Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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After listening to public input on potential administrative staffing and engaging in an executive session which lasted approximately two hours, Summerland Board of Education President Ed Nordby announced discussion and any impending vote on the matter would be tabled. The decision came toward the end of Monday's monthly board meeting, held in Ewing. Approximately 50 district patrons waited to hear the decision. In a phone interview, Tuesday, Martin said he had spoken with all three principals ab...
PROCEEDINGS SUMMERLAND PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD OF EDUCATION October 12, 2020 Summerland Public School Board of Education held a regular meeting, Monday, Oct. 12, 2020, at Summerland Public School at Clearwater. President Ed Nordby called the meeting to order at 7 p.m. Attendance was taken. Present: Candice Hoke, Marty Kerkman, Nordby, Nate Schwager, Steve Thiele, Jeremy Wagner. All board members were present. President Nordby noted the Open Meeting Act posted in the room. Motion by Kerkman, seconded by Hoke, to approve the agenda as presented....
Are masks giving people a false sense of security? The question was posed to Summerland School Board of Education members during its Oct. 12 meeting in Clearwater. During public participation, three district patrons offered comments, asking questions about the school mandate, which requires students in all grades to wear masks during the school day. The mandate went into effect Sept. 28. Sara Lemburg asked the board to be "objective and practical." She acknowledged COVID-19 is a dangerous...
Summerland School officials announced Monday all students in grades preschool through 12th grade will be required to wear masks. The decision came about following an increase in COVID cases and exposures in the district and surrounding communities, according to an alert sent to district patrons at approximately 4:35 p.m. On Monday, the North Central District Health Department announced 41 additional cases were reported in the district, including 10 cases in each Antelope and Holt counties. Other...
A proposed sale of the Clearwater site building was okayed by the Summerland School board of education, contingent on approval of a sales agreement, during its Sept. 14 meeting. Principal Mike Sanne said talks with ESU 8 administrator Corey Dahl have led to a sales price of $58,000. With the Sept. 14 vote, school and ESU 8 officials will begin the process of drawing up a purchase agreement. Several items will remain in the building. “Some pieces of kitchen equipment, there will be some other equ...
The Niobrara Valley Conference may expand its membership. Ainsworth approached NVC schools, sending a formal request to join. Summerland’s board of education discussed the application during its Sept. 14 meeting. Superintendent Dale Martin said 75% of member schools would need to cast an affirmative vote for the measure to be approved. In the request, Ainsworth superintendent Dale Hafer and co-activities directors Jared Hansmeyer and Scott Steinhauser, wrote that while the school has enjoyed b...
Concerns about Summerland School’s detention pond were addressed during the board’s Sept. 14 meeting, in Orchard. Jacob Sertich, an architect with Wilkins Architecture Design and Planning, in Kearney, reported Olsson engineers were on-site, Aug. 11, to evaluate drainage issues, specifically those caused by a heavy downpour in June. Prior to the visit, Haussmann Construction pumped standing water from the detention pond. Olsson employees noted the bottom of the pond had approximately a one...
An outdoor funeral service and celebration of life for William Beed, 89, of Neligh will be held at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, at Crawford Valley United Methodist Church at rural Plainview, 85895 532 Avenue, with the Rev. Bruce Phillips officiating. Those attending are welcome to bring lawn chairs as limited seating will be available Interment will be at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Neligh, with military rites. Visitation will be at the Neligh United Methodist Church, from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday. Beed...
After Summerland students in grades seven through twelve, along with staff members, signed two beams, workers maneuvered the pieces of steel into their final resting place on the new school building during Monday’s topping off ceremony. Superintendent Dale Martin said, “It’s exciting to see all the progress that’s going on out here. It’s fantastic to see what’s going on week by week, day by day. Make that mental picture, along with the physical picture, too, because you’re going to see a lot...
Summerland Public School Superintendent Dale Martin recently released preliminary enrollment numbers for the district. Martin listed the number of students per grade at each respective site, in a report released Aug. 24. Enrollment at the three sites totals 402 students, a decrease of eight students from the 2019-2020 school year Clearwater site The Clearwater site boasts the largest enrollment, totaling 140 students. While Clearwater’s enrollment shows a decrease of 11 students from last y...
Discussion on reduction in force and early retirement policies occurred during the Summerland School Board of Education’s Aug. 10 regular meeting, in Ewing. In July, the board tabled discussion of RIF policy criteria, seeking input from the school’s attorney, Steve Williams of KSB Law, regarding the use of formal and informal teacher evaluations as one criterion. Superintendent Dale Martin said Williams does not advise using evaluations as a criterion. ms said evaluations are subjective and ope...
Only one of the three Summerland Public Schools sites has seen much in the way of building repair projects this summer. The school locations in Clearwater, Ewing and Orchard underwent normal summer cleaning, repair and maintenance, according to Superintendent Dale Martin. "In addition to that, there have been some building repair projects necessary to get us to the next step," Martin said. "The Orchard site has a sewer project where a line was getting plugged fairly regularly last year during...
Summerland Public Schools will begin classes, Thursday, Aug. 13. A 2 p.m. dismissal is scheduled that day. Clearwater site The school building will open at 7:45 a.m. and breakfast will be served at this time. Students not eating breakfast at school or being supervised by a teacher should not arrive before 8 a.m. Classes will end at 3:32 p.m. Preschool classes, in Clearwater, are set to start Monday, Aug. 17. Mike Sanne serves as site principal. Ewing site Regular dismissal times will begin Aug....
Superintendent Dale Martin shared the following information with Summerland families, July 28. Our district administrative team and the Summerland Board of Education, in consultation with the North Central District Health Department, Nebraska Department of Education and following the Center for Disease Control guidelines, is planning to start the 2020-2021 school year with in-person, normal instruction, Aug. 13. The schools of Summerland - Clearwater, Ewing and Orchard - will operate within the...
Summerland schools will have a normal opening, Aug. 13. Superintendent Dale Martin made the announcement Monday during the board of education's regular meeting. He distributed information about a health dial, which rates risk for COVID-19. The dial consists of green, yellow, orange and red levels. North Central District Health Department will be creating a district-specific dial, according to Martin. It will change on a week-by-week basis. Holt and Antelope counties are currently in the green....
Clearwater site Principal Mike Sanne told Summerland Board of Education members he met with Educational Service Unit 8 administrator, Corey Dahl, to discuss the service unit’s potential purchase of the Clearwater facility. “We are negotiating a few things. There are concerns about a few things,” Sanne said. ESU 8 would like to include a storage shed located behind the school. “To prevent them from having to move the shed and running cement, hopefully we can negotiate a situation where they ca...
Coreslab Structures, Inc., in Omaha, will supply precast concrete walls for the Summerland School project. Industrial tech instructor Mike Odell, along with Superintendent Dale Martin, visited the plant, June 15, and saw some of the panels being constructed for the school. Wall panels include layers of polyethylene, expanded polystyrene, fiberboard sheeting, breather-type building membranes, cell foam insulation, uncoated brick wall, uncoated concrete block and precast concrete. Walls were...
A Summerland school van, reported missing around midnight, June 29, was located on the edge of Orchard, Tuesday morning. Antelope County Sheriff Bob Moore said his office received a call from Summerland football coach, Jeff Shabram, that school van number six was missing from the Orchard school site. Superintendent Dale Martin said the vehicle is a 2000 Ford van. According to Moore, Shabram parked the van near the school around noon on Monday. After returning from coaching a Summerland baseball...
The inaugural school board meeting of the new Summerland School District featured a flurry of firsts, when its six members gathered in Orchard, June 9. Since the passage of a consolidation bond issue in November, the oversight/board committee has been working behind the scenes, preparing for the district's first official day, which was Saturday, when the agreement for Nebraska Unified District #1 expired. After taking the oath of office, the group elected its first president. Ed Nordby, of...
Orchard school board members completed their final business for the school Monday, May 4. Orchard advisory board members Candice Hoke, Nate Schwager, Kristi Schutt and DeAnna Clifton were joined by Unified District #1 representatives Terri Hergert and Terra Williby to wrap up district business remotely via Zoom. Hoke and Schwager will continue to serve as board members on the new Summerland consolidated district’s board of education, while tenures of the other board members will end when the new board is seated in June. The only official b...
Members of Nebraska Unified District #1 board answered roll call for the final time, May 11, as the board held its last meeting before the three member schools go separate ways. Clearwater and Orchard will become part of Summerland Public Schools, along with Ewing. Verdigre will operate on their own next year. President Peggy Liska called the meeting to order, with four members present. Marty Konopasek, of Verdigre, was excused. Superintendent Dale Martin discussed a waiver of Nebraska Departmen...
Powdery particles of soil sifted through the air Friday afternoon, as school officials broke ground on the Summerland school project. Summerland Board Committee members, along with original boards of education from Clearwater, Ewing and Orchard, each tossed a shovel full of earth to commemorate the occasion, while practicing social distancing measures throughout the ceremony. Dirt work on the site, situated at the intersection of 513 Avenue and Summerland Road, began nearly six weeks ago....
It's the end of the school year as we know it. Unlike the comeback line of R.E.M.'s 1987 pop hit, not everyone feels fine about the decision, which was announced Monday afternoon. Ewing Public, Nebraska Unified District #1 and other schools in the Educational Service Unit 8 area reported they were following recommendations from local health officials, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts and Dr. Matt Blomstedt, commissioner of the Nebraska Department of Education, to keep school buildings shuttered...
Ewing Public Schools, as well as the three districts comprising Nebraska Unified District #1 - Clearwater, Orchard and Verdigre, will not be in session, amid concerns of the COVID-19 virus. Classes were canceled, beginning March 17. Ewing Ewing Principal Greg Appleby said EPS will be closed until March 30. "At this time classes will resume on March 31," Appleby said. Future decisions about school closure will be communicated through media channels, Facebook and the school's JMC message system....
Ewing Public Schools, as well as the three districts comprising Nebraska Unified District #1 - Clearwater, Orchard and Verdigre, will not be in session, beginning March 17. Ewing Ewing Principal Greg Appleby said EPS will be closed March 17 to 30. "At this time classes will resume on March 31," Appleby said. Future decisions about school closure will be communicated through media channels, Facebook and the school's JMC message system. Appleby said, "We have made this difficult decision after...
