Education in North Omaha, Nebraska

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Education in North Omaha, Nebraska is provided by numerous public and private schools. The first high school graduates in the Omaha area came from a North Omaha-area school in 1863.^[1] The Near North Side neighborhood was also the location of several historically black schools.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Higher education 1.2 Segregated schools 2 Currently 2.1 LB 1024 3 See also 4 References

[edit] History

The first high school graduates in the Omaha area came from Brownell Hall, an all-girls school in Saratoga that was operated by Episcopalians. Located in the old town of Saratoga at present-day 24th and Grand Streets, this private religious school named after an Episcopalian bishop in New York. It was located in the old Saratoga Springs Hotel, a defunct resort. In the 1920s it moved to a central Omaha location, and is today known as Brownell-Talbot School.^[2]

The Academy of the Sacred Heart was opened in 1882 to provide college preparatory education to young women in the Near North Side and Kountze Park neighborhoods; later, the school specifically served women in the Gold Coast and Bemis Park neighborhoods. Another religious school in the area was Brownell Hall.

[[Saratoga School] at Meridith Avenue and North 25th Street was started in 1866 by local citizens. The one room schoolhouse was one of the first public schools in Nebraska, and perhaps the first in the Omaha area.^[3] In 1927, businessmen formed the North Omaha Activities Association in order to re-develop Saratoga School's playing field into a college football field for Omaha University's football team. At that time the University was located immediately south in the Redick Mansion at the affluent Kountze Place suburb. With new bleachers built to accommodate a crowd of a thousand, the Saratoga Field was home to O.U.'s team until 1951.^[4] The community was also home to the Omaha Presbyterian Theological Seminary, which closed in 1943.

Technical High School was the second high school built in Omaha. The city's largest public school building was a five-winged building with a large athletic field that occupy three square city blocks between Burt and Cuming Streets from 30th to 33rd Streets. By 1940 enrollment had reached 3,684.^[5] The school was closed in 1984, and the building was completely renovated for use as the Omaha Public Schools central office. Today it also serves as a home for the Career Center and Adult Education programs, serving 700-plus students daily.^[6]

Omaha North High School at 36th Street and Ames Avenue occupies a hilltop view covering four square blocks. Constructed like a capital E and first occupied in September, 1924, the building has 49 rooms, a cafeteria, a gymnasium and an auditorium.^[7].

[edit] Higher education

The Presbyterian Theological Seminary was built in Kountze Place in 1902 at 3303 North 21st Place, and was closed and converted into apartments in 1943. Many of the faculty here taught at the University of Omaha in its early years.^[8]

The University of Omaha, now the University of Nebraska at Omaha, was founded in 1908 in the Kountze Park neighborhood. Their first classes were located in the Redick Mansion at 24th and Pratt Streets, with a proposed "magnificent campus" slated for development between 21st and 25th Avenues, bounded by Kountze Park and the Carter Lake Park. Original faculty came from the Presbyterian Seminary, as well as Bellevue College.^[9]

In 1927, businessmen formed the North Omaha Activities Association in order to redevelop Saratoga School's playing field into a football field for the University's football team. At that time the University was located just south in the posh Kountze Place suburb. With new bleachers built to accommodate a crowd of a thousand, the Saratoga Field was home to OU's team until 1951.^[10]

The University of Omaha, at the time a municipal institution, moved to 6001 Dodge Street in 1938, where its successor institution the University of Nebraska at Omaha remains.

[edit] Segregated schools

From the 1880s through the beginning of forced busing in Omaha Public Schools in the early 1970s, several segregated schools in North Omaha served the city's African American students. They included Howard Kennedy School, Lake School, Kellom School, Lothrop School and Long School. Into the 1970s these were widely regarded as the city's "black schools", where defacto segregation kept African American students and teachers from achieving equity with schools across the city that white students attended.^[11].

A different type of segregation affected the students at the Nebraska School for the Deaf. The School, started in 1870 on 23 acres between Bedford Avenue and Wirt Street, between 42nd and 44th Streets, served thousands of hearing impaired students.^[12]

[edit] Currently

Aside from its historically significant grade schools, other important education institutions in North Omaha include Creighton University, Metropolitan Community College (Omaha) located at Fort Omaha, Omaha North High School and the Charles B. Washington Branch of the Omaha Public Library, located at 2868 Ames Avenue^[13]. High school students from the area attend schools across Omaha, while many elementary schools in the area use "village concept" and afrocentric curricula.^[14]

[edit] LB 1024

As early as 2005, Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers proposed that North Omaha become responsible for educating its own students. Because of a proposal he made, on April 13, 2006 the Nebraska Legislature passed Legislative Bill 1024 that would create three separate school districts out of Omaha Public Schools, including one specifically for North Omaha.^[15]. The governor of Nebraska signed the bill into law later that day.^[16]

Among other things, LB 1024 calls for Omaha Public Schools to be broken into three separate school districts. LB 1024 requires that each new district consist of contiguous high school attendance areas and include either two or three of the seven existing high schools. That allows about 20 ways to group the seven schools, depending on which adjacent high school attendance areas are grouped with the geographically most central area.

The three-district plan for OPS was proposed in amendment AM3142, introduced on the day the legislature first took up LB 1024. The suburban school districts reluctantly supported the three-district plan, seeing it as the most favorable to them of the bills proposed. The OPS leadership vehemently opposed the plan. AM3142 was approved on the day it was introduced by a counted vote of 33 to 6 with 10 senators not voting.^[17] Five days later a motion to reconsider AM3142 failed in a roll-call vote of 9 to 31 with 9 senators not voting.^[18]

It is suspected that OPS may file a suit challenging the new law. On May 16, 2006, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed a suit against the governor and other Nebraska state officials charging that LB 1024, originally proposed by state senator Ernie Chambers, "intentionally furthers racial segregation." The NAACP lawsuit argues that because Omaha has racially segregated residential patterns, subdivided school districts will also be racially segregated,^[19] contrary to United States law.

[edit] See also

• No Child Left Behind
• Education in Omaha, Nebraska

[edit] References

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