Norfolk Daily News article on Burt County

Bancroft-Rosalie was mentioned in today's Norfolk Daily News as part of the ongoing Burt County School talks. The Bancroft-Rosalie School Board has talked with Lyons-Decatur about future planning and has decided not to participate in a feasibility study at this time and see how the sports coop goes. The sports cooperative started with youth sports when parents realized that we did not have enough participation to field our own youth teams and cooped for baseball and softball. That problem would move up to junior high and eventually affect high school programs. Lyons-Decatur had a more urgent need in high school girls sports, so it made sense to look at a sports cooperative between the two schools in order to continue to provide competitive athletic opportunities for our students. Parents have made positive comments about the junior high coop and the combining of youth programs. Bancroft-Rosalie has a new secondary building and a tax levy of 61.48 cents, 20 cents less than adjoining schools. It will be hard to find a scenario in which a school merger would not raise taxes for B-R District patrons. B-R has a great school system, but we need to look at expanding our course offerings for students in Career and Technical Education (Business, Agriculture, Communication and Information Systems, Human Services, Health Sciences, and Industrial-Mechanical-Engineering Systems). That is why we are participating in a ten school "ReVision" process to look at how we can work together as a region to provide these opportunities for all of our students. Perhaps some students will have to drive to a neighboring community to access a "regional" pre-engineering or Certified Nurse Assistant class. Or maybe they take an on-line course from Northeast Community College with mentoring from one of our staff. Losing a high school is the beginning of the end for a community. There may be a point, because of low student numbers,at which it is no longer feasible for some communities to be able to support a high school. But the future of education is using technology to "personalize learning". This type of learning can be done from anywhere if schools are creative. For example, Mr. Zavadil has taught Calculus to students in Giltner from his room in Bancroft. Some schools are using local welders to teach welding when they can't hire an Industrial technology teacher. There are options that do not include closing high schools and busing all students. We should probably try these first.