However, Lewis and Clark camping numbers are up 4.4 percent from 2010.

“When we break 5 percent increases at Lewis and Clark from the previous year, we are really having a fantastic year, so we shouldn’t really be complaining about these numbers,” Van Meeteren said. “It’s been a long and great season so far.”

He added that the number of campers at the park this year made 2012 the best year they’ve ever had.

“We had a fantastic Labor Day weekend, and there are still a lot of people looking to camp this fall,” Van Meeteren said. “Nothing this fall should change the record numbers that we’ve experienced this season.”

He added that the hot weather through the summer and fall has not deterred anyone from visiting the park.

“Overall there was just a huge pent up demand for people to get outside this year because of last years flooding,” he said.  “The summer got off to one of the earliest starts we’ve ever had, which helped the numbers we saw.”

Despite the still struggling economy, Van Meeteren said people will still come out and enjoy the park.

“No matter where the economy is, people still put a high priority on family time and on their recreational time,” he said. “Fortunately for us, the economy is not making a big dent in our numbers. People might not come as often, but they might stay longer to compensate for that. The bad economy does not seem to be hurting us too much.”

Van Meeteren added that the high gas prices also don’t seem to be deterring people from getting outside and getting to the recreational areas around the region.

“There are things people can do to make the adjustment to the bad economy,” he noted. “The economy really doesn’t seem to have slowed people down from getting outside.”

He said that the flooding from last year, more so than this year’s hot and dry weather, drove traffic to the lake this year. He added that weather does not influence numbers as much as people think it does.

“People get it in their heads that they’re going to go on vacation and tend to roll with it and don’t typically cancel,” Van Meeteren said. “Flooding like we saw last year really only happens once in a great while.”

He said there are benefits to both the park and the community when campers visit the recreation area.

“The average night stay to Lewis and Clark has grown from just a weekend to three- four- or five-night stays,” he said. “Generally, you can only stay in the park and entertain yourself for two days, then you’re going to start to venture out into the community and see what there is to do.”

People will go out and explore the other businesses around the area, including the mall, restaurants and other attractions in Yankton.

“We really like to promote the local activities,” Van Meeteren said. “It gives campers something to do, so chances are they’ll stay at the park longer. It really becomes a win-win situation for both the community and the park.”

He added that the prediction for a warmer, dry fall will only bode well for the numbers of campers to Lewis and Clark this fall.

“If the weather prediction holds true, we should have a good fall,” he said. “The only thing  that slows fall numbers down is if there is a good, hard freeze and so far I haven’t heard anyone talk about that yet.”

Follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal

 

http://yankton.net/articles/2012/09/12/community/doc504fdce297793517720188.txt

Published: Tuesday, September 11, 2012 1:08 AM CDT

The Yankton School District (YSD) school board  unanimously approved the operating budget for the 2012-13 school year at its meeting on Monday.The 2012-13 general fund budget of nearly $14.9 million represents a reduction of over $1.7 million, or a 10.6 percent decrease, compared to the 2011-12 adopted budget. The 2012-13 decrease to the general fund, compared to 2011-12, is primarily due to the utilization of health insurance reserves from YSD’s self-insurance fund, in addition to the reduction of positions.

In order to cut back, the district cut three teaching positions, a dean of students position, eliminated fifth grade coaching positions and froze the classified and administrative salaries for the third consecutive year, along with year two of pay freezes for certified coaching and advisory positions.

“All of those things really contributed to a big reduction in the general fund budget,” said YSD Superintendent Dr. Joe Gertsema.

Jason Bietz, YSD Business Manager, added the budget has been able to stay afloat by the district utilizing the health care reserves.

In addition to the general fund budget, the 2012-13 special education fund budget is a 2.8 percent decrease from the adopted 2011-12 budget. Like the general fund budget, the cuts come due to the utilizing of health insurance reserves.

“It’s important to note that we are not funding health insurance out of the general fund budget,” YSD School Board President Chris Specht said. “The numbers clearly reflect that over the last 15 years, there is a decline in teaching staff at YSD to go along with the lowering student enrollment.”

Bietz noted that YSD school district enrollment is up so far in 2012, which could help the budget in future years with the per student allotment. However, the district is still responding to the trend of decreasing enrollment in the school district over the past decade.

“We are constantly monitoring class-size ratios, especially at the elementary levels,” he said. “We don’t fill positions through attrition whenever we possibly can. For this school year we are in right now, four teaching positions have been eliminated because we didn’t need them. We would love to have them because it would bring class ratios down, but we couldn’t afford them.”

In addition to approving the budget for the 2012-13 school year, the board also continued to overhaul the districts health care plan.

The board took Silverstone’s recommendation to drop aggregate stop loss insurance, resulting in about $15,000 in savings to the plan. Representatives from Silverstone told YSD officials that in their experience, only very rarely do claims incurred for the plan reach the attachment point to file a claim on the aggregate reinsurance. In addition, the individual stop loss insurance amount was increased from $125,000 to $130,000.

The Yankton Boys and Girls club also presented to the board that they would like to continue to partner with the school district, and potentially have a facility at Yankton Middle School at some point in the future.

Other business included approving a request from the Gayville-Volin School District that establishes student pickup points in the Yankton School District’s pickup area. Teachers from YSD also presented how they have been using 63-3 Foundation grants to enhance the student learning experience.

The next school board meeting will be held on October 8.

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal

Published: Saturday, September 8, 2012 1:08 AM CDT

As of the end of August, enrollment at the Yankton School District (YSD) was up from where it was at both the beginning and end of the 2011-12 school year.

On Aug. 31, enrollment at YSD was 2,691 students. This was up from 2,665 in September 2011, and 2,632 in May 2012.

The official student count for state aid funding will come on the fourth Friday of September, and enrollment typically changes from the beginning of the school year until that date.

“We take the number of students we have in the district on the 4th Friday in September for the official count,” YSD business manager Jason Bietz said. “The first day of school count always fluctuates from where it is on the fourth Friday.”

YSD has been experiencing a decreasing student enrollment since the 1997-98 school year, when enrollment was at 3,341 students. Enrollment has declined nearly every year since then.

School districts across the state are allotted $4,490.92 per student, a number that is subtracted by the local tax effort in the community. The end result is the amount of state aid a school gets to operate.

“It’s a very complicated formula,” Bietz said. “Every year, the per-student allocation number is at the center of discussion for the legislature when they discuss school funding.”

The per student allotment increases annually by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), or 3 percent, whichever number is less. This year, the per student allocation amount was increased for FY 2013 by 2.3 percent.

In the mid-1990s, the formula for school aid was different from what it is today.

“The old system in the 1990s never had a per student allocation,” Bietz said.

However, when Gov. Janklow sought office, he ran on the platform of reducing taxes across the state, Bietz said. This became the foundation for the system that is now in place with the per-student allotment.

During the past 17 years, the allotment has increased by about $1,200 per student.

“Some school districts say that the system has never adequately funded the costs of education,” Bietz said. “Although its intent is good, it has never annually produced enough ongoing new revenue to keep up with the rising costs of education.”

In FY 2012, Gov. Dennis Daugaard announced funding cuts across the board, including cuts to education. Schools across the state were projecting about a 5 percent decrease to funding, but that decrease turned out to be more than 8.5 percent, Bietz said.

“The cut to YSD was about 10.3 percent of revenue,” he said. “We found ourselves on the wrong ends of two declines, both with funding cuts and a decreasing student enrollment.”

YSD Superintendent Dr. Joe Gertsema believes enrollment in the district last year may be the lowest they will ever experience.

“We are thinking that last year’s enrollment might be the lowest we’ve experiences, but we don’t know yet,” he said.

Bietz said that YSD’s projected enrollment came within four students of the August count.

“We rely heavily on the birth rate census when projecting enrollment,” he said. “If we start to see a spike in births in the current year, we can project five years down the road and adjust that model accordingly.”

However, Bietz said nothing indicates a sudden spike or decrease in population for Yankton County.

“Although there is a slight growth in population in Yankton, it’s an aging population,” he said. “An aging population won’t really produce school-aged births.”

During the last 10 years, YSD enrollment is down by about 450 students. Bietz notes that YSD officials are closely monitoring student enrollment and are taking appropriate actions.

“We are constantly monitoring class-size ratios, especially at the elementary levels,” he said. “We don’t fill positions through attrition whenever we possibly can. For this school year we are in right now, four teaching positions have been eliminated because we didn’t need them. We would love to have them because it would bring class ratios down, but we couldn’t afford them.”

The YSD School Board will meet Monday at 5:30 p.m. at the Administration Building on 2410 West City Limits Road. Among the items to be discussed include adopting the 2012-13 school district budget, making changes to the YSD employee health care plan and authorizing a tax levy request, among other agenda items.

Follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal

Published: Thursday, September 6, 2012 8:42 PM CDT

Published: Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:09 AM CDT

One hundred fifty years ago, the Dakota Cavalry played a critical role for settlers’ survival in the Dakota Territory.

To honor the men who protected the earliest pioneers, the Dakota Territorial Museum of Yankton will be hosting a reunion for descendants of Companies A & B of the Dakota Cavalry on Sunday, Sept. 9 at the G.A.R. Hall in Yankton.

Crystal Nelson, director and curator of the Dakota Territorial Museum, said there has not been much information documented about the group. They were first mustered out in 1862, and would eventually become the South Dakota National Guard after South Dakota became a state in 1889.

She added that there was an uprising in Iowa and Minnesota in the 1860s, so settlers in South Dakota needed some sort of protection — a security force that became the Dakota Cavalry.

“People in the area around Yankton needed to feel protected,” Nelson said. “They needed a military group to protect settlers and their lands.”

There was a mass killing of settlers that took place in Minnesota in 1862, which worried many settlers in what is present-day South Dakota, that such a thing could happen to them.

“The events that took place in Minnesota were close enough to this area that settlers became concerned,” Nelson said. “The events led some people to flee from Minnesota to Sioux City, and others to Yankton.”

In order to protect the people of this area, the Yankton stockade was erected bear what is now Broadway and 3rd streets. Most settlers stayed within that immediate area so they could feel protected from any potential problems.

“The Dakota Cavalry was a real good source of protection for settlers in the Dakota Territory,” Nelson said.

Even though there has not been a lot documented about the group, A.M. English, who served with Company A in the cavalry, wrote a history about the organization and its people in 1899. He wrote about what the people did and where they all went.

“We took that information that he wrote and set out to try to find descendants of the group for the reunion,” Nelson said. “We sent out letters to potential descendants, and we got a pretty good response.”

Nelson added she expects about 20 descendants and their families to attend the reunion on Sunday. However, she knew there were some descendants of the cavalry around because some were asking about what they did.

“Knowing they came from an important part of Yankton’s history, I could tell there was still a sense of pride around descendants of the cavalry,” Nelson said. “We said, ‘Let’s get them all together and try to find other descendants as well.’ We wanted to have the opportunity to bring them together again and honor their heritage.”

She added a lot of people did not know much about the cavalry before the letters were sent out, so museum officials offered to help research families’ lineage to see if they are descendants of the cavalry.

“We put it out there and asked if they are interested in finding out more,” she said. “It’s been interesting and a lot of fun to hear back from all the descendants. We wanted to be able to keep the history of the Dakota Cavalry alive.”

The reunion will feature a special social hour from 1-2 p.m. for descendants only. Afterwards, at 2 p.m., there will be a presentation on the history of the Dakota Cavalry that is open to the public.

If you or someone you know is a descendant, contact the Dakota Territorial Museum at 605-665-3898 by Friday. Reservations for descendants are required.

“If there was no Dakota Cavalry, would Yankton have developed like it did? Would that Midwest have developed?,” Nelson questioned. “They provided protection for people to know that it is OK to settle in the Dakota Territory. They were pivotal in the expansion of the Midwest.”

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Published: Wednesday, September 5, 2012 1:10 AM CDT