February 4, 2025
Sen. Dave Murman, Chairperson
Sen. Margo Juarez
Sen. Jana Hughes, Vice Chairperson
Sen. Dan Lonowski
Sen. Danielle Conrad
Sen. Glen Meyer
Sen. Megan Hunt
Sen. Rita Sanders
My name is Nola Derby-Bennett N-O-L-A-D-E-R-B-Y hyphen B-E-N-N-E-T-T, and I serve as the Director of Community Learning Centers with Lincoln Public Schools. We serve 29 Title I eligible buildings in our district.
The Mission of Lincoln Community Learning Centers is to support Successful Students- Thriving Families- and Strong Neighborhoods. To meet that mission, we adopted the Community Schools model many years ago because we know that students succeed when their families are thriving and the community in which they live is strong and supportive. The Community Schools model is a National Best practice, and we partner with the National Coalition for Community Schools through the Institute for Educational Leadership for guidance in implementing the model.
We know that the best way to truly meet our mission is to collaborate with community partners who are experts in all of the supports that wrap around our students and their families to help them thrive.
In Lincoln Public Schools we work collaboratively with 9 local nonprofits to lead our Community Learning Centers, and then under the Collaborative Leadership of each School-Based Leadership Team, we partner with hundreds of community partners to deliver high quality Extended Learning Opportunities and Integrated Student Supports. We operate under the principle that the school is the hub of each neighborhood by providing services and supports where people already are.
We support LB567, because it will allow the ability to expand on partnerships – engaging community experts- to truly bring in integrated supports and opportunities for families. Some of these supports are familiar to us, such as the partnership with local food banks for the Backpack Program and Food Markets; and adult educational opportunities such as the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce’s Lincoln Manufacturing Skills Training and Lincoln Literacy’s English Language and Adult Skills classes. Families can even file their income taxes through a partnership with UNL’s VITA Tax Prep while they’re at the school to pick up their children at the end of the day. Other partnerships remain on the horizon: services such as school based medical and dental clinics, housing supports and behavioral health supports sufficient enough to serve all students who need it.
I have recently had the opportunity to visit two different school based health clinics- one in Cleveland, Ohio and one in Asheville, North Carolina. In both visits the school officials outlined impressive outcomes illustrating the improvement in student attendance and performance because students could visit the clinic right on campus to get an exam for something as simple as an ear infection or sinus infection, they could get a prescription filled, and then get straight back to class- reducing time out of the classroom.
A policy that focuses on collaborative leadership, expanded learning opportunities, integrated supports and authentic family engagement would provide the opportunity to lean into the “schools as the community hub” concept, letting our educators be the experts in their field, and our community partners to be the experts in theirs- all while providing comprehensive integrated supports for students, families and the community. For these reasons, we are happy to support LB567.
Sincerely,
Nola Derby-Bennett
Director of Community Learning Centers
Lincoln Public Schools
