The following information is provided by Mr. Marks with assistance from Mr. Hoesing and Mrs. Lingenfelter.

This article and information has been provided in light of the recent meeting hosted in Center by two citizens trying to test the waters dealing with a one-county school for grades 7-12. This article does not, in any way, shape or form, support or talk against that initiative. It simply is an attempt to supply facts about the Wausa and Bloomfield schools and some facts about their districts. 

I will attempt to address 4 different issues.

•  County wide school initiative. 
•  Budget Information
•  The unification process
•  The future for the two districts

 Countywide School Initiative

1. The concept of a county wide school system was previously discussed and a study done in 2006. At that time, only 4 schools participated in the study (Wausa, Bloomfield, Verdigre and Niobrara). All districts were invited at that time.

2. Dealing with the most recent set of events in which KTIV was in attendance, the meeting was organized by two independent individuals, residents in Knox County, Marvin Hochstein and Richard Eisenhauer.  They did not invite KTIV, but in fact, an anonymous caller did. Their meeting  was intended to provide information about two points:
a. The proposed mega wind farm (mainly located in Wausa and Bloomfield districts
b. The concept of a county wide 7-12 facility.

3. All schools except for Santee had representation at that meeting in some form, namely a couple board members and the superintendents. Verdigre was not there due to recent activity with their attempt to build their own facility.

4. It was an informational session only. The media and the other individual(s) that contacted the media portrayed it as a consolidation meeting.

5. IF! AND I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH THE WORD “IF”, THIS WIND FARM WOULD BECOME A REALITY, PLANNING OF ANY NATURE INVOLVING BUILDING, UNIFICATION OR CONSOLIDATION WOULD HAVE TO BE INITIATED BY THE BOARDS OF EDUCATION AND BROUGHT TO THE REGISTERED VOTERS OF EACH DISTRICT IN ORDER TO BECOME A REALITY.

Budget information

1. When dealing with any matters involving the daily operation of the school,   financial decisions or other matters that have district wide implications, the school board is heavily involved in the planning up to and including their decision. State statutes dictate their function, define their parameters and regulate what can and cannot be done as a public school. Matters involving major decisions such as a bond to build a new facility or a levy override need to have a special election of the registered voters of the district.

2. We cannot continue to provide the array of programs we currently offer, funding them in their entirety with small numbers in those classes, thus the necessity to share. As a matter of fact, the next two years will make that clearly evident. In many cases, this allows us to maintain, not cut part or all of our existing programs with lower enrollment, but necessary to meet rule 10. A link is provided for your electronic perusal  of rule 10. It deals with the entire gamma of rules and regs for public school operations, sort of an operating manual. http://www.nde.state.ne.us/LEGAL/RULES.html

3. The two main sources of revenue in any school budget are taxes from assessed valuation and state aid.  If budgets and student numbers are similar between districts, districts with larger assessed valuations are able to generate more revenue, keeping the levy lower in most cases. If you try to equate that into educational opportunities being equal between districts, it makes it harder to provide the same variety of educational opportunities in smaller districts with less ability to generate revenue without raising property taxes. The legislature has set levy lids several years ago with a minimum of .95/100 dollars of assessed value to a maximum of 1.05/ 100 dollars of assessed valuation. They have also mandated that the combination of the general levy and the building fund cannot exceed $1.05/100 dollars of assessed valuation. That means that districts that need to utilize the entire $1.05 for the general fund have no opportunity to utilize their building fund. Both Wausa and Bloomfield have been in that situation but are currently trying to maintain a tax asking for both the general fund and building fund. As was the case for both schools in years past, the levy override was utilized to allow them to exceed the maximum levy combination. Currently, neither school is using the levy override option.  

The Difference between Unification and Consolidation.

Consolidation’s simple term is to combine two districts entirely into one new district, also known as reorganization. For example, when Butte Public School District and Spencer-Naper School District consolidated, they reorganized into one district, in order to create an entirely new school district, now known as West Boyd Public Schools in Spencer, NE.

Unification is something entirely different.  If school districts opt to Unify, the State Department of Education recognizes the unified system as a single district for state aid, budgeting, accreditation, enrollment of students, state programs, and reporting, except that the department shall require such reporting on an individual district basis as necessary to calculate formula needed to formulate total state aid for each district.  The school districts participating in a unified system retain their separate identities for all purposes except those stated above, and participation in a unified system shall NOT be considered reorganization.

In the existing unifications started from the initial bill in early 2002, 1 district has disbanded, 3 still exist and 3 have taken it to full consolidation.
Mr. Hoesing has provided the state statute for you to review for more detail.  Simply stated, the unification process is a way for schools to maintain their current identity as a school district, but share resources (including a superintendent, transportation expenses, curriculum materials like textbooks, Title and SPED funding) as well as other items deemed appropriate by the unified district. 

A prime example of how unified systems achieve success is the Unified District #1 (Clearwater, Orchard, Verdigre) districts (website: http://neunified1.esu8.org/) They have been in operation for years, and share transportation expenses, curriculum, administration, staff, and teacher in-service expenses, just to name a few.  They also appear to the state as a larger school district, reporting as one single district,(for example, Clearwater may only have 11 seniors, but when combined with Orchard’s 16 seniors and Verdigre’s 15 seniors, you now have a reporting class to the state of 42) which protects them from a lot of budget legislation aimed at small school districts.

The big difference here is that while consolidation creates a whole new identity, Unification is a means to share in order to keep your identity.  In fact it was so successful for these three schools, along with several other districts, that the legislature stopped giving unification allowances because of the fear that it prolonged dying schools instead of reorganizing them with larger schools. Mr. Marks recently met with senators on the Education committee and our own senator, Cap Dierks to discuss the possibility of revitalizing the inter-local agreement option to include new unifications, not just options for existing unification agreements already in place. This is a daunting task since the majority of Nebraska anymore is run by Lincoln and Omaha (and the school districts that are in those two metro areas.) We as a small school district have to be proactive in trying to find inventive ways at keeping our small schools alive and viable, while at the same time competing with larger school districts for funding.

Omaha Public Schools, Millard Public Schools, Elkhorn, and Lincoln Public schools all have hired lobbyists down in Lincoln protecting the best interests for the people of those massive school districts.  Wausa or Bloomfield cannot provide a lobbyist, nor can most other districts our size, so the only alternative is to have our school board members and superintendents physically go down to the legislature and lobby for our districts themselves.  Mr. Marks also calls down to our local senators often, but many times, you must be there in person for them to actually put a face to a district and listen to what you have to say. Some people call those trips wasteful, while I tend to state that they are perhaps the most important things that Mr. Marks, as well as many other small school superintendents and school board members do to promote and protect the interest of rural schools.  Without those trips, the state senators would often hear only one side of the story, and I don’t like putting our fate of the state’s education in the hands of OPS and LPS lobbyists. 

 At this point, unification is not available for new districts, only existing. It has been introduced into the education committee by Senator Dierks, advanced to the floor for 1st round debate where it will await its fate. THIS CONCEPT SIMPLY ALLOWS THE ABILITY TO TRY SHARING ON A LARGER SCALE WITHOUT CONSOLIDATION. THAT IS FOR THE DISTRICTS TO DECIDE INDEPENDENTLY. I would say, however, that it is a very viable and simplistic alternative to consolidation.

The Future

1. The relationship between Bloomfield Community Schools, Wausa Public School or any other district in which sharing is involved.

Currently, in my opinion, the relationship between Bloomfield and Wausa or other schools involved fosters programs that we would not have otherwise.  We cannot afford nor are able to support some of our programs or offerings in a full-time manner such as Spanish, Agriculture and FFA opportunities, and other core subject areas which may require ½ time instructors but not available due to other fulltime employment opportunities elsewhere.

We also share a superintendent, which saves both school districts money.  Our relationship is not based on eventual consolidation or even unification at this point. They are only future options to consider. It is simply a series of inter-local agreements that has benefitted both schools.  Both sides have benefitted, without one pushing their ideas on to the other.  The boards have a good working relationship, holding joint meetings as required through the inter-local agreement process, holding planning sessions to discuss the future and fostering a long-lasting relationship that will endure down the road years from now.

To put your mind at ease, the school boards at both districts are committed to providing the best education and extra-curricular opportunities to STUDENTS IN THEIR RESPECTIVE DISTRICTS that they possibly can.  

2. The Future of Wausa Public Schools and Bloomfield Community Schools

Each Board’s vision for their schools is reflected through their mission statements. For Wausa Schools it is “Educating today’s students for tomorrow’s future. For Bloomfield community schools, it is “providing educational opportunities in academics and life skills to enable students to develop into responsible citizens”. All decisions are based on what is best for children. Regardless of which district we are in, we strive to do this through programs in the elementary designed to foster reading at advanced levels, to expanding our curriculum and course offerings through Distance and Online Education, as well as eventually offering College, Dual Credit, and hopefully even Adult education courses to ensure that our school children will possess skills that will promote them to high levels in 21st century society.  We also understand that not everyone can learn the same way, and so we are increasing our differentiated instruction to include more career and technical education through Agriculture, more options for credit recovery through online courses, and even talks between the two boards of education creating an alternative education center for high needs students.  We are only beginning to tap into the true potential that the laptop initiative can offer us, and will continue to expand on that program, tailoring it to our student’s needs and desires.  Finally, with the advances of online and Distance Education, we are able to provide students with a wealth of course subjects that they never could have possessed in a small school.  A student could feasibly graduate with 30 credits of coursework done through Northeast Community College, which transfers to any Nebraska state college or university.  That’s a whole year’s worth of college finished before you even receive your diploma!   That is just one of the exciting projects that are in the works for students in both schools.
Both districts have a highly educated board, who understand the value of education. Most boards of education do not get the well-deserved credit due for all their efforts, hard work and time dedicated to the education of students. Both boards have a good cross representation of citizens from several walks of life.  We have a teaching staff that is excellent to work with and cares about our students  We have superb Parent support (our Elementary Parent Councils and our Booster Clubs are first rate, I would put them up against parent organizations in any school for the amount of work that they do to promote our students and school.)  Finally we have great community and district wide support.  Both communities are a great place to grow up, to live in, to work, and to raise a family.  When it comes to small school educational opportunities, we are extremely defensive of our little schools and their accomplishments, and feel very confident that our boards, staff and administration feel the same way.  If you have any questions at any time, do not hesitate to visit with Mr. Marks representing both Bloomfield and Wausa, Mrs. Lingenfelter (K-12 principal for Bloomfield), or myself, Brad Hoesing, about any questions that you might have. You may also contact us by email as listed: bmarks@esu1.org, klingen@esu1.org, or bhoesing@esu1.org. 

I cannot stop the ramped spread of rumors caused by such events as the information meeting recently held and attended. I can only ask that you do not jump to conclusions without the facts. Until you get the facts, all you have are rumors. This information is available from me at any time and I am more than glad to sit down with you to answer your questions.

Bob Marks (superintendent, Wausa & Bloomfield)
Brad Hoesing (K-12 principal) Wausa
Kim Lingenfelter (K-12 principal) Bloomfield

Category: News