Highlights of 9/14 Board of Education Regular Meeting and ESU 18 Regular Meeting

Lincoln Board of Education Regular Meeting

The Lincoln Board of Education met for a regular meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 14, at the Lincoln Public Schools District Office, 5905 O St.

Special Reports, Presentations and Celebrations of Success

Staff Recognition

The Board regularly honors staff members who have been honored with state or national awards. At Tuesday’s meeting the Board presented a formal resolution to Lincoln Southwest High School Spanish teacher James Hill, who recently was awarded the 2021 Christa McAuliffe Prize for Courage and Excellence in Education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Education and Human Sciences.

American Civics Curriculum Report

Jaci Kellison, LPS K-12 social studies curriculum specialist, offered an overview of the school district’s civics curriculum, as required by state statute 79-724. This statue includes the following:

It is the responsibility of society to ensure that youth are given the opportunity to become competent, responsible, patriotic, and civil citizens to ensure a strong, stable, just and prosperous America.
Schools should help prepare our youth to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good.
A central role of schools is to impart civic knowledge and skills that help our youth to see the relevance of a civic dimension for their lives.

Kellison started off by emphasizing that the academic framework of Critical Race Theory does not appear in any LPS social studies standards and objectives. Rather, she explained the LPS approach in its curriculum:

Students analyze issues with open minds, investigate and consider various positions, weigh alternative viewpoints, organize and present arguments and draw intelligent conclusions.
Students engage with multiple perspectives to dispel the notion of a “single story” of American history.
Historically marginalized voices are given agency and not presented as stories of victimhood or unrelenting tragedies.

Kellison went on to note that “considering multiple perspectives” is the frame used for LPS social studies in order to dispel the notion of a single story. Also, LPS emphasizes perspectives as individual and not group perspectives into overgeneralized and broad categories.

Finally, Kellison also touched upon other key areas in the social studies curriculum: the ongoing emphasis on media literacy, civil discourse and the overarching goal of teaching students to be informed, active and engaged citizens, which includes the importance of voting.

2021 LPS Pandemic Plan & Procedures

Superintendent Steve Joel gave an update on the school district’s pandemic plan and procedures.

Joel feels good where we are as a district as LPS has not experienced any surges and he adds that parents, students and staff are doing an amazing job of reducing the risk of spread. There are still a number of exclusions for students. LPS is in the process of securing 24 K-5 teacher volunteers who will be paid a stipend to produce recorded video lessons in math and reading that will assist students and parents when students have to learn at home for an extended time due to school exclusions. Joel thanked the Lincoln Education Association for their conversation on the project.

Board Leadership Committee Chair Don Mayhew updated the Board on staff answering Board member questions in regards to the 2021-22 LPS Safe Return to School Plan. The committee also previewed the latest federal mandates announced and asked staff to report back. The committee is also reviewing public comment policies and reviewing what other public entities in Lincoln and across Nebraska do.

First Reading

LPS Property Tax Request

The Board held a first reading of the official property tax request to fund the 2021-22 budget. The Board will hold a second reading and vote at the next meeting. This will be the last, necessary step in officially finalizing the 2021-22 budget and is a routine step in the process.

A public hearing on the official property tax request was held at the beginning of the meeting. No citizens spoke at the hearing.

The Board will vote on the request at its next meeting.

Newly Annexed Properties to the City of Lincoln

The City of Lincoln has annexed multiple parcels of land, which automatically brings these properties into the district of Lincoln Public Schools. These properties need to be assigned attendance centers so potential purchasers of homes in these areas will know which schools they will be attending. The annexed parcels of land and their proposed attendance areas are:

Fire Ridge, Annexation Ordinance #21096, for 2021-22 school year. Its assigned schools are Pyrtle Elementary School, Lux Middle School and East High School.
Grandview Estates 2nd Addition, Annexation Ordinance #21101, for 2021-22 school year. Its assigned schools are Wysong Elementary School, Moore Middle School and East High School.

The Board will vote on the proposed assigned schools at its next meeting.

Second Reading

Proposed Attendance Area Assignments

The opening of three new schools gives the Lincoln Board of Education the unique opportunity to review projected city growth and adjust current school attendance boundaries to fully and efficiently utilize existing and future building space.

The Board Planning Committee has met with staff and the community to gather information, look at data and draft a proposal for attendance boundary changes. You can view all of the changes on this special LPS webpage.

Any students impacted by the changes in 2022-23 or 2023-24 would be able to remain in their current attendance center based on Board Policy 5122, which in part states: “Students in attendance at a specific school may be permitted to complete their education at that attendance center if the boundary is changed, placing the family in another attendance center.” In addition, eighth-graders living within the LPS boundaries will still be able to choose any high school to attend their freshman year by Jan. 31 of the previous year. If a high school is not requested by the first day of school, the student will attend their attendance area school.

The Board voted to approve the attendance area assignments for 2022-23 and 2023-24. You can find the approved attendance area changes on our special webpage here.

Proposed 2021-22 budget

The Board voted to approve the proposed 2021-22 budget.

LPS is again making reductions to keep the budget relatively flat, representing the second consecutive year of budget reductions. That requires a reduction of approximately 1.8% in every area to balance the planned budget growth through salaries, benefits, fixed costs and the start-up cost for new schools. The goal is to ensure programming and staffing decisions are sustainable and stable over time.

This is a residential property revaluation year, and property valuation increases in 2021 will lead to major reductions in State Equalization Aid for 2022-23. In the past, LPS used the residential revaluation year to add to the cash reserve - a practice that offsets the negative impact of State Equalization Aid dropping significantly the following year. Since 2019, LPS experienced a significant drop in State Equalization Aid - approximately $30 million. It is possible that state equalization could drop $10-20 million next year.

The LPS approved budget totals about $463 million, an expenditure budget increase of one-half of one percent. Currently, the preliminary budget proposal provides a decrease of one penny in the overall property tax levy.

You can learn more about the 2021-22 budget here.

Public Comment

There were six citizens that addressed the Board during the public comment periods. You can view their comments as part of the full meeting video here.

Glimpses of LPS

We open every Board meeting with a video that highlights the amazing things taking place in our schools. Tuesday’s video featured a social studies classroom at Park Middle School and how teacher Matthew Bliemeister taught his students about 9/11 through a special Patriot Day service project for local healthcare workers.

ESU 18 Regular Meeting

ESU 18 Property Tax Request

The ESU Board held a first reading of the official property tax request to fund its 2021-2022 budget. The Board will hold a second reading and vote at the next meeting. This will be the last, necessary step in officially finalizing the 2021-22 ESU 18 budget and is a routine step in the process.