By Tyler Dahlgren High school’s a journey. What if, at the onset, you could take a sneak peek at the culmination? Can you imagine? Bright-eyed freshmen getting a glimpse at their senior selves, all set to embark on an even longer journey called life. The question makes Carter Moss shake his head and even chuckle a little bit. “I would’ve been shocked,” said the Plattsmouth senior. “If I could go...Read More
By Tyler Dahlgren Charlie Johnson talks about his old PlayStation 2 much like millennials wax poetic about the consoles of yesteryear. If you’re over 30, you know the ones: The trailblazing Nintendo NES. The sleek Sega Genesis. The game-changing Super Nintendo. The mind-blowing PlayStation. And the holy grail, the Nintendo 64. Sure, Charlie’s first-generation PS2 was kind of clunky, weighed about...Read More
By Tyler Dahlgren For a good chunk of every day, Christine Brown’s classroom at Blue Hill Community School is 100 percent hustle and bustle. When “Studio B”, a student-led business, is in the house, things get done. Trying to keep up with the 15 movers and shakers that have built Studio B into a bonafide printing and production company can make one’s head spin. Everyone’s always working on...Read More
By Tyler Dahlgren In its pilot year, Ashland-Greenwood’s “Training Tomorrow’s Teachers” program has fulfilled a tremendous need within the district while providing seniors with an eye on a career in education invaluable classroom experience. You could call the program, which has been dubbed “3T” by the Bluejays, a smashing success that’s been beneficial for everyone involved. A true win-win...Read More
By Tyler Dahlgren Kolter Wellman is as easygoing as he is ambitious. No stranger to interview requests, he politely introduces himself and takes a seat, ready to tell the story of how an eighth-grader essentially put locally sourced beef on lunch trays across Waverly’s School District 145. He’s well-measured and thoughtful in his responses. There is, after all, a purpose behind his passion...Read More
By Tyler Dahlgren Each month, O’Neill Elementary students and staff gather in the school gymnasium to celebrate four weeks of student successes and classroom triumphs before flipping the calendar page and embarking on another. And make no mistake about it, said principal Jim York, there’s a lot to celebrate at the school sitting on the northside of a town dubbed the “Irish Capital of Nebraska.” “...Read More
By Tyler Dahlgren When Wood River made the decision to develop and launch a Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) Class this semester, there wasn’t much deliberation over who would lead the program in its pilot year. They only had to look down the hall to school nurse Shelby Allan, a 2010 Wood River graduate with a wealth of real-life nursing experience. Though teaching high school students is no...Read More
(This article was originally published by the York News-Times on Jan. 31, and is appearing on Nebraska Public School Advantage as a guest piece. The photographs are courtesy of the York News-Times and the author, Naomy Snider.) By Naomy Snider Twenty-nine York middle school students attended York General’s very first Rural Health Day. The students had the opportunity to discover a wide range of...Read More
By Tyler Dahlgren Author's note: This piece was written for the NCSA Today Magazine, and was originally published in the Winter 2023 edition. Leaning into Purpose with Nebraska Administrators was a four-part series that ran over the course of the last year. There’s a parallel in the career arcs of Mike Meyerle and Brent Hollinger, the subjects of this installment of Leaning into Purpose with...Read More
By Tyler Dahlgren Part One: Surprise, Surprise! Teachers at Cross County are no strangers to classroom drop-ins. We’ve written about the district’s instructional rounds and profiled their school improvement team, too. Professional development, most of it peer-driven, is taken to the next level here. Even when unannounced, having a colleague sneak through the door for 15 minutes of observation...Read More