Here is a summary of the meetings I have been involved in
the past two weeks.
September 9- Northeast Nebraska Career Academy Partnership
Board Meeting
This board is responsible for overseeing the Fridays at
Northeast program. There are 40 students attending from 14 schools, including 4
from Bancroft-Rosalie. At this meeting we discussed the success of the program
so far and approved the purchase of additional tools for the auto programs and
student shirts.
September 16- Accelerate Nebraska Meeting. This is a group
of Northeast Nebraska school leaders that meet to discuss the “education
pipeline” in Nebraska. We look at ways to improve the “pipeline”, the education
system that students pass through from secondary to postsecondary to workforce.
One concern that has been identified is the number of high school students that
require remedial math and english when they begin college. Northeast Community
College will be piloting a Technical Math course that will meet the math
requirements of most Northeast programs. This dual credit course, combined with
the college math courses B-R currently offers, will enable nearly all B-R grads
to have their college math requirements completed before graduating high
school.
September 19- Nebraska Career Education and Innovation
Foundation. This board supports Career and Technical Education programs in Nebraska. Projects we are working on
include: “Teach To Your Power”, encouraging high school and college students to
consider teaching careers; the Presidential Platform Challenge, a contest for
high school students to answer “What they would do if they were President” with
winners earning college scholarships; and Career and Technical Education
Stakeholder meetings, regional meetings to gather input from employers across
the state to see what direction they feel career education needs to take in
Nebraska.
September 21- Pathways To Tomorrow. Our ten school
consortium is working together to increase opportunities for students. This
year a Computer Science Academy was established in Beemer. Classes are taught
by former B-R student Matt Stansberry. There are 18 students from 5 schools.
The curriculum is Project Lead The Way, which is a nationally known curriculum.
Area colleges have been contacted about making the class dual credit.
Next year a Welding academy and a Health Science Academy are
being planned.
P2T also supports Canvas implementation (a Learning
Management System) and K-12 career guidance, including the Habitudes curriculum
and student Personal Learning Plans.
The goal of these programs is to expand opportunities for
all students, which will involve rethinking how education is delivered in rural
schools, and redesigning the senior year of high school.
E Day- Our first schoolwide E Day will be November 22. I notified the Nebraska Department of Education what we are doing and got the initial okay to count it as a day of school. They would like us to document steps we are taking in preparation for E Day.
