" Why don't more districts do this? Seems to me the wave of the future. I know a school district in the Northeast part of the sate that has 3 schools unified. Does anyone know the names of the schools? "

" I think that name of the towms are Verdigre, Orchard, and Clearwater and they are working very well together. "

" Tne next step is to start merging counties. Nebraska as a whole has way too much governmental overhead. "

" Laurel-Concord, Coleridge and Newcastle share administration and some resources but still operate as separate school districts.....if that is what you are talking about. "

" "Why don't more districts do this?" Do you really think that these are better educational opportunities for our students? Not to mention the increased time of travel, which means time away from family, just to get to school. You never see this type of thing in the larger populated areas. They would just build new school upon new school until Valetine students are driving to Omaha "

" Humbolt, Table Rock, Steinauer, Stella "

" Rudy, TRIXIE, Brian,
What you all refer to are Unified districts. These districts all share administration and school boards but have individual learning centers in each town. Back when Clearwater, Orchard, and Verdigre (NE Unified District #1) unified, there was SIGNIFICANT bonus money to do this in the form of state aid. As long as there is EQUAL representation on the school board, these districts tend to work.

The MERGER of HTRS and SE Consolidated schools is not a unification. Most likely they will build a bigger centralized school in the country or in a central town. This is a way that some of the smaller towns can lose their identity. Also it causes hurt feelings among many of the towns involved. If you want to know what consolidation can do to a town, look at Bradshaw. They now have just an empty building that once contained a K-12 school and then after consolidation an elementary and now it has nothing because the school board closed it. Consolidation is a horrible idea! Unification however has its merits. "

" Seems to me it would make sense to merge all of the school districts in Sarpy, Douglas and Lancaster counties into one unified school district. Kids in Central Omaha should have the same opportunities that someone attending Lincoln Southeast Should. And Lincoln Southeast students should be exposed to the same opportunities a student at Omaha Central has. Or an LPS or OPS student could take a step up and attend school at Norris or Waverly. I agree with Rudy, why don't we have more school districts unify it makes perfectly good sense. Damn what the people want and damn local control, cede all power to a powerful centralized government. "