2023 Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium

Marialice Curran conducting a workshop with Nebraska students

The Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium, hosted by the Nebraska Educational Service Units (ESUs), was held in person for the first time since 2019 on October 16. Students and their teachers joined at five ESUs across the state. The five sites connected virtually through Zoom.  You can also see the participating school districts by viewing 2023 Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium Participants.

Twenty-two school districts with approximately one hundred sixty participants heard from national speaker and digital citizenship advocate Marialice Curran. Her message focused on being a digital impactor by being alert, balanced, engaged, informed and inclusive. Essentially the theme for the day was promoting the use of technology for good. More information on this topic can be found at her Digital Citizen Institute’s (DCI) website: DCI – Digital Citizenship Institute (digcitinstitute.com).

The teams also were privileged to hear from Heather Callihan, a technology integrationist at Northwest Public Schools.  Heather presented information on how she has social media and content creation teams of students who work together to tell their district’s story.

Students at the Digital Citizen Symposium 2023

After hearing from Marialice and Heather, the school teams had time to build on the inspiration by creating a school vision, plan, and/or call to action. Each team worked on this plan and then shared their ideas with the other teams. But the vision didn’t stop that day, as the teams will be working on this throughout the school year, documenting their progress, and coming back together on Zoom in April to celebrate with their fellow Nebraska teams, AND with others across the globe during the second annual Global Student Showcase.

The collaboration and learning will also continue in a unique and fun way, as a plush toy named Mundo will travel to all of the participating schools this year! The goal is to have Mundo learn about the different Nebraska communities it visits! Marialice’s team created an AI assistant for education and named it Mundo. She encourages the teams to use the AI assistance to learn more about Nebraska communities, and then share with others across the state, and eventually the world.

To learn more about the Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium, visit our website: NE Digital Citizenship Symposium.

“Mundo means earth in Spanish and at the DCI, we model how to learn about the world, with the world to create safe spaces for ourselves and others, to solve problems, and ultimately to be a force for good both on and offline.” Marialice Curran

2023-2024 Digital Citizenship Symposium

Save the date for our in-person event on October 16, 2023!  Districts will be allowed to bring a team of middle school and/or high school students, along with a teacher, to work together to create a Digital Citizenship plan for their school! You may choose from any of the five locations for in-person participation, even if it isn’t your ESU. ESUs 3, 5,7,10 and 13 will be hosting schools.

Guest speaker Marialice Curran will help facilitate the event! Digital Citizenship Institute

Back again this year is the Student PSA/Poster Contest! 

All school districts in Nebraska are eligible to participate in the online content, at no charge. There will be a charge for the in-person event.  Deadline to register is October 9.

Click Here for the Registration Page!

Sharing Canvas Best Practices

Shara Johnson had the honor of representing the Nebraska statewide Canvas consortium at the New York City Department of Education in September. She provided support during their Canvas launch, sharing invaluable best practices for the implementation process as they introduce Canvas to New York teachers for professional learning. The Nebraska Canvas consortium is a collaborative platform used to manage online learning, including reporting, resource-sharing, grading, feedback, discussions, content creation, outcomes and tasks.

For more information on Canvas contact:

Threat Assessment 2023-24

Threat Assessment 2023-24

NDE School Safety and Security Image

This K-12 school team training will help your school form or enhance the team that will focus on identifying, assessing and managing the risk/threat of violence posed by students, staff, and community members toward the school community.

Schools are encouraged to participate with a team of at least 4 members (e.g., administrators, faculty/staff, security or law enforcement partner, and mental health partner). Teams will leave the workshop with sample protocols to adapt for use in their school environment.

Trainers: Dr. Mario Scalora & Dr. Denise Bulling

Contact: Deb Hericks | (402) 597-4843 | dhericks@esucc.org

Training Reimbursement

This reimbursement opportunity is grant funded and intended to support attendance for approved Threat Assessment Trainings. The district can be reimbursed for hotel, sub, mileage, etc. for up to five team members.

Dates and Locations

Basic – Threat Assessment

  • Dates TBD
    • Locations TBD
    • Registration Here

The objectives for this two-day training include:

  • Identify and use the principles of threat assessment and management in school settings
  • Demonstrate effective strategies for assessing risk
  • Formulate strategies for monitoring and managing risk
  • Describe effective threat assessment and management protocols appropriate for school settings
  • Apply principles of threat assessment and management to case examples

Level 2 – Threat Communication

  • March 1, 2024
    • Locations TBD
    • Registration Here

Prerequisite: Need to have taken Threat Assessment – Level I Training

  • Dealing with assessment challenges
  • Assessing emerging issues related to threat assessment (e.g., extremism, social media, mental illness)
  • Managing cases over time
  • Coordinating management strategies with community resources

Level 3 – Threat Management

Prerequisite: Need to have taken Threat Assessment – Level I Training

During this one-day training, participants will explore practical threat management strategies for use in school settings. Different interventions will be discussed that are appropriate for use with students or adults/staff.

Effective interventions are built on good information and feedback that can be difficult to obtain due to privacy or legal barriers. Training will include strategies for addressing these barriers.

Participants will enhance their ability to obtain good information via interactions with subjects, witnesses, and targets by enhanced elicitation skill building activities.

See the flyer below for additional dates for 2023-24.

Threat Assessment 2023_24 by Deb Hericks

ESUCC Receives Awards at the AEPA Spring Meeting 2023

ESUCC Cooperative Purchasing staff with MVP Awards 2023

The ESUCC Cooperative Purchasing staff recently returned from the Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies (AEPA) spring meeting in Omaha where 29 state members converged along with 44 vendor partners to strategize and discuss procurement in their states for the upcoming year. The spring meeting is also a time for AEPA to recognize members and vendors for Relationship Excellence, Quality and Innovation and Sales Performance. ESUCC was the winner of two of these awards – Relationship Excellence, Quality and Innovation and also earned an honorable mention for Sales Performance with a 44% increase in sales.

Relationship Excellence Award

The Relationship Excellence award recognizes excellence in stakeholder engagement strategies that proactively support opportunities for co-discovery, intimacy, trust-building, collaboration, brainstorming, solution development, and other activities that support the mission of AEPA. ESUCC was nominated for this award by Preston Frazier with Pitsco Education. This award recognizes the work of ESUCC Cooperative Purchasing but also highlights the statewide collaborative work of the ESUs in providing support and assistance to all of Nebraska schools in this statewide initiative.

“In 2022, there was a monumental opportunity that presented itself in which Pitsco and ESUCC worked together to provide coding and robotics kits to more than 300 schools and districts as part of a statewide initiative in Nebraska utilizing GEER funding. We worked together to provide support and assistance to each school and district through collaborative webinars, a recorded podcast, a customized miniature catalog to be shared inside Nebraska, and a valuable resource page specific to this initiative. We also had multiple meetings and visits to make sure this initiative was successful for students and teachers throughout Nebraska. ESUCC has been a pleasure to work with, and they are the picture-perfect partner!” 

Preston Frazier, Pitsco Education
ESUCC Awarded Relationship Excellence
Preston Fraizer, Priscilla Quintana, Colleen Lentz, Craig Peterson

Quality and Innovation Award

The Quality and Innovation award recognizes outstanding projects, campaigns, and innovations in the fields of digital media and communications. ESUCC was nominated for this award by Michelle Selak, Michigan. The award was presented to Craig Peterson, ESUCC Cooperative Purchasing Director, for the work that he and his team do in supporting AEPA. The quality and innovation Nebraska brings to AEPA is above and beyond.

“Nebraska has been a strong force in supporting AEPA in many categories. Although Michigan supports the front end of the website, Nebraska supports the website behind the scenes. Craig, as website chair, has been hands-on behind the scenes working with the AEPA website developer to make sure the website is supported, running, and functioning to its full capacity. Craig continually works to help develop, maintain, and continue to grow the CRM reporting system. This work includes collaborating with the Reporting Committee to support the process within the website. Craig also collaborates with the Marketing committee to better serve AEPA website marketing strategies. I have learned so much from Craig and I’m thankful for him and his knowledge.  Craig also serves on four solicitation committees including committee chairperson for one of them.” 

Michelle Selak, Michigan
Craig Peterson, Michelle Selak

What is AEPA?

The Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies (AEPA) is a multi-state non-profit organization made up of Educational Service Agencies/political subdivisions organized through a Memorandum of Understanding between all participating states. It is a true “cooperative” that serves to leverage purchasing power for all member schools and agencies with the ability to purchase at equal buying levels regardless of size.

AEPA Advantages

  • AEPA streamline the bidding and purchasing process through a single, locally and nationally recognized purchasing solicitation.
  • AEPA’s collaborative purchasing expertise ensures that contracts are legal, safe and bid law compliant.
  • Contracts are bid competitively and tailored to meet each member state’s specific legal requirements and is facilitated by the state’s cooperative member agency.
  • AEPA contracts are designed to protect buyers and are guaranteed to save members time and money.  
  • Combining the needs of 25 million students nationwide provides an incentive to vendors to offer AEPA their best price and the highest quality products.

ESUCC Cooperative Purchasing

As a member of AEPA, ESUCC Cooperative Purchasing represents 17 Educational Service Units statewide which in turn service Nebraska school districts with over 300,000 students. We are authorized to coordinate purchases for public school districts, nonpublic school systems, other ESUs, and other public agencies, including any county, city, village, school district, or agency of the state government, any drainage district, sanitary and improvement district, or other municipal corporation or political subdivision of the State of Nebraska. For more information, contact Craig Peterson, or visit our website – ESUCC Cooperative Purchasing

Craig Peterson

Craig Peterson

Coop Purchasing Director
Holdrege Office
412 West 14th Ave
Holdrege, NE 68949
308-995-0665
Email

Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium and Contest 2023

The Nebraska Educational Service Units (ESUs) held the annual Digital Citizenship Symposium online again this year. The outreach was impressive because of the flexibility of the online delivery of digital citizenship content. The website was visited over 4,700 times from October through April by people from all over Nebraska and included visitors from 8 other states and 5 countries!

The online content included information and activities for grades K-4, 5-6, and 7-12. Heather Callihan, Technology Integrationist at Northwest Public Schools and teachers/students from Lincoln Public Schools recorded videos that HS students and teachers could access online. ESU staff also curated content for grades K-4 and 5-8. Students had the opportunity to earn a certificate of completion for their grade level content, which included Media Balance, Making Good Decisions, and Creation Over Consumption. Almost 600 certificates were awarded to students successfully completing the unit assessments!

The ESU group also hosted a statewide Digital Citizenship Message Contest. Students were invited to submit a Digital Citizenship poster or a Public Service Announcement communicating something they had learned. Students in grades K-12 submitted entries online and were judged in four grade group categories. Of the 132 contest entries, 21 award winners were selected and announced in April.

For more information and to see winning entries, visit the website: NE Digital Citizenship Symposium

The Pitsco+ESUCC GEER-Funded Robotics Purchase and Support Site

The GEER (Govenor’s Emergency Education Relief) funded robotics purchases sent over a million dollars’ worth of robotics devices into Nebraska schools. In a collaborative effort to support this monumental purchase, Pitsco Education and the ESUCC came together to develop a support site where educators and students can access video tutorials, online resources, and downloadable documents to ensure the successful implementation of these devices into student learning experiences. We even included a webinar series with implementation ideas featuring representation from Pitsco and our ESU network statewide.

For more on this initiative and access to resources, go to our page – Nebraska ESUCC Geer Resources.

Conversations with U.S. Secretary of Education on Mental Health in Nebraska Schools

 United States Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona

On February 8th, 2023, the U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona visited Omaha, Nebraska, making stops at Bryan High School and Educational Service Unit #3. Secretary Cardona had been invited by ESU #3 Chief Executive Officer Dr. Dan Schnoes to make his first official visit to our state. 

At ESU #3, Dr. Cardona met with Nebraska school leaders, therapists, mental health professionals, and students to discuss what those stakeholder groups are experiencing as the country faces a youth mental health crisis. His visit was to seek input from Nebraska schools and other organizations in the state who are implementing innovative programs in an effort to have a positive impact on student and educator mental health.

Dr Migual Cardona at ESU 3
U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona participated in a roundtable with principals, superintendents, and therapists to discuss the mental health services provided to students in rural communities at Educational Service Unit #3. For more on the story of Secretary Cardona’s visit, access ESU 3’s press release: February 8, 2023 ESU #3 Visit with Secretary Cardona
The Good Life EDU podcast

The Good Life EDU Podcast episode features Dr. Dan Schnoes, CEO at ESU 3, whose advocacy led to the Secretary’s visit. We also welcome several Nebraska education leaders including Dr. Kraig Lofquist, Dr. John Skretta, Dr. Scott Blum, and Dr. McKayla LaBorde who all provide their own personal insights about this event. Additionally, Dr. Joan Wade, the Executive Director of AESA, joins us to provide some national context regarding the significance of this historic visit, the first where an acting US Secretary of Education has visited a service agency.