Nebraska Public School Advantage News

Nebraska Public School Advantage News

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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
By Tyler Dahlgren The Storm First, there was chaos. On the night of June 12th, a tornado tore through the Western Nebraska town of Bayard, uprooting trees and ripping roofs right off of buildings. The storm sent the small town’s citizens scattering for cover. It destroyed family homes and took out power lines. It was a nightmare, leaving behind disarray, debris and damage. First, there was chaos...Read More
By Tyler Dahlgren It’s still dark outside when the headlights start to appear on Highway 1’s horizons, approaching Conestoga High School from both the west and the east. Tuesday’s forecast calls for an unusually pleasant 55 degrees, another reprieve from a recent string of brutally frigid weather, but that doesn’t matter much at 6:30 in the morning. It’s cold-you can see the breath of students in...Read More

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