Work Release To Return For N-O Students

Neligh-Oakdale’s recently halted student work release program is back on track after a misunderstanding of policy between the administrators and the Board of Education.

Superintendent Scott Gregory told board members during their monthly meeting Monday that the longstanding cooperation between the school and Antelope County business community was squashed this year due to the school not having open campus or allowing students to drive during lunch.

During the summer, the board discussed reopening campus lunch but eventually dropped the topic, and no policy change occurred. However, administrators interpreted that discussion to mean the work release program was a violation of policy.

“We’re not allowing them to drive off campus,” Gregory said. “That relates to the closed campus thing. If we’re not allowing kids to drive off campus at lunch and we’re not going to trust them to do those kinds of things, then to be consistent you don’t throw open the doors and let them drive on their own.”

Board members immediately questioned the correlation between driving at lunch and allowing students to work with local businesses. Vice president Ryan Koinzan said ending the work release program based on the lunch discussion was a stretch by administrators and not the directive of the board.

“I have a really hard time buying that’s consistent with closed campus. The closed campus discussion that happened earlier with this board was about the noon hour. It never had any discussion about work release. I think that’s a really large assumption, Mr. Gregory, and I think that’s rather foolish to put that on closed campus.”

He added, “If that is a decision that you and the principal made about not allowing students to drive for work release, that’s on you — not this board.”

Gregory replied, “That’s correct, and I accept that.”

When explaining the closed campus reasoning, Gregory also told the board that due to Title I grant funding, Neligh-Oakdale now must comply with those goals, which includes work-place opportunities in the community. He said having work release at Neligh-Oakdale would actually help with the Title I paperwork involved with the funding.

“We will probably have to take a look at that because in order to be able to receive those funds, we’ll have to maybe create an opportunity that way and it just may be that us allowing the seniors or a few students in a class to drive. Maybe that wouldn’t be the end of the world,” he said.

Board members were made aware of the work release program ending during an overview by Neligh Economic Development Director Gabe Steinmeyer.

“While Neligh-Oakdale has a great track record of allowing students to participate in these internships and programs, it was recently brought to my attention there has been some recent policies put into place that are hindering the ability for our students to go to internships,” he said.
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Board member Cory Furstenau suggested the Economic Development office work with the school in the future as part of the curriculum committee to help the school better meet the needs of local job requirements.