Nebraska Public School Advantage News

Nebraska Public School Advantage News

Nobody Left Out: Oakland-Craig's new "Buddy Bench" is an elementary school playground-binder

Nobody Left Out: Oakland-Craig's new "Buddy Bench" is an elementary school playground-binder

October 7, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren On more days than not, Jess Bland supervises recess at Oakland-Craig Elementary School, where she’s in her seventh-year serving as principal in a Burt County community of just over a thousand that instantly felt a whole lot like home. Come to think of it, outside of the town where Bland grew up and graduated high school in, this place is the first she’s ever labelled as such...Read More

Putting Back the Pieces: Mindfulness around mental wellness sparks well-timed partnership

Putting Back the Pieces: Mindfulness around mental wellness sparks well-timed partnership

October 2, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren The first step Jen McNally took in her new partnership with Millard Public Schools was on to a stage to present on the importance of self care and mental wellness in front of the district’s administration. This was pre-pandemic, an engagement sparked by a session McNally had led at the State Education Conference earlier that fall. Following the session, several MPS...Read More

Brain Injury Alliance of Nebraska Addressing the Gap in Concussion Management in the Classroom

Brain Injury Alliance of Nebraska Addressing the Gap in Concussion Management in the Classroom

October 1, 2020
Half of Nebraska teachers responded in a 2018 survey that they did not know how to manage concussions in the classroom and the same amount noticed an academic decline from students after sustaining a concussion or head injury. But finding a way to offer differentiated instruction to a student can be a challenge, especially with full classrooms and limited free time in a teacher’s schedule. Most...Read More

Beyond the Periodic Table: Teacher Feature with Alliance's Laura Schroer

Beyond the Periodic Table: Teacher Feature with Alliance's Laura Schroer

September 24, 2020
By Tyler Dahlgren For 25 years, Laura Schroer has taught science in Alliance, Nebraska, a Panhandle town of about 8,000 people plotted in the vicinity of marvelous topography and breathtaking landscapes. “We have wonderful laboratories just outside of the door,” said Schroer, who throughout her years has instructed a wide range of high school science courses, from earth science to biology. “We...Read More

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

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