Nebraska Public School Advantage News

Nebraska Public School Advantage News

Robots in Rural Nebraska: Sky's the limit for RoboMath students in Arapahoe

Robots in Rural Nebraska: Sky's the limit for RoboMath students in Arapahoe

September 22, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren The Andy Griffith Show’s unmistakable theme song rang out from the Piezo buzzer on Diana Hanzlick’s Arduino board as four fellow students gathered around the Arapahoe-Holbrook senior. The iconic jingle never missed a beat. In the background, Daniel Schaben’s classroom bustled with normal Wednesday morning operations. For his 10 RoboMath students, the best way to learn is to do...Read More

How three school districts navigated the early stages of the pandemic to meet needs of communities, families and students

How three school districts navigated the early stages of the pandemic to meet needs of communities, families and students

August 28, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren *This five-part article was originally published in the summer edition of the NCSA Today magazine. Part One: Initial Response “Talk about a whirlwind.” Superintendent Dr. Travis Miller and the administrative team at Bayard Public Schools had been keeping an eye on international news, and first dove into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s flu pandemic guidelines in...Read More

A mural, a message, and the eight months in between

A mural, a message, and the eight months in between

August 21, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren John Lennon’s eyes were hidden behind those iconic sunglasses when Joselyn Andreasen put the finishing touches on the legend’s famous talisman necklace with her paint brush and took a step back. There she was, a 2020 Blair High School graduate, standing in the most-traveled hallway of her alma-mater. More than nine months in the making, her mural was finally finished. Lennon was...Read More

Service Units Support: Forward-thinking, innovation fuels ESU 8's pandemic relief efforts

Service Units Support: Forward-thinking, innovation fuels ESU 8's pandemic relief efforts

July 29, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren Jill Bates admits that this is an interesting way to end a memorable career at Educational Service Unit 8--one that spanned 37 years--occupying one of six squares on the screen of a virtual web conference in the middle of a historic pandemic. This setting has grown almost too familiar since mid-March, when COVID-19 forced school closures across the globe. Bates, ESU 8’s...Read More

Service Units Support: After rising to spring's challenges, ESU 9 focuses on adaptability heading into fall

Service Units Support: After rising to spring's challenges, ESU 9 focuses on adaptability heading into fall

July 22, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren Adhering to the one-word action plan made famous by best-selling author Jon Gordon, Drew Harris’s selection last summer before his first year as ESU 9 Administrator ended up being not only remarkably fitting, but absolutely necessary. “My guiding word was opportunity , and I picked that at the start of the school year,” said Harris, who assumed his new role at the service unit...Read More

Service Units Support: For ESU 1, relationships led to efficient supports during closure

Service Units Support: For ESU 1, relationships led to efficient supports during closure

July 20, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren This story, of how a service unit in Northeast Nebraska coordinated services for its 23 school districts in the face of a pandemic that threw a school year in an unprecedented flux, starts with an old mask analogy. And, no, not that kind of mask. The airplane oxygen mask analogy. You’ve heard it from attendants on every single regional flight you’ve ever boarded. “Put your...Read More

Service Units Support: ESU 17 helps Northern Central Nebraska districts move forward in pandemic

Service Units Support: ESU 17 helps Northern Central Nebraska districts move forward in pandemic

July 10, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren Before joining a panel discussion centered around pandemic relief and held, like most everything these days, on Zoom, Geraldine Erickson, Patty Finney and Misty Wroblewski put together a bulleted list to help retrace their steps since early March. The list, which detailed the different types of support ESU 17 provided its five districts located in the northern central region of...Read More

Service Units Support: ESU 13 helps to keep the Panhandle connected during pandemic

Service Units Support: ESU 13 helps to keep the Panhandle connected during pandemic

July 6, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren After 22 years of efforts in attracting, training and mobilizing distance learning teachers, BJ Peters woke up one morning in mid-March and, voilà!, there they were. “I spent two decades trying to recruit distance learning teachers, and I had a thousand of them dropped into my lap all at once,” Peters says in half-jest. Peters was hired on at ESU 13 in the late 1990s after the...Read More

Operation Build a Fence: ESU 16, Community Construct Backyard with No Boundaries

Operation Build a Fence: ESU 16, Community Construct Backyard with No Boundaries

July 2, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren Nathan, like many nine-year-olds, isn’t one to spend his summers cooped up inside idling on neutral. He loves animals and playing under the sun. If given the chance, he’ll run, run, run until his legs give out. And then he’ll run some more. His personality is big, happy, and just plain fun. “He’s the kind of kid that just sparks a fire when you spend time with him,” said his mom...Read More

A New Level of Connectivity: ESU 16 proactive in service through pandemic's challenges

A New Level of Connectivity: ESU 16 proactive in service through pandemic's challenges

June 24, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren To be proactive or reactive? With COVID-19 cases spiking and spreading further west from Nebraska’s main metropolitan areas and east from Colorado’s, the answer was a no-brainer for ESU 16’s administrative team. “We were getting squeezed in the middle as the virus progressed,” said ESU 16 Administrator Deb Paulman. “It became apparent that we needed to reach out to our districts...Read More

Pages