Neligh-Oakdale Discusses Joining Unified District

Will Neligh-Oakdale join the Nebraska Unified District with Clearwater, Orchard and Verdigre? That's yet to be seen.

The Neligh-Oakdale School Board agreed Monday night to push the discussion of joining into the Unified District back to July to allow more data to be collected.

The agreement came after a long discussion on the offer to join into the Unified District along with Clearwater, Orchard and Verdigre. 

Board member Corey Furstenau was vocal about the lack of knowledge and facts pertaining to the possible merge into the Unified District

"I'm not even for sure what it all is now.You can't ask me if I want to be apart of something if I don't even know for sure what I'm being apart of," he said.

Board member Ryan Koinzan also spoke about his knowledge and experience with how the Unified District currently is.

"I ask that question (Why they unified?), and the two things I got away, part of that was is if Neligh was to be a part of the Unified District, how long would it be? They said it would be negotiable. The other thing I asked was what they liked about the Unified District, and the only comment I got was that they got to keep their school in their town. I did not have one representative tell me that they saved them money or improved their level of education," he said.

The board agreed that the decision by Neligh-Oakdale to join into the Unified District or not would have to be made sooner or later, but they voted to push the discussion back to the July meeting to allow the current members to produce numbers and facts pertaining to Neligh-Oakdale's possible merger.

Other topics on the agenda for the meeting Monday night included voting on a host of policy changes, approval of summer work projects, the approval of prices for school meals next school year, and the approval of the disposal of the 1994 & 2006 buses.

The school board voted to approve the PK-6 Student Handbook, the meal prices, and approved the summer work projects recommended by the Buildings & Grounds Committee. Also the board voted to put the buses to sale and approve the new homeless student policy, the meal charge policy, and the the business operations school safety policy.
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Principal Loofe also brought up the problem of ice removal on the sidewalk going to the ag building. He also noted that the door going into the ag classroom is not wired into their security system and does not have a card scanner wired into the latch. The board agreed to get an estimate for the job by the company putting in security cameras and agreed that the problem needed to be solved this summer as opposed to waiting until the fall to address it.

The board voted to not approve the school wellness policy amidst the question of changing policies at the state level and the possibility of other changes happening in the near future.