News from the front of lines of Kentucky Education Technology.

May 2, 2014. This mostly-monthly newsletter contains announcements and information from the KySTE Board meetings. Look below for the latest news from the Kentucky Society for Technology in Education. As there will be no May meeting, this newsletter will be the last Members Update for the 2013-14 school year.

News From the KySTE Spring Retreat

This annual face-to-face meeting of all board members, including electees whose term begins July 1, took place Sunday/Monday, April 27-28, 2014, in Louisville.

Nominating Committee

The following board members' terms will expire on July 1. KySTE thanks them for their tireless service to the education technology community in Kentucky.

• Diana McGhee, President. KySTE especially thanks Diana for her hard work organizing the Spring Conference, as well as Board meetings and countless other tasks. She will remain on the board as Past President for 2014-15.
• Erin Waggoner, Vice President. As VP, Erin facilitated huge changes to the Fall Event. Erin will return as KySTE President for 2014-15.
• Tony Carr, KySTE Outreach. Tony's guidance in this crucial arena, plus his great camera work (see KySTE's home page) will be missed!
• Cary Petersen, Past President. Cary rotates off this year after serving as Region 3 Rep, VP, and president. He's retiring from Jefferson County schools this summer.
• Carla Perkins, Region 6 Rep. Carla retires after two 2-year terms in this position.
• Brent Hoover, Region 8 Rep. Brent retires after a 1-year appointment to this position.

The following elected board members' terms begin on July 1.

• Cheri Gossett, Vice President. Cheri is a past KySTE president (2009-10). It was her tenure that saw the KySTE conference move to its current location and time slot. Cheri will rotate into the KySTE president spot for 2015-16.
• David Lucas, KySTE Outreach. David comes to us by way of Fleming County Schools.
• Tony Tompkins, Region 6 Rep. Tony is the DTC of Berea Independent Schools.
• Brandon Blackburn, Region 8 Rep. Brandon has graciously agreed to take on this position, and was appointed through board action.
• The following board members were re-elected and will continue in their current roles: Greta Casto (Secretary), Jeffrey L. Jones (Communications), Robert Forsythe (Region 2), Angie White (Region 4).

Planning Committee

This committee is in charge of planning KySTE events, including the Fall Event and Spring Conference.

• KySTE 2015: The following ideas are being considered based on feedback from the previous conference:
• Extended Exhibit Hall hours. The committee is also considering reducing the "Exhibit Hall Only" fee.
• Shorter Presentation Sessions. A reduction to 45 minutes would have the benefit of increasing the number of available presentations, especially for Friday. In addition, sessions viewed as timely and potentially popular will be repeated during the conference.
• Session Attendance Counts. STLP students will be leveraged to count session attendance, in hopes of better predicting topic interest for the next year. There was also some discussion about how we might encourage session evaluations through the app.

• 2014 Fall Event: The event has been scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2014 at the Lexington Convention Center at Rupp Arena. Projected content may include a CIO panel, sessions with the STLP Coordinator, and presentations of KySTE Outreach grant recipients and helps for applicants (see below), among others.

Awards Committee

Besides works on Policy and Procedures (see Governance below), this committee lead a discussion on how KySTE might increase the number of scholarship applications next year. 

Governance Committee

All committee chairs were charged with rewriting the Board Policies and Procedures associated with their tasks, for delivery to Governance chair Susan Vincentz for inclusion in a badly-needed update of that document. A small number of bylaws changes (mostly updates and rewordings) were given a first read at the meeting. Click here to view the bylaws online.

Other Committees/Board Actions

Executive Director Renewed. Gary Grant, d.b.a. Grant Marketing LLC, was contracted to fill the Executive Director position again for 2014-15.

Investment Options Examined. Davette Swiney, president of the Central Kentucky Community Foundation, presented on the possibility of increasing the return on KySTE funds which are held for long periods (including its contingency fund, which is fixed). 

STLP Collaboration Proposal. KySTE was presented with a proposal inquiring about the possibility of KySTE and KDE collaborating to help strengthen STLP in Kentucky. The board approved for KySTE to seek a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) from KDE spelling out the details of this partnership. In related action, KySTE approved a level of financial support for students attending ISTE 2014.

Budget and Marketing committees had no new items for this board meeting.

Jeffrey L Jones
Director of Communications, Ky Society for Technology in Education (KySTE.org)
jeffrey.jones@kyste.org
Twitter (@kystetech, @jeffreyljones)
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