Author to speak at Neihardt Center Dec. 13

On Sunday, December 13th at 2:00 pm, educator, journalist and author Joseph Starita will present a program on the writing of his historical works, “I am a Man: Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice” and “The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge: A Lakota Odyssey.” Starita, born in Lincoln, spent many years as a working journalist in other parts of the country, and after 13 years with the Miami Herald he returned to Nebraska in 1992 where he became a journalism professor at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.
His first book was a family history following four generations of the Dull Knife family over a century. Family members figure prominently in events such as the Cheyenne break-out at Fort Robinson in 1878, the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, and even traveling with Bill Cody. The book received two Pulitzer Prize nominations, won the Mountain and Plains Booksellers Association Award, and has been published in six foreign languages.
With his research on the Ponca chief, Standing Bear, and the landmark court case of 1879, Starita chronicles the series of events leading to the trial and the roles played by both Indian defendants and white supporters and prosecutors which gave new meaning to “justice for all.”
The program begins at 2:00 PM and is free and open to the public. A reception with refreshments will follow where the author’s books can be purchased for signing.

The Henry-Doorly Zoo Academy

Wouldn’t it be fun to spend to spend your junior and senior years at the zoo? I had a chance to visit the Zoo Academy at Henry-Doorly Zoo during the school board conference. The zoo has three classrooms below the ticket office and 1 below the desert dome. Papillion-Lavista High School rents these classrooms and operates a zoo academy at the school. The academy is open to juniors and seniors. They take all of their classes at the zoo. The day is divided into 4 two hour blocks. The students were taking English, math, and social studies classes during the current quarter, and had a two hour internship. During the internship, I saw students feeding Jellyfish, cutting up food for the sharks, doing research on what blood is better for baby vampire bats, and working with fertilized embryos. The program accepts up to 80 students.
The zoo also offers summer programs for students outside of Omaha. I believe those programs run three weeks and have a fee.
Academy programs are springing up all over the United States. The zoo academy is the most innovative in Nebraska. The Henry-Doorly Zoo has plans to expand the program in the future. Pending state approval, the zoo wants to build a school on the Rosenblatt property. It would be a charter school, not affiliated with any school district, and open to any interested students. Since charter schools are not legal in Nebraska, they will have to work with the Department of Education and the Nebraska Unicameral to legally operate a Zoo School. Nebraska needs to support these opportunities for its students. The fear is that Charter schools will accept only high performing students, and leave the job of educating low performers to the public schools. As long as the zoo school is not taking state aid away from the public schools, then we need to do what is best for the students.

Office gets a make-over

The Superintendent and Principal offices will look different after cabinets were put in over the week-end. The cabinets were cut from the original building project in 1997 and it was decided that now is the time to complete the offices as they were originally intended. Custom Woodworks in Sioux City built the cabinets and Glenn Bonsall and Bruce Smith installed them. Can you tell which office belongs to Dr. Cerny and which is Mr. Sjuts?

Howells wins big, where does B-R rate?

It has been a week since my last blog because I spent three days at the School Board Conference in Omaha and spoke at a football coaching clinic in Lincoln Sunday. For speaking, the Nebraska Coaches Association gave Coach Peck and I free tickets to the championship games, so we stayed Monday to watch the Howells game. The tickets in the skybox provided us a good seat to evaluate the game.
With the rout of Giltner (60-6 in the 3rd quarter), we were talking about where Bancroft-Rosalie should end up in the ratings. Since we were the only team to beat Howells, and the only team to actually play them close, it can be argued that a #2 ranking is appropriate. Johnson-Brock can argue that they should be rated higher than B-R because they beat us, but if we all agree that Howells, J-B, and B-R deserve to be rated 1,2,3, then let’s use comparative scores between the three schools to decide 2nd and 3rd. Bancroft-Rosalie beat Howells by 2 points ( yeah I realize their QB didn’t play, but would he have made a 40 point difference in the game?). Johnson-Brock beat B-R by 12 in a game that was tied with 8 minutes left in the game. Howells thumps Johnson-Brock by 40 points in a game that was clearly not a contest. How does that justify J-B getting a higher rating than B-R? To place J-B #2, you would have to say that play-off games count more than regular season. If that is the reasoning, I don’t have an argument. But I can’t see placing Giltner or Palmer ahead of a team that beat the state champions.
Baldwin says that the Lincoln Journal sells more papers in the Johnson-Brock area, so he thinks they will be ahead of us. If that is the case, then politics may put Giltner ahead of us, too. I give Ryly Jane Hambleton at the Journal more credit. She is without a doubt the most thoughtful rater when it comes to the lower classes (C-D). Stu P. at the World Herald came to all three games of the games in question. From his articles, he seems to think that the Howells quarterback would have made a big difference in the B-R game and that will work against us.
I think B-R should be #2, but will probably end up #3.

Discussion with the Commissioner

I had a chance to be part of a discussion with the Nebraska Commissioner of Education today in Fremont. Here are some of the changes that are coming in Rule 10. Rule 10 contains the rules and procedures that schools in Nebraska need to follow to be accredited.
1. 7-12 teaching endorsements will be able to teach grade 6.
2. Districts must adopt a policy on date violence. (I'm not sure that it is our responsibility to educate students on how to date.)
3. Adopt the new state math standards.
4. Minimum graduation requirements will be 200 credits, including four years of Language Arts, 3 years of Math, 3 years of science, and 3 years of social studies. The requirement that one year of math be during the senior year was removed.

State aid changes will not effect B-R

The Nebraska State legislature gave initial approval to LB 5, which would adjust the state aid formula. The adjustment was needed to reduce state aid to schools next year in light of a shortfall of revenues.
The Nebraska Department of Education produced a model which showed how the changes would effect each school district in Nebraska. Bancroft-Rosalie state aid was projected to be unaffected by changes in LB 5.
An amendment filed by Senator McGill was withdrawn prior to a vote. This amendment, pushed by the Nebraska State Education Association (the teacher's union) would have required schools to make any cut spending from programs other than teachers salaries. Thankfully this was not considered. School Boards and administrators should not be forced to follow dictates from groups outside the school system when it comes to making financial decisions for the district.

NSAA District proposals

The Northeast District of the Nebraska School Activities Association met to discuss and vote on new proposals Wednesday. Since there are several district patrons interested in school activities, I will discuss briefly some of the proposals that were introduced and how the vote went. Proposals that pass go to a vote of all six districts in January.
1. Proposal to increase the number of teams that can co-op activities from 3 to 4. Passed. I see no reason to have tight limits on how many schools can co-op for a sport as long as the total enrollment of all schools involved is used to classify the team. For example, it may help small schools form baseball teams if they can join four schools together to compete in Class B.

2. Forming a study committee to look at adding a fourth (summer) sports season. Passed. I volunteered to serve on this committee. I like the Iowa system, where a fourth season runs through the first week in July for baseball and softball. It is worth looking into. This would reduce the number of summer camps that other sports have during the summer.

3. Allowing participation in more than one sport during a season. Example- a football player can also run cross-country. Many surrounding states allow two-sport participation. Failed. It was added to a topic for the fourth season study committee.

4. Moving the limit of volleyball matches in one day from 3 to 4. Failed. Four volleyball matches in one day? We just moved to a three day state volleyball tournament because coaches said that it was unfair for teams to have to play two matches in one day. Make up your minds.

5. Middle level teams may co-op with schools that are not NSAA member schools. Passed. Middle level activities are now under the control of the NSAA, pending action by the Department of Education. This proposal will allow students in parochial schools, like Zion St. John's in Wisner, to play with the public junior high teams. It is being done now. Why would we want to limit it?