Nebraska Public School Advantage News

Nebraska Public School Advantage News

Silver Linings Series: Remembering a historic school year with Westridge Middle School

Silver Linings Series: Remembering a historic school year with Westridge Middle School

June 2, 2021
By Tyler Dahlgren The 2020-2021 school year is in the books, and given its complexities will likely hold its own chapter for a very long time. Historic, challenging, unprecedented. You’ve heard those before. It was all that, and now, it’s complete. It’s June, time for a deep breath. Educators and students alike have earned a moment to reset, and sometimes the best way to recharge the batteries is...Read More

Track Town: Rooted in tradition, Bertrand's program is the cornerstone where a district and its fiercely supportive community meet

Track Town: Rooted in tradition, Bertrand's program is the cornerstone where a district and its fiercely supportive community meet

May 17, 2021
By Tyler Dahlgren Moments after claiming the D7 district championship in the pole vault and punching his ticket to the Nebraska Track & Field Championships, Bertrand senior Arik Ackerman was poised to give an interview when he abruptly cut off the first question and countered with one of his own. “Do you mind if I go and get Owen? I want him to be a part of this, too.” With a shake of the...Read More

The Springboard School: Early Learning a key piece of Shickley's culture

The Springboard School: Early Learning a key piece of Shickley's culture

May 11, 2021
By Tyler Dahlgren Murray Street runs east to west across the northern edge of Shickley, bordering Westside Park on one side of the small Nebraska town and dividing the community school and its Early Learning Facility on the other. Though split by a street, the two facilities are a lot closer than a stone’s throw, both physically and metaphorically. “We’re all one,” said infant teacher Sue Loseke...Read More

New Beginnings: A game-changer in mental/behavioral health services, ESU 13's Panhandle Beginnings is a life-changer for students

New Beginnings: A game-changer in mental/behavioral health services, ESU 13's Panhandle Beginnings is a life-changer for students

May 4, 2021
By Tyler Dahlgren The celebration was already overdue, so the organizers behind the ribbon-cutting and open-house for ESU 13’s Panhandle Beginnings Day Treatment made sure the ceremony wasn’t subdued. Housed in the Carpenter Center, a facility tucked between Scottsbluff and Gering, Panhandle Beginnings and its therapeutic treatment services are available to youth with behavioral or mental health...Read More

The Story of NCAPS: Dreamchasers, Endless Possibilities, and Bringing a Vision to Life

The Story of NCAPS: Dreamchasers, Endless Possibilities, and Bringing a Vision to Life

April 23, 2021
By Tyler Dahlgren Part One: The Facility On a Monday morning in April, I walked across the South Central Unified School District #5 parking lot, through a light snow and into the district’s Nebraska Center for Advanced Professional Studies (NCAPS) facility. Intent on telling the story of how this dazzling place came to be, I looked around and asked myself a question I imagine most students who...Read More

Grand Island's Airfield of Dreams: Students take pioneering aviation pathway to the sky

Grand Island's Airfield of Dreams: Students take pioneering aviation pathway to the sky

April 8, 2021
By Tyler Dahlgren The front doors of Trego-Dugan Aviation swing open, letting in a gust of a pleasant, early-spring Grand Island wind before closing behind a man wearing khaki slacks, a black and red Cornhuskers leather jacket and at least two forms of identification swinging from the lanyard around his neck. T.J. Norris juggles a fascinating combination of job titles. Part teacher, part flight...Read More

Half a Million Questions and Counting: With IXL, Plainview Elementary students thrive at their own pace

Half a Million Questions and Counting: With IXL, Plainview Elementary students thrive at their own pace

March 29, 2021
By Tyler Dahlgren If Sir Francis Bacon’s famous 400-year-old proverb that “Knowledge is Power” is, in fact, accurate, then Plainview Elementary is becoming one mighty place. Since purchasing the IXL program and implementing individualized skill plans at the beginning of this school year, Plainview Elementary students have answered more than half a million questions correctly. That’s not a typo...Read More

Silver Linings Series, Howells-Dodge's Mark Ernst: Conversations around COVID-19

Silver Linings Series, Howells-Dodge's Mark Ernst: Conversations around COVID-19

March 5, 2021
*This is the third installment in the three-part "Silver Linings Series". This discussion occurred on November 9 for an article titled “Silver Linings (Without the Playbook),” which ran in the winter edition of the NCSA Today Magazine. Q: Think back to March 2020, when the pandemic broke and schools were forced to close overnight. Walk me through that initial experience. What did you learn about...Read More

On Rare Air: Shoemaker Elementary fifth-graders bring Eagle Eye News to life

On Rare Air: Shoemaker Elementary fifth-graders bring Eagle Eye News to life

March 2, 2021
By Tyler Dahlgren The Eagle Eye News production team sat still, focused on their respective tasks when the countdown started at five and, among growing excitement, worked its way towards one. As silence swept the Shoemaker Elementary library, anchors Julissa Ramos and Dimitri Kerkman took simultaneous deep breaths, stared calmly into the cameras and, when given the signal by the directors,...Read More

Candy Bars, Cold Sodas and 103 Streams: Milford's Striv broadcast crew pulls double shifts to keep community connected

Candy Bars, Cold Sodas and 103 Streams: Milford's Striv broadcast crew pulls double shifts to keep community connected

February 26, 2021
By Tyler Dahlgren The play was zany enough to leave any spectator speechless, involving a missed shot, a fortuitous bounce off an opponent’s head, and the unlikeliest pair of points a basketball team will ever come by. Luckily for those tuning in on the Milford Striv channel, the broadcast team of eighth-grader Braden Soester and sixth-grader Zephyr Mowinkel aren’t known to mince words while in...Read More

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