Nebraska Public School Advantage News

Nebraska Public School Advantage News

EMC holds Inaugural Safety Summit in Elkhorn

EMC holds Inaugural Safety Summit in Elkhorn

June 29, 2018
By Tyler Dahlgren Several times throughout the school year, the Eastern Midlands Conference holds executive council meetings, drawing superintendents and principals from the eight member districts. When the council gathered early this spring, in the wake of the tragic Parkland, Florida school shooting, one thing was weighing heavily and collectively on their minds. “We felt like the need to build...Read More

Security sets table for success at SSC

Security sets table for success at SSC

June 1, 2018
By Tyler Dahlgren Twelve years ago, South Sioux City received the Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant, vaulting the safety of students and staff to the front of the district’s list of priorities. In Rebecca Eckhardt’s 17 years with the district, which serves a community of about 13,000 nestled against the banks of the Missouri River in Northeast Nebraska, she has seen a steady commitment to...Read More

Spring 2018 in Review

Spring 2018 in Review

May 17, 2018
By Tyler Dahlgren The spring semester ends, usually, on days like today. When students spill out of their schools for the last time, they’re splashed with sun and they trot across green grass into three months of swimming, baseball games, fireworks and freedom. Let’s not kid ourselves, good vibes flow more freely when it’s 80 degrees and there isn’t a gray cloud in sight. It’s easier to be...Read More

Wall to Wall: Plattsmouth's expansive career academy covers it all

Wall to Wall: Plattsmouth's expansive career academy covers it all

May 8, 2018
By TYLER DAHLGREN The desks were arranged in a rectangle, lining the walls of a Plattsmouth High School classroom that would soon be filled with discussion and collaboration, the makings of an emerging alliance between a school and its community. Student representatives of Plattsmouth’s Wall to Wall Career Academy held a prominent spot at the meeting. As Advisory Council Leaders (ACL), their...Read More

The Next Step: Plattsmouth's ShopKo shopping spree puts 75 kids in brand new kicks

The Next Step: Plattsmouth's ShopKo shopping spree puts 75 kids in brand new kicks

April 26, 2018
By Tyler Dahlgren Duct tape is versatile. It can fix almost anything, just ask any self-proclaimed handyman. But duct tape being used to hold together a pair of worn and tattered children’s shoes? Well, social workers in Plattsmouth Community Schools were seeing it too often, and that’s where this story takes its first step. “It’s something that I think a lot of people take for granted, a pair of...Read More

Touring Nebraska's Unified District #1: Two decades of collaboration

Touring Nebraska's Unified District #1: Two decades of collaboration

April 12, 2018
By Tyler Dahlgren Each stop on the Unified District #1 tour comes with a sense of familiarity, though Orchard, Clearwater and Verdigre exist in their own buildings in their own charming northern Nebraska small towns. “Though we work together on curriculum, each school has kept its own identity,” said Unified District #1 Superintendent Dale Martin, a former principal at Orchard who has been with...Read More

A Blanket Statement: On MLK Day, Crete Elementary goes all in on service

A Blanket Statement: On MLK Day, Crete Elementary goes all in on service

March 27, 2018
By Tyler Dahlgren Grinning from ear to ear, they march down the hallway on a beeline to the gymnasium, freshly-tied blankets in tow. Preschoolers, kindergartners, first and second graders, short in stature, but towering in pride. The tie-blankets, well over a hundred of them, form a mountain on the gym floor before they’re loaded onto a bus and shipped to Crete Middle School, whose gymnasium is...Read More

A Timeless Bond in Battle Creek: Students, residents form friendships during visits to care center

A Timeless Bond in Battle Creek: Students, residents form friendships during visits to care center

March 19, 2018
By Tyler Dahlgren It didn’t feel anything like spring in Battle Creek this morning, as temperatures stuck to the wrong side of 40 and a soft rain fell from the dark gray sky. Saturday morning, this town of 1,200 people will hold its annual Easter Egg Hunt. Every kid in Battle Creek under the age of eight will soon be in an excited frenzy, searching frantically for candy-stuffed, brightly-colored...Read More

Choosing a Path: Familiarized with their fields, ESU 2's P2T students prep for the future

Choosing a Path: Familiarized with their fields, ESU 2's P2T students prep for the future

March 15, 2018
By Tyler Dahlgren He’s two months from graduation. Two months from summertime salvation. Five months from college and all of the independence that comes with it. So forgive West Point High School senior Hayden Schuetze for not sidestepping the “Senioritis” question. “Definitely,” said Schuetze. “We’re definitely dealing with senioritis a little bit.” Yes, “Senioritis” is real. Very real. Anybody...Read More

Classrooms of Tomorrow: Grand Island's three Schools for Rigor first of their kind in Nebraska

Classrooms of Tomorrow: Grand Island's three Schools for Rigor first of their kind in Nebraska

February 14, 2018
By Tyler Dahlgren The foresight Liz Boyle uses when talking about her 21st Century Literacy class is an intriguing, albeit unfamiliar, element of a conversation I’ve shared with teachers over the last year and a half. Nebraska’s public schools, as I’ve learned, don’t generally back away from shouldering high self-expectations. The state is the land of educational innovation. It’s part of what has...Read More

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