Omaha Area Schools

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DeWalt
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Post by DeWalt »

Stargazer wrote:
Personally, I intend to send my kids to Prep as I want a college preparatory environment for them.
That's something my kids have obviously missed out on... the 'college preparatory environment' which public schools are so lacking in.  If I had only thought to make the additional investment in the quality parochial education for them.
No high school can truly prepare kids for college, unless said college is just more of the same, which means it's a bad college.

One of the best things that students heading to college can be taught is, "The world doesn't revolve around you."
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Post by Uffda »

joeglow wrote:The great thing about the country is that you can send your kids to North if you think their education is great.  Personally, I intend to send my kids to Prep as I want a college preparatory environment for them.  To each their own.
I guess you can also say your kids attend a school where if they don't meet the behavior/academic standards it will be suggested they transfer (they can be asked to leave).
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Post by iamjacobm »

Uffda wrote:
joeglow wrote:The great thing about the country is that you can send your kids to North if you think their education is great.  Personally, I intend to send my kids to Prep as I want a college preparatory environment for them.  To each their own.
I guess you can also say your kids attend a school where if they don't meet the behavior/academic standards it will be suggested they transfer (they can be asked to leave).
Kind of like at major universities?  Funny how a college prep school works like that.
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Post by Uffda »

iamjacobm wrote:
Kind of like at major universities?  Funny how a college prep school works like that.
Let's say it's the difference between a private and public school can pick and keep the students they want.
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Post by iamjacobm »

I agree with that, but it does go both ways.  I remember a guy from my 8th grade class got Prep's biggest scholarship and turned it down to go to Central.  It isn't like private schools get first dibs on every smart kid in the city or anything.  I do agree that Prep's numbers may be "inflated" by saying 99% of Prep grads go to college b/c those that aren't usually don't last there all 4 years.
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Post by Coyote »

iamjacobm wrote:99% of Prep grads go to college b/c those that aren't usually don't last there all 4 years.
Hence GRAD's
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Post by iamjacobm »

Coyote wrote:
iamjacobm wrote:99% of Prep grads go to college b/c those that aren't usually don't last there all 4 years.
Hence GRAD's
Obviously, I was speaking to Uffda's comments about asking kids to leave.  Which I wouldn't say is a common thing either.  Plenty of guys left because they didn't like it or couldn't hack it, but it isn't like every guy there got a 26 or over on the ACT and had over 3.0s either.  The main difference i see there is that parents aren't going to spend over 30,000 to send their kids to private schools if they have no intention of going to college.  It would make sense for Prep to have numbers like that.
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Post by Coyote »

I don't have any numbers for those who leave after entering, I don't remember anyone leaving while I was at Prep - but they do weed out many prospective students by their entrance exams.
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Post by iamjacobm »

Coyote wrote:I don't have any numbers for those who leave after entering, I don't remember anyone leaving while I was at Prep - but they do weed out many prospective students by their entrance exams.
Really?  My class started at over 280 and ended up in the 250s.
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Post by Coyote »

First of all - to remember all of my class of '79 puts a strain on my memory cells - second - how many of my class did I really know? I have no idea how many started in '75 and graduated in '79. What I do remember is that '75's Frosh Kill Day was canceled due to the Tornado damage, and those senior came back in '76 to get the pleasures of that event.
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Post by joeglow »

Stargazer wrote:
Personally, I intend to send my kids to Prep as I want a college preparatory environment for them.
That's something my kids have obviously missed out on... the 'college preparatory environment' which public schools are so lacking in.  If I had only thought to make the additional investment in the quality parochial education for them.

I agree that the majority of a kid's success will come from personal drive and family support.  I also agree that a kid with an abundance of these will succeed almost anywhere.

That said, my personal view is that this same kid would do even better if they were at Prep.  Likewise, I know kids that did great in life after going to UNL.  I have no doubt there are schools out there that would have most likely led to even more successes.  

All that said, if people here actually took the time to read people's comments instead of getting in dick measuring contests, you would have seen where I said I am NOT discussing those at the top of their classes (or the bottom).  I have said that I believe those at the top of their classes would do great at any school.  I am talking about those kids in the middle of the pack.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by iamjacobm »

http://www.omaha.com/news/education/ops ... b5eae.html
The OPS school board voted Monday to purchase the Liberty Christian Center property — known to many as the old Archbishop Ryan High School campus — near 60th and L Streets for $5.8 million.

The 26.5-acre property could become the home of a new high school for South Omaha, the fastest-growing area in OPS, and help ease overcrowding at Omaha South and Bryan High Schools. District officials said a new high school will be built on the site, making it unlikely that any portions of the old Ryan High, which is still standing, will be renovated or repurposed.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by daveoma »

iamjacobm wrote:http://www.omaha.com/news/education/ops ... b5eae.html
The OPS school board voted Monday to purchase the Liberty Christian Center property — known to many as the old Archbishop Ryan High School campus — near 60th and L Streets for $5.8 million.

The 26.5-acre property could become the home of a new high school for South Omaha, the fastest-growing area in OPS, and help ease overcrowding at Omaha South and Bryan High Schools. District officials said a new high school will be built on the site, making it unlikely that any portions of the old Ryan High, which is still standing, will be renovated or repurposed.
This is great news. I'm so glad south Omaha has so much vitality nowadays.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by bigredmed »

It would be great to use that much space for a magnet school for technical training. We need a high school like the old Tech that back in the 50's could get you enough college prep to get into UNL and be successful, but also teach trades. If we could get OPS and the various union apprentices and MCC to collaborate on a curriculum that would get the classwork for apprentices done in the last two years of school after successful completion of the first two, we could turn out high quality trades people and a lot of people would have better lives than they otherwise would.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by Coyote »

bigredmed wrote:It would be great to use that much space for a magnet school for technical training. We need a high school like the old Tech that back in the 50's could get you enough college prep to get into UNL and be successful, but also teach trades. If we could get OPS and the various union apprentices and MCC to collaborate on a curriculum that would get the classwork for apprentices done in the last two years of school after successful completion of the first two, we could turn out high quality trades people and a lot of people would have better lives than they otherwise would.
We could start a whole new thread on just this topic. I do not know why our educational system does not have a Tech anymore. Maybe they can teach these trades in our current system (Uffda?), I do not know. I guess the question would be, how can we best prepare a high schooler, who will never go to college, for a good trade vocation... And then I'll throw some gas on the fire... especially in North Omaha....
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by iamjacobm »

They are talking about that kind of thing for Benson.

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/bold-pl ... 841cb.html

Apparently $5 million of the bond passed is for a career center at Benson.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by Coyote »

Thanks Jacob, I forgot about that proposal... or just completely uusurped that thought as my own... :P
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by bigredmed »

Benson has an electrical apprenticeship already. Need metal workers and welders.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by Uffda »

Coyote wrote:
We could start a whole new thread on just this topic. I do not know why our educational system does not have a Tech anymore. Maybe they can teach these trades in our current system (Uffda?), I do not know. I guess the question would be, how can we best prepare a high schooler, who will never go to college, for a good trade vocation... And then I'll throw some gas on the fire... especially in North Omaha....
Not sure beyond the middle school. I know about Benson just because of what is in the paper. There always seems to be this push to college BUT not everyone needs to go to college for a good job/occupation.

According to the article, there is a push around the nation for Tech Ed. I think Metro has been picking this up over the years.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by Omababe »

Coyote wrote:We could start a whole new thread on just this topic. I do not know why our educational system does not have a Tech anymore. Maybe they can teach these trades in our current system (Uffda?), I do not know. I guess the question would be, how can we best prepare a high schooler, who will never go to college, for a good trade vocation... And then I'll throw some gas on the fire... especially in North Omaha....
Although I'm not an alumna of any area high school, I've always been under the impression that Omaha has always concentrated on academics at the HS level and concentrates the vo-tech stuff at the community college level.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by Joe_Sovereign »

A new OPS High School is great. That is 100 teaching jobs at the high school and 500 new higher paying administrator jobs at OPS headquarters. Time for higher property taxes, it's for the kids.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by mcarch »

Joe_Sovereign wrote:A new OPS High School is great. That is 100 teaching jobs at the high school and 500 new higher paying administrator jobs at OPS headquarters. Time for higher property taxes, it's for the kids.
Every bond is "for the children." In Elkhorn they keep the schools class B. So what does that mean... look at the pay administrators make, Principal around 125-150k, Vice Principal 100-125k, so on and so forth. So in a new high school you have around 3-4 vice principals (I did at Millard South). So tell me, is it that necessary to have 3 high schools in Elkhorn housing only 600-700 students, when districts the size of Millard have only 3 high schools with each having about 2k. Elkhorn's high schools are the size of Millard's Middle Schools, which when first built, I always thought were too small. Beadle Middle, however, accommodates 800 - students (like they should). Around 2k for high school is a good number. 500-600 for Elementary Schools. Any school smaller than these numbers is a waste of resources (usually on excess administration). Of course, those of you who might be administration or knows someone who is, wouldn't agree.

I do understand the need for a New NW Omaha High school. Right now those areas feed into NW High School. The people I've heard, skip out on building or moving to NW Omaha b/c of this (no matter their reasons - true or not). With the new school, hopefully... this part of Omaha will start to grow.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by bigredmed »

Omaha NW has a bad reputation for induction of racism, incompetence in their admin structure, and low standards. I have a couple of patients who struggled to get out of going there, but were unable to move. They report that OPS has made NW the target of their undivided attention so they are seeing improvement over the past. So far, so good for them.

The need for a HS in NW Omaha is that there is a large area of Omaha that either feeds into Burke or NW and given the track record of excessive crowdedness at Burke (along with other problems in the past) and the problems at NW, it becomes a game of committing to Prep, Marian, or Skutt or taking the long odds that you will get to transfer into Millard North or Westside. These are low odds transfers even for minority groups.

Elkhorn is staying class B because of sports and other activities. With colleges demanding extracurriculars, the class A schools are screwing over a lot of their students because sports are noticeably more competitive and difficult for a late bloomer to get into. Same with the arts. Especially the late bloomer or the kid who is shy or introverted who finally finds that they are actually good at something, the smaller school with the same number of options is better.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by Uffda »

bigredmed wrote:Omaha NW has a bad reputation for induction of racism, incompetence in their admin structure, and low standards. I have a couple of patients who struggled to get out of going there, but were unable to move. They report that OPS has made NW the target of their undivided attention so they are seeing improvement over the past. So far, so good for them.

The need for a HS in NW Omaha is that there is a large area of Omaha that either feeds into Burke or NW and given the track record of excessive crowdedness at Burke (along with other problems in the past) and the problems at NW, it becomes a game of committing to Prep, Marian, or Skutt or taking the long odds that you will get to transfer into Millard North or Westside. These are low odds transfers even for minority groups.
NW student population has been growing rapidly over the past couple of years. As of the end of September, it was larger than North and Benson (lowest pop) and within about 70 students of Bryan.

Burke (2005), Central (2375), and South (2399) were the largest.

OPS also has three middle schools with over 1000 students - Buffett, Norris and Marrs.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by Joe_Sovereign »

mcarch wrote:
Joe_Sovereign wrote:A new OPS High School is great. That is 100 teaching jobs at the high school and 500 new higher paying administrator jobs at OPS headquarters. Time for higher property taxes, it's for the kids.
Every bond is "for the children." In Elkhorn they keep the schools class B. So what does that mean... look at the pay administrators make, Principal around 125-150k, Vice Principal 100-125k, so on and so forth. So in a new high school you have around 3-4 vice principals (I did at Millard South). So tell me, is it that necessary to have 3 high schools in Elkhorn housing only 600-700 students, when districts the size of Millard have only 3 high schools with each having about 2k. Elkhorn's high schools are the size of Millard's Middle Schools, which when first built, I always thought were too small. Beadle Middle, however, accommodates 800 - students (like they should). Around 2k for high school is a good number. 500-600 for Elementary Schools. Any school smaller than these numbers is a waste of resources (usually on excess administration). Of course, those of you who might be administration or knows someone who is, wouldn't agree.

I do understand the need for a New NW Omaha High school. Right now those areas feed into NW High School. The people I've heard, skip out on building or moving to NW Omaha b/c of this (no matter their reasons - true or not). With the new school, hopefully... this part of Omaha will start to grow.
The Elkhorn High Schools are some of the best schools in the state. Elkhorn has insane academic standards and pride themselves on having the most academically challenging schools they can. The parents want the schools to remain class B because it is thought to be a better environment with more individual attention and it opens up more opportunities for their child to get into extracurricular activities which are very competitive. The Elkhorn school district has very high property tax rates and people pay a premium to live there specifically for the schools.
Last edited by Joe_Sovereign on Wed Mar 02, 2016 9:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by bigredmed »

Class A schools are a real detriment in terms of extracurriculars. Not a lot of potential when despite 10 times the student body, the track team is at best twice the size.

Omaha and some other metro schools have JROTC which is a huge benefit to kids.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by Uffda »

bigredmed wrote:Class A schools are a real detriment in terms of extracurriculars. Not a lot of potential when despite 10 times the student body, the track team is at best twice the size.

Omaha and some other metro schools have JROTC which is a huge benefit to kids.
A lot of kids aren't interested in 'running' track these days. Plus I think soccer season is at the same time so that takes some of the athletics that might have gone out for track.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

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Uffda wrote:
bigredmed wrote:Class A schools are a real detriment in terms of extracurriculars. Not a lot of potential when despite 10 times the student body, the track team is at best twice the size.

Omaha and some other metro schools have JROTC which is a huge benefit to kids.
A lot of kids aren't interested in 'running' track these days. Plus I think soccer season is at the same time so that takes some of the athletics that might have gone out for track.
Does not matter. If you have competitive colleges that will not look at you without lots of extracurricular activities "that demonstrate personal growth and leadership" you are setting kids up to have lots of doors closed on their faces.

The fundamental problem with class A schools is that instead of having two or more drama teams and producing plays quarterly (albeit low budget), where lots of kids could get roles on or off stage (and meaningful roles), you have the big schools with their giant theaters producing rather few high budget plays and the handful of kids who can sing or dance well enough to do such roles get to play. The other 90% get to sell popcorn. Selling popcorn does not get the college applicant committee's juices flowing. Same with sports. Track is the example I use, Cross country would work as well. You have 1000 kids in school and for CC, you buy t-shirts and that is it. Why should Millard South not have 300 kids in CC? They are limited by the size the state allows them to have. So instead of Millard South fielding 300 kids in the form of 30 squads and letting the chips fall where they may when they run against Wahoo and Mead, we have Wahoo and Mead with teams that are filled with anyone that wants to do it and Millard South having the same team size and having 2% of their kids in CC. What is there for the kid who hasn't done one sport since fetal life? Not much.

Class B and C schools have the advantage in that their smaller size means the size of the final squad is the same, but the size of the competition is smaller, so it is easier for kids to try more than 1 thing.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by Uffda »

Unfortunately it does matter. Kids are involved in club soccer at the school I am at now so football and XC do t get the numbers other schools get because soccer is king.

Interesting you bring up XC. I was at an Omaha middle school where they had just over 100 kid boys/girls out for XC. The school also offered volleyball and football. Now I know football never cut anybody but volleyball was limited and cross-country never cut anybody.

I have heard Creighton prep has close to a 100 runners for XC.

I feel you are focusing on the organized and there are lots of activities colleges look at.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marjorie- ... 40217.html

https://www.petersons.com/college-searc ... tance.aspx

http://www.fastweb.com/student-life/art ... urriculars
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by mcarch »

Joe_Sovereign wrote:
mcarch wrote:
Joe_Sovereign wrote:A new OPS High School is great. That is 100 teaching jobs at the high school and 500 new higher paying administrator jobs at OPS headquarters. Time for higher property taxes, it's for the kids.
Every bond is "for the children." In Elkhorn they keep the schools class B. So what does that mean... look at the pay administrators make, Principal around 125-150k, Vice Principal 100-125k, so on and so forth. So in a new high school you have around 3-4 vice principals (I did at Millard South). So tell me, is it that necessary to have 3 high schools in Elkhorn housing only 600-700 students, when districts the size of Millard have only 3 high schools with each having about 2k. Elkhorn's high schools are the size of Millard's Middle Schools, which when first built, I always thought were too small. Beadle Middle, however, accommodates 800 - students (like they should). Around 2k for high school is a good number. 500-600 for Elementary Schools. Any school smaller than these numbers is a waste of resources (usually on excess administration). Of course, those of you who might be administration or knows someone who is, wouldn't agree.

I do understand the need for a New NW Omaha High school. Right now those areas feed into NW High School. The people I've heard, skip out on building or moving to NW Omaha b/c of this (no matter their reasons - true or not). With the new school, hopefully... this part of Omaha will start to grow.
The Elkhorn High Schools are some of the best schools in the state. Elkhorn has insane academic standards and pride them selves on having the most academically challenging schools they can. The parents want the schools to remain class B because it is thought to be a better environment with more individual attention and it opens up more opportunities for their child to get into extracurricular activities which are very competitive. The Elkhorn school district has very high property tax rates and people pay a premium to live there specifically for the schools.
So what we are saying is every child needs to go to college and every child needs a trophy? College is becoming diluted, worth nothing. Why, because the majority of children go. I went to Millard South, graduated with 450 students. The school size at that time was 2400. There was NEVER a shortage of extra curricular activities. The best athletes get the positions... the ones that don't make it weren't the best. Everyone doesn't make it in life. We can't be teaching our children they're special and that the world owes them. The world owes them nothing, and will give them nothing. Every parent thinking that their Little Johnny will be the next big football player, is far from reality. Plus, schools aren't there for extra curricular activities, they are there to TEACH.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by bigredmed »

mcarch wrote: So what we are saying is every child needs to go to college and every child needs a trophy? College is becoming diluted, worth nothing. Why, because the majority of children go. I went to Millard South, graduated with 450 students. The school size at that time was 2400. There was NEVER a shortage of extra curricular activities. The best athletes get the positions... the ones that don't make it weren't the best. Everyone doesn't make it in life. We can't be teaching our children they're special and that the world owes them. The world owes them nothing, and will give them nothing. Every parent thinking that their Little Johnny will be the next big football player, is far from reality. Plus, schools aren't there for extra curricular activities, they are there to TEACH.

I went to Millard (Not otherwise specified). When I and you were in school, there were a lot of extracurriculars mainly because colleges didn't care what you did as long as you did something. The best athletes were on the first string, but going out for a sport counted and that was all. Now colleges want leadership and personal growth and don't count any participation, just the leadership roles. Don't lead? Don't count. Now there is not plenty of opportunities.

Also, when I was in school, there were a handful of sports that were just open. If you wanted to go out, you could. There were a handful that were "technically available to any student", but realistically if you were not playing golf since fetal life, you were not going to be one of the 10 guys on the golf team (out of 500 guys). Same with tennis. Now its the same with track, and field sports in particular. We see Soccer, basketball, volleyball, and football all heading the same direction. Say your family is poor and you can't afford a club team when you are 12, to say nothing of a travel squad, you are effectively done in most sports now before high school even starts. Say you are a tall guy with a lot of clumsiness due to growth, you are out of the running for junior high sports, and often this blows you out of the water for high school as well even though you may now be able to use your raw talent.

This is why a lot of schools are trying to stay small by design because it forces the issue of developing kids. If you only have 60 girls at Mercy and they need 60 to do a play, all 60 are going to get involved somehow, either on stage or behind it. Everyone gets a chance to do something. The theater geeks and the jocks both learn that they need each other to be successful in their favorite areas. In the big schools where kids have to specialize, they only hang out with their other group members and never develop any interconnection. The big schools have gotten this broadway or bust view in their arts programs and the state champs or chumps attitude in their sports. By letting this |expletive| happen, schools that should be able to offer more chances to grow ironically offer less.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by TitosBuritoBarn »

I think the need to demonstrate leadership and personal growth depends on the school. Private institutions, sure, but state schools in places like Nebraska and Iowa that need to be proactive in retaining youth? Not so much. I don't think Iowa State was overly impressed by my JV credentials in golf and track.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by bigredmed »

TitosBuritoBarn wrote:I think the need to demonstrate leadership and personal growth depends on the school. Private institutions, sure, but state schools in places like Nebraska and Iowa that need to be proactive in retaining youth? Not so much. I don't think Iowa State was overly impressed by my JV credentials in golf and track.
The thrust of my point is that as colleges get more picky about what level your are at in your activity (and this appears to have started in the past 3-5 years, so you and I both missed out), and schools have lost interest in developing all students; focusing instead on star polishing, you get a situation where the kid with JV tack credentials might as well have nothing, and the kid who wasn't a stud in Jr High and on several club teams prior to HS has little chance of getting a start. The schools where the drama program has to have Broadway pros do their costumes and lighting because their "stars need that" are also cheating a kid from the pack out of a chance to do something they might actually be good at.

The tendency of these new intentionally class B schools is to keep the numbers down so the level of competition can be low enough that more kids have a chance. Whether they are ultimately successful is another question that so far, at least in Elkhorn's case seems unlikely.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by Coyote »

Omaha Marian is doing a $1.6m addition/renovation, getting now a new kitchen/cafeteria.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by swinquest »

When would it be anticipated when the new Elkhorn boundary lines will be drawn with Elkhorn North in the plans?
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by obvious2677 »

Uffda wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:44 pm I have heard Creighton prep has close to a 100 runners for XC.
Prep requires that you play a sport or join a club Freshman year (for both semesters). Their freshman football team is two teams - a selective "A" team, with ~40 players. And a non-selective "B" team, though not everyone will see playing time every game. I believe there's typically 150+ kids that play freshman football as an activity (Prep's Freshman class is normally 300+) - it's one of the most popular things to do, even if you've never played before. Freshman cannot play on the varsity team until the state playoffs - and it's fairly rare that many move up or even more rare that they'll see the field in the playoffs. Sophomore year is more split-up, where some will move up to Varsity, about half will play JV, and about half will play Sophomore. Similarly, there are no cuts for cross country - if you want to be on the team, you sign up and start running.

If you don't want to be on a sports team, you register for a club - they offer ~65 of them every year, ranging from games (D&D, Catan, etc.) to alternative/club sports (Rowing, LAX, Hockey, Trap, etc.) to career-based (robotics, architecture, journalism, finance, etc.), to education (mock trial, decathalon, etc.).

Side note - I just realized this conversation was suuuuper old.
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Re: Omaha Area Schools

Post by Coyote »

Mother-daughter duo hope to bring another soccer title to Marian



Mother-daughter duo hope to bring another soccer title to Marian
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