January 2018 Member Newsletter

Make Plans to Attend SWWC's 2017-18 Conferences! Law Seminar for School Administrators: February 8, Marshall Topics: Coming Down the Pike: Major Legislative Changes Affecting Minnesota Schools in 2018 and 2019 Developing an Effective Performance Improvement Plan Intel on Technology: Waging a War on Social Media Student Discipline in Special Education (what schools can do, what they can’t do, and in-school suspension for SpEd students) This is IT2 Technology Conference: March 11-12, Redwood Falls www.swsc.org/techconf Behavior Conference: April 9 in Marshall -- April 10 in Brookings Annual School Business Conference: April 11 at SMSU/Marshall Summer Leadership Conference: June 18-20 at Arrowwood/Alexandria Registration details coming soon! Speakers: Clay Cook, University of Minnesota Stephanie Graff, MDE Dawn Zimmerman, The Write Advantage

And there is even more professional development! Read the Winter Professional Development Catalog!

Take Part in our Virtual Career Fair! March 13-15, 2018 9am - 3pm each day Connect with job seekers without leaving your office! Read more on our flyer!

Administrative Services

Expanded Options Through Cooperative Purchasing Connection Participating in the Cooperative Purchasing Connection (CPC) brings you the value of more than 50 contracts offering discounted pricing, excellent customer service and additional benefits like extended warranties. These competitively solicited contracts feature a wide variety of companies, both local and national. Your purchases through the CPC help fund your local service cooperative and we appreciate your dedication. We also know you need additional options, especially for large equipment. To meet your needs, the CPC has formed a partnership with National Joint Powers Alliance (NJPA). You now have access to more than 100 NJPA vendors. Shareen Neumann will be available to guide you through the process of using these contracts which will simply involve contacting the vendor directly and asking to use the specific NJPA contract number listed. CPC continues to be your primary purchasing option. We offer all the current benefits of CPC including Express, your exclusive online marketplace. Express is free to use and provides your discounted pricing options from multiple vendors with one login and one password! We also continue to provide a CPC program representative to update you on new contracts, answer questions about current offerings and customize your agencies’ use of Express when requested. For our region, that person is Shareen Neumann. You can reach her at shareen.neumann@swsc.org or 507-537-2279. If you have any questions on this partnership please call CPC at 888-739-3289.

Annual Budgeting Workshops The annual Budgeting Workshops are scheduled for Wednesday, February 14 and Monday, February 19 at 9:30am. These workshops allow districts to work on the 2018-19 preliminary budget in small groups with other districts. We hold the workshop in the SWWC training lab where districts can access their specific district data base. We review enrollments and show the reports available on the MDE website as well as the RMIC website to assist in creating a budget. Information can be entered in the SMART System for creating budget reports and analysis. Registration is available at www.swsc.org/workshops

Education Services

Teaching & Learning Updates

Launch Your Future Today (LYFT) The Rural Career and Technical Education Advisory Board is excited to announce that LYFT Pathways funding is available to high schools (and their partners) to develop shared career and technical education (CTE) courses and programs.    LYFT is a rural CTE pathway initiative with the purpose of rebuilding CTE in southwest and west central Minnesota. The goal of LYFT Pathways is for every secondary student in the region to gain marketable skills through meaningful CTE courses and opportunities which lead to further education and careers that match our region’s labor market needs. LYFT is funded through a $3 million 2017 Rural Career and Technical Education Consortium Grant, which was passed by the Minnesota Legislature. The legislative funding is scheduled to run through June 30, 2019 (with an opportunity to extend the use of funds beyond that date).   LYFT Highlights ·          At least two or more high schools cooperating with one another ·          Development of new CTE courses or expansion of existing courses ·          Courses match local or regional labor market needs ·          Collaboration with business partners for program content ·          Hands-on learning opportunities ·          Sustainable after first year funding   To learn more about LYFT and how to access funds please read the LYFT Flyer . The LYFT website is being development and will be online soon as lyftpathways.org ... but for now you can access it by using this link : www.swsc.org/lyft

2018 Teacher Licensure Renewal Webinars Find more information about each webinar and register at www.swsc.org/workshops . All webinars will be held from 3:30pm - 4:30pm unless otherwise noted . January 25 - Engaging Students with Interactive Tools January 29 - Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies February 7 - Accommodations & Modifications February 12 - Suicide Prevention February 22 - Onset of Mental Health Webinar March 5 - Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies March 15 - Best Practices for EL Learners March 16 - Protecting our Students with Interactive Tools March 19 - Suicide Prevention April 10 - Reading Strategies for Non-ELA Teachers April 10 - 7am - 8am Onset of Mental Health Webinar May 2 - Teaching All Students: A Guide to Accommodations and Modifications May 15 - Engaging Students with Interactive Tools May 21 - Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies 

The 24 th Annual Science & Nature Conference What do you get when you combine the curious nature of students with cutting edge topics in science and technology? One of the largest and most popular science conferences for students in the country! The Science & Nature Conference provides students a unique opportunity to work with a variety of science related subjects. It is a fun and enriching opportunity to get students excited about science. With hands-on learning and demonstrations students will get to experience a variety of interesting science sessions from animals to chemistry to technology, engineering, power, physics, the body and much more.  Mark your calendar for May 9, 2018 , to come join us for the 2018 Science & Nature Conference. Visit www.swsc.org/sn for specific information. Brochures will be available in mid February.

Special Education Updates

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