School Boards 

  

  

Nebraska State Board of Education 

  

Members of the Nebraska State Board of Education are elected every four years from eight districts across Nebraska. This nonpartisan board is charged with holding the State Commissioner of Education accountable to the people. The Commissioner is appointed by the governor and is the highest-paid state official besides the state psychiatrists. State board members are public servants who make no salary but are reimbursed for their expenses associated with carrying out the duties of the office. 

  

You can see the board's agenda, schedules and additional information on http://www.nde.state.ne.us/StateBoard/StateBoard.html  

  

The State Board of Education meets for a day and a half, once a month. It holds hearings; operates various committees; attends local, state and national conferences, and generally represents the people of the state to the Legislature and the executive branch. 

  

For the rules and regulations set by the State Board of Education in keeping with state school laws, which must be followed by public and private school districts, and homeschoolers, see: 

www.nde.state.ne.us/LEGAL/RULES.html  

  

  

MEMBERS OF THE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION: 

  

District #1 

Robert Evnen 

Lincoln 

Robert.evnen@sbe.ne.gov  

  

District #2 

Ann Mactier 

North and West Omaha area 

ann@mactier.omhcoxmail.com  

  

District #3 

Jim Scheer 

Norfolk 

jscheer@cableone.net  

  

District #4 

Carole Woods Harris 

North and Central Omaha area 

Cwharris17@msn.com  

  

District #5 

Patricia H. Timm 

Beatrice 

pattimm@charter.net  

  

District #6 

Fred C. Meyer, board president 

St. Paul 

fredmeyer@gpcom.net  

  

District #7 

Kandy Imes 

Gering 

Kimes1950@earthlink.net  

  

District #8 

Joe Higgins 

South and West Omaha area 

jbhomaha@yahoo.com  

  

  

  

  

For State Board of Education meeting agendas, minutes, district boundaries and more: 

http://www.nde.state.ne.us/StateBoard/StateBoard.html  

  

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SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS, 

SELECTED SCHOOL DISTRICTS 

  

A few of Nebraska's school boards are listed here. Your district most likely has a website that you can access for your own board members' contact information. Note that your district most likely has set a large number of school board policies, enacted over the years. Often, they fill several three-ring binders. You can see the whole set at your district office, or ask a school board member for a copy of a particular policy. 

  

OMAHA PUBLIC SCHOOLS: 

  

http://board.ops.org  

  

School board districts: 

  

  

  

  

School board members by district: 

  

#1 - Penny Sophir - penny.sophir@ops.org  

  

#2 - Karen Shepard - karen.shepard@ops.org  

  

#3 - Shirley Tyree - shirley.tyree@ops.org  

  

#4 - Nancy Huston - nancy.huston@ops.org  

  

#5 - Nancy Kratky - nancy.kratky@ops.org (prefers phone contacts, 390-0956) 

  

#6 - Fritz Stanek - fritz.stanek@ops.org  

  

#7 - Mark Martinez - mark.martinez@ops.org  

  

#8 - Mary Ellen Drickey - maryellen.drickey@ops.org  

  

#9 - Mona McGregor - mona.mcgregor@ops.org  

  

#10 - Barbara Dutiel - barbara.dutiel@ops.org  

  

#11 - Bambi Bartek - bambi.bartek@ops.org  

  

#12 - Sandra Kostos Jensen - sandra.jensen@ops.org  

  

  

  

  

LINCOLN PUBLIC SCHOOLS: 

  

http://www.lps.org/about/board/  

  

  

#1 - Kathy Danek - kdanek@lps.org  

  

#2 - Doug Evans - devans@lps.org  

  

#3 - Barbara Baier - bbaier@lps.org  

  

#4 - Ed Zimmer - ezimmer@lps.org  

  

#5 - Keith Prettyman - kpretty@lps.org  

  

#6 - Lillie Larsen - llarsen@lps.org  

  

#7 - Don Mayhew - dmayhew@lps.org  

  

  

  

  

MILLARD PUBLIC SCHOOLS: 

  

Contact through this page: http://www.mpsomaha.org/mps/index.cfm?action=306&bt=3,68&bt1=8&id=119  

  

  

Brad Burwell 

  

Jean Stothert 

  

Mike Kennedy 

  

Mike Pate 

  

Dave Anderson 

  

Linda Poole 

  

  

BELLEVUE PUBLIC SCHOOLS: 

  

http://www.bellevuepublicschools.org/bps/index.cfm?action=306&id=160&tab=1  

  

John Hansen 

  

Carol Olson 

  

Patrick Jones 

  

Frank Kumor 

  

Denise Seaman 

  

Nina Wolford 

  

  

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Educational Service Units 

  

Educational Service Units are units of government, funded by taxpayers. They are charged with efficiently and effectively supporting school systems across the state. They are supposed to provide functions to the districts in their region that would be too expensive for the school districts to provide on their own. With the advent of the interlocal agreements between units of government that have been growing in popularity in recent years, the cooperative functions of the ESU's would seem to be becoming obsolete, at least in the more populated areas of the state. Several state officials have been working toward consolidating operations where possible among the ESU's, and more of that activity is expected to continue.

Each ESU has a set of paid employees, but also a nonpartisan elected board of directors which appear on the general election ballot for the various school districts across the state.

Services of the ESU's has most often taken shape as providing administrative services, special education services, staff development training, media and technology, early childhood education and, most recently and controversially, a statewide system of data collection on each student in public, private and homeschools,

Many citizens believe the state data system is unnecessary and intrusive, and also open to "hacking" and other abuses. They're calling for a rollback and cancellation of the recordkeeping system.

In Nebraska, there are 19 Educational Service Units, or ESU's, each with its own elected board of directors. Note that many of these elected officials are retired school administrators, or friends and colleagues of educators. Perhaps because of this tendency toward "insider" directors, there is a tendency toward a less public, less-than-arms-length style of operation in ESU boards, without as much accountability and public scrutiny of the budgets in ESU's as there is in, say, city budgets or county budgets. Also note the lack of a public website regarding Omaha Public Schools and Lincoln Public Schools ESU's, despite multi-million dollar budgets and big staffs. Those ESU's operate as "in-house" functions and don't have a lot of oversight and awareness among the general public. These factors may explain why ESU budgets have increased at such a rapid rate in the 30 or so years in which they have operated. 

  

  

  

  

To go to your ESU's website, most follow this format: 

  

www.esu1.org - Wakefield area 

  

www.esu2.org - Fremont area 

  

www.esu3.org - West Omaha area 

  

www.esu4.org - Auburn area 

  

www.esu5.org - Beatrice area 

  

www.esu6.org - Milford area 

  

www.esu7.org - Columbus area 

  

www.esu8.org - Neligh area 

  

www.esu9.org - Hastings area 

  

www.esu10.org - Kearney area 

  

www.esu11.org - Holdrege area 

  

www.panesu.org - Panhandle schools, including those in ESU #12 

  

www.esu13.org - Panhandle (Chadron, Scottsbluff, Sidney) 

  

http://userweb.esu10.org/~14home@panesu.org/staff.htm -- south Panhandle, including ESU #14 

  

www.esu15.org - Southwest (Trenton area) 

  

www.esu16.org - Ogallala, North Platte 

  

www.esu17.org - North central (Ainsworth area) 

  

www.lps.org - ESU #18 is dedicated to the Lincoln Public Schools 

  

www.ops.org - ESU #19 is dedicated to the Omaha Public Schools