Education Committee
Sen. Dave Murman, Chairperson
Sen. Joni Albrecht, Vice Chairperson
Sen. Danielle Conrad
Sen. Lou Ann Linehan
Sen. Fred Meyer
Sen. Rita Sanders
Sen. Lynne Walz
Sen. Justin Wayne
Good afternoon distinguished members of the Education Committee
My name is J-O-H-N N-E-A-L. I am representing Lincoln Public Schools in support of LB1347.
While we support all aspects of the bill, I am going to focus first on section four, subsection three which begins the description of the planning, implementation, and renewal grants. I don’t want to appear greedy by starting the conversation about funding, but this is a critical part of the bill for helping CLCs to blossom. A small start-up grant in 1999 opened four community schools in Lincoln. This attracted investment from the Lincoln community on an 8:1 ratio of community funds to start-up grant funds. This investment from our community has grown our CLC network from those four schools in 1999 to 30 schools in 2024. Our experience has repeatedly demonstrated that when seed money is made available, the community steps up and steps up big.
Our 30 community schools are located in Title I schools. Each of the schools is led by one of 10 local lead agencies that coordinate with more than 100 other local groups to run programming such as Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts, local software companies, the University of Nebraska, Nebraska Wesleyan, the Rotary, Optimists, and many other organizations and neighborhood associations that represent the people in the neighborhoods in which the schools are located.
Programming includes opportunities for students to extend learning beyond the school day coordinated with the school. Beyond academics, students have access to high-quality wellness, recreation, nutrition, clubs, leadership, and community opportunities.
Along with support for students, community schools also invite parents in to learn with the children in activities and learn about what their children are doing in school. Events for families are organized by the principal, the school community coordinator, and the School Neighborhood Advisory Committee members made up of students, parents, and neighbors.
The most important of the original seed money came from the federal 21 st Century Learning Community grant program. The grant program is monitored by NDE who provides annual evaluations of program activities and outcomes. LPS also presents an overview of its budget, programming, and outcomes at two different public meetings.
In looking at who is being served, enrollment in CLCs is more diverse and with a higher percentage of students qualifying for free lunch than the demographics of the students of the Title I schools in which they are located. Students who are regular attendees in CLCs show higher school attendance and higher school academic achievement than those students who do not participate. Through the years of data collection, we have seen in some schools, the academic gap between demographic groups as measured by state academic assessment has been almost eliminated when comparing the district average with CLC attendees.
Back to the seed money. All of the CLCs in Lincoln have been able to grow and thrive from ongoing funding from the original 21st-century seed grants and the outpouring of support from the Lincoln community. Unfortunately, these grants are no longer available to start new community schools. LPS has children, families, and neighbors in or living near other high-poverty schools that would benefit from The Community Schools Act because it would provide the seed money and the opportunity to start up new community schools in schools in their neighborhoods. If the state could help plant the seeds of our community schools, our community would nurture them to sustain and nourish our children, families, and neighborhoods. We know that this works.
For these reasons, we support LB1347.
