March 2, 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
Chair Murman, and Members of the Education Committee:
The Lincoln Public Schools opposes LB497, which would require each school board to allow certain students that are not residents of the school district to participate in extracurricular activities. We assert that the requirement to allow non-residents (and the bill also references students attending private, parochial or non-accredited schools) is an infringement on local control and could foreseeably produce an unfunded mandate by increasing program costs for the wide range of extracurricular activities offered.
It is not entirely clear from the bill’s language what purported problem it intends to address: Private school students already have the right to enroll part-time in their resident public school district, and LPS invites and encourages this: for the current school year, for example, the Lincoln Public Schools Career Academy has over three dozen private – parochial school students enrolled, and nearly three dozen (33) homeschooled students participating in TCA programming.
If LB497 is actually intended to apply to all public school students who want to participate in an activity only offered by a neighboring district, the potential impact and management of this could be very difficult for schools to judiciously and effectively administer. While the requirement is to “allow for participation,” the potential impact of part-time enrollees for extracurriculars would have implications beyond activities as foreseeably classes / class sizes would grow and staffing could be impacted.
Ultimately, we believe this type of decision regarding program participation for extracurriculars is best left to local school board control and the methods of participation and affiliation which are currently available to students and families. We oppose the advancement of LB497 in its introduced form. We believe that the provisions of LB497 should be discretionary for local school boards, and for those
extracurricular activities which are NSAA affiliated, to continue to fall under the governing oversight of the state activities association. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Dr. John Skretta
Interim Superintendent
Lincoln Public Schools
402-440-9092
