Nebraska Public School Advantage News

Nebraska Public School Advantage News

Planting the Path for Tomorrow’s Teachers: Grow Your Own program goes statewide

Planting the Path for Tomorrow’s Teachers: Grow Your Own program goes statewide

September 15, 2025
By Tyler Dahlgren ESU 9 administrator Drew Harris sat in his office while the Grow Your Own Student Kick-Off event rolled along in the conference room down the hall and issued a forewarning of what we were about to walk into. “You’ll feel it when you walk in that room,” Harris said. “We have some high-energy people leading things, and they’re just having a lot of fun.” Then we saw Dr. Katie Soto...Read More

GUEST SPOTLIGHT! ‘Dogged Determination’: From Workforce Prep to Project SEARCH and Beyond

GUEST SPOTLIGHT! ‘Dogged Determination’: From Workforce Prep to Project SEARCH and Beyond

August 25, 2025
By Kelli Mayhew, Grand Island Public Schools Even when he’s not reading a book or reviewing material, Aaron Andersen studies. “I would be running the floor scrubber in the cafeteria, and Aaron used to watch me every day and just study how I was doing things,” said Roger Fisher, custodian at Starr Elementary. After days of studying how Roger used the floor scrubber, Aaron mustered the confidence...Read More

Loomis Illuminated: Wolves welcomed back to school with big, bright bash

Loomis Illuminated: Wolves welcomed back to school with big, bright bash

August 22, 2025
By Tyler Dahlgren The gymnasium lights cut to black when the clock struck 1:30 last Wednesday afternoon, prompting 270 glowstick-wielding Loomis Wolves to fall silent–at least for a moment. Then the music piped in, and the students erupted. They danced and laughed their way through a couple of songs, ringing in the new school year the only way Loomis Wolves know how. “We want them to feel like...Read More

How Paras Change The World: ESU 16’s Para Impact Conference celebrates the unsung heroes of a school

How Paras Change The World: ESU 16’s Para Impact Conference celebrates the unsung heroes of a school

August 20, 2025
By Tyler Dahlgren Class is in session across Nebraska, and behind the scenes of every school day, the unsung heroes of education are doing what they do best—a little bit of everything. Ask any principal, superintendent or teacher, and they’ll answer in agreement. Paraprofessionals are paramount to student success, swiss army knives whose obligations come without parameters nor much of the...Read More

A Prime Day for Collaboration: 120 math teachers converge in Fremont for ESU 2’s Math is Power event

A Prime Day for Collaboration: 120 math teachers converge in Fremont for ESU 2’s Math is Power event

August 14, 2025
By Tyler Dahlgren It didn’t take long for the teachers at ESU 2’s first-ever Math is Power event to find a common denominator. With the 2025/26 school year just around the corner, they came to Fremont for some end-of-the-summer professional development. That’s exactly what the 120 attendees received. “I’m always trying to find new ideas that will make me a better teacher and positively affect how...Read More

Wayne’s Bright Start: WCS cuts the ribbon, celebrates Early Learning Center with community that made it possible

Wayne’s Bright Start: WCS cuts the ribbon, celebrates Early Learning Center with community that made it possible

August 13, 2025
By Tyler Dahlgren Dr. Mark Lenihan stood on the sun-splashed pavement outside of the main entrance to the Wayne Early Learning Center and thanked the people who made the dazzling new facility possible. It was a Friday morning, the first day of August. School wouldn’t be in session for another two weeks, but passersby wouldn’t know it by the packed parking lot and large crowd assembled in front of...Read More

Swiping Right, Into the Future: Three Raikes School students from Nebraska put college project into practice

Swiping Right, Into the Future: Three Raikes School students from Nebraska put college project into practice

August 7, 2025
By Tyler Dahlgren The Startup The Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management houses some of the best and brightest minds at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It’s a hub for innovation, a place for dreamers and doers. Hudl started there. Other startups you’ve heard of, too. FindU, the brainchild of three recent Nebraska high school graduates and current Raikes School students,...Read More

Dog Days on the Farm: Summer programming bustles at Gifford Farm in Bellevue

Dog Days on the Farm: Summer programming bustles at Gifford Farm in Bellevue

July 16, 2025
By Tyler Dahlgren It’s mid-July, the dog days of summer, and memories are being made on every acre of Gifford Farm. A bright morning sun peaks through some passing clouds as the Little Farmers campers, an energetic pack of four to six-year-olds, transport baby chicks from an incubator to the nursery, where they’re met by the older Farm Camp kids. In a barn across the farm, a group of campers from...Read More

Igniting Global Education: Service unit leaders from Nebraska spend 12 days in Seoul and Singapore

Igniting Global Education: Service unit leaders from Nebraska spend 12 days in Seoul and Singapore

June 17, 2025
By Tyler Dahlgren “It was an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime educational experience, but it doesn’t have to be once-in-a-lifetime.” Between the two of them, Drs. Larianne Polk and Dan Schnoes have over seven combined decades of experience in the world of education. Over the course of their careers, the two have done and seen it all. Chopsticks training, though? That was a new one. Ahead of a 12-day...Read More

A Very Sensory Summer: NCECBVI’s Camp Sense-ational visits Kiewit Luminarium, Omaha staples

A Very Sensory Summer: NCECBVI’s Camp Sense-ational visits Kiewit Luminarium, Omaha staples

June 9, 2025
By Tyler Dahlgren There’s a handful of premium Omaha field trip destinations within a couple miles of the city’s downtown skyline, and the Nebraska Center for the Education of Children who are Blind or Visually Impaired’s Camp Sense-ational hit for a trifecta in late May. The Omaha Children’s Museum, where the campers spent the first day of camp, and The Henry Doorly Zoo, where they spent the...Read More

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