Information on Burt County School Consolidation

BURT COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT CONSOLIDATION – POSSIBLE PROCESS

By Fred Hansen, Superintendent LDNE

Discussion continues on the possibility of a consolidation of three school districts in Burt County.  The Lyons-Decatur Northeast School Board would like to hear from the patrons and parents of the district and will hold a special meeting on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 at 7:00 P.M. in the school gym, set for the purpose of providing information to the public regarding a possible merger with Tekamah-Herman and Oakland-Craig, and allow for questions/answers and opinions to be heard on this idea.  NOTE the change in the date.  It was moved off of Monday due to a volleyball sub-district game conflict.

At some point, the School Board will hold a vote to decide if they intend to continue to discuss this idea with Oakland-Craig and Tekamah-Herman.  If the board votes to continue talks the next step in the process would be for the three school board committees to develop a merger petition.  The petition would then be voted upon by each school board and if approved by all three boards it would be sent on to the State Committee for the Reorganization of School Districts in care of the Commissioner of Education, Nebraska Department of Education, Nebraska State office Building, 6^th Floor, 301 Centennial Mall South, Lincoln, NE 68509-4987.  Prior to the vote by each board to approve the petition any school board could vote to remove their school from the process.

The merge petition process is described in the Nebraska Department of Education Rule 83.  This Rule can be found on the NDE website at http://www.education.ne.gov/.  When you find this website click on the letter “R” on the top and scroll down to Rule 83.  Russ Inbody, NDE Administrator of Finance and Organizational Services, leads this division of the Department.

Nebraska school districts have several options from which to choose when considering a merger.  The most common option that the Burt County Schools are considering is for school boards to vote on reorganizing their districts.  Steve Williams, school district lawyer from Harding & Shultz in Lincoln, recommends the “board to board to board” petition method (79-413 through 79-431).  This calls for a 60% affirmative vote of each school board to approve the petition.  Then the boards submit the approved merger petition to the State Committee for the Reorganization of School Districts for their approval.

The Burt County school committees discussed tying the merger petition to a successful bond issue to build a 7-12 grade secondary school.  The school lawyer recommends we hold 3 separate bond elections so that EACH school district votes to approve the bond issue.  The State Committee will not approve the merger petition unless all three school districts approve the bond issue (79-413).

The consolidation idea currently includes building a new 7-12 grade facility somewhere close to Hwy 32 between Oakland and Tekamah.  The idea also includes keeping an elementary facility in Lyons, Oakland, Tekamah, and closing the elementary at Herman.  The new district would be one of the largest Class C1 or smallest Class B schools in Nebraska with our 2013-14 combined enrollments.

Word/AaSupt13-14/Board 2013/Consolidation/LMS article #2 10.28.13