Unified Board Votes: OC Will Rotate Site Location

After years of discussing site location, a decision was finally made Wednesday night for Clearwater-Orchard Public School.

In a 4-2 decision, the Nebraska Unified Board voted to begin a three-year rotation.

The motion, made by Teri Hergert of Royal, will go into effect for the 2017-18 school year, by bringing the high school back to Orchard for three years with the middle school in Clearwater.

The board spent nearly one hour discussing the motion, which was made and seconded before any previous discussion could be had. During the motion, Hergert told the board that Orchard would look to dissolve the agreement if rotation did not pass.

“I truly believe that each community deserves an equal share of the high school. Finding a way to keep our students together is vital to keeping our Unified District intact as we have known it for the past 17 ½ years and into the future,” she said. “I’m pretty confident that if some sort of change is not made, the Orchard Advisory Board will request to dissolve the reorganization between Orchard and Clearwater. This will be the first step in the destruction of the unification.”

During the discussion, Peggy Liska and Marty Konopasek, the Unified board members from Verdigre, both made comments about the difficulty of making a decision which either Clearwater or Orchard will not agree with.

“I believe that Marty and I have been given a job that is over and above any job that any other person on this board has,” said Liska, addressing the board members. “And we do not take any of these things in any type of lightness. We understand the gravity of the situation. I can certainly understand and appreciate both sides.”

Liska also addressed families in the audience, assuring them that she understood each community’s concern.  

“I understand families. I understand how difficult it is to have your high school student gone from 6:45 in the morning to 10 p.m. at night, to allow them to experience all of the things that they want to do. To be able to give them every opportunity that they would possibly want because sometimes we don’t get to do those opportunities again,” Liska said. “Once you become an adult sometimes we have to just take one for the team and we have to do things differently and we don’t get those opportunities. I believe that right now this question is destroying our entire district. I believe right now that it’s destroying my health, personally. I agree that it needs to be decided tonight, and I believe there needs to be give and take on both sides.”

Thiele said he didn’t want to speculate on what either Clearwater or Orchard would do as advisory boards if rotation was or was not approved.

“My brain doesn’t work that way, and I don’t want to start putting out things that say if this don’t happen, this could happen. I’m not sure that’s the right direction to go, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion,” Thiele said.

In final discussion before voting, Marty Kerkman said Clearwater likely would not accept rotation.

“A rotation will not fly in Clearwater,” Kerkman said.

Hergert asked for clarification, saying, “If the Unified Board votes for rotation, what does Clearwater do to not support that?”

Kerkman responded, “Probably the same thing you said at the beginning of the meeting, Teri. Your advisory board would come to the Unified Board and want to get out. The Clearwater board would probably do the same thing.”

Hergert commented that she had never heard those thoughts expressed by Clearwater Advisory Board members.

Konopasek stepped in and addressed both sides. “If Orchard says they’re not going to do it and Clearwater says they’re not going to do it, what the hell are we doing here wasting our time,” he asked.

The crowd erupted in applause before he finished with “You’re here for the kids, you’re here for unification. Everyone has rotated a little bit. Make it five years and try it. I mean, does everyone not want to have a school and everybody want their kids 80 miles away in one big school somewhere else? You’re not going to have a town. Come on people. This is ridiculous.”

Again the crowd erupted in applause. There was no other discussion that followed. The motion then passed 4-2. Marty Kerkman and Joe Thiele, board members from Clearwater, voted nay while the rest of the board voted yay, effectively passing the motion.
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More details from the discussion and meeting to follow in a later story.