Scottsbluff, Auburn voters reject school bonds

“I didn't think we'd lose by that large of a margin.”

Voters in Scottsbluff and Auburn were unwilling to raise their taxes for local school bonds but Bennington voters and those in parts of four counties approved their bond issues. via Beatrice Daily Sun

[unhappy]

The bond issue was defeated by voters in Peru and Brownville because they have hard feelings about past issues. I have a question for them though... where do their kids go to school NOW? If we want the best for the kids we need to forget the past poor judgements and move on.

[Parent in Auburn]

I fully examined the bond issue. I have lived in Nemaha County all my life and I am aware of the needs of this district. I feel that the new additions and upgrades are extravagant. The students of this District need more educational advantages such as better learning techniques, and a strive for teaching excellence on the part of all the teaching staff. I might add that some teachers are burned out or are over worked and need and aide to help them. I really do not think that a 7 million dollar upgrade will solve the problems that exist. From a financial view, the bond information mentioned that a property valued at 100,000 would produce $190 a year toward the 7 mil., which would take 20 years to pay. I prayerfully considered this bond and in the end could not justify it based on the facts at hand.

[Anti tax man]

Apparently the Auburn school board thought that the student enrollment would stay around fifty per class from now on. Why else would they sell Sheridan and put us in the lack of space problem that we are in now. Every time they have a meeting the paper reports that 61 students in the incoming kindergarten class spells impending doom for the whole system. And then there is the middle school concept that we keep hearing about. If we had as many students as the bigger class B schools, maybe we would need a building to keep the middle school seperate from the high school but 60 per class is far different from the 90 per class we had seven years ago from the graduating class of 2000.

[concerned citizen]

BIG mistake selling the Sheridan building!

[blitz]

I believe that the school system has made a lot of bad mistakes and it's causing many problems now. Puting the middle school with the high school students was not a wise move.
Their is nothing wrong with their gym and they should be use to doing their musicals over at the old middle school.

[HMMMM]

unfortunately the elementary kids are all crammed into the calvert building and there are not enuf classrooms. I dont think its that bad for the MS and HS to be in the same building but I know there have been some problems. It would really be great to have a better set up for the musicals and plays, graduations etc. The bleachers at the HS SUCK and the MS auditorium isnt big enuf anymore.

[curious]

My problem is with the old middle school which now houses 4-5-6 grades. Those kids are too little to be cut loose after school on Highway 75. The same could have been said of Sheridan, but the majority of those kids lived south of Hwy 136

[interested]

yes... it really sux the building being on such a busy hiway.. at least 136 wasnt as bad

[Peruvian]

You can pass judgement anyone that you want about Peru or Brownville, but until you have all of the FACTS you are in no position to judge. The reason that the bond didn't pass is because the school district has become lax in its teaching and this comes from more than just Peru or Brownville people. Those that want their kids to go to another school are from Auburn also. Can a child have an IEP and flunk all 4 quarters of a subject at this school? Yes it can it it did happen. Does a teacher need to work at changing their lesson plans when more than one child is not doing well in their class or do they push them aside and work more with the others who are making it? Yep. Changing their lesson plans would require work. I'm not saying that all teachers at Auburn are like this, but there shouldn't be any teachers in the District 29 school district who are just going through the motions or have been there so long that they don't care about the kids, just as long as the old paycheck keeps coming their way. Get back to the basics of truly caring about the kids and then worry about the pretty picture. If they do that, then they will have their bond issue solved. Until then they are going to have to deal with their champagne taste on a beer budget type attitudes.

[Freemason9]

Two problems.

(1) Farmers killed the bond issue. They have a history of slapping down educational bonds. I personally was loath to vote for it, but I did ... because you can identify declining rural communities by their negligence of educational programs. Farmers don't care about rural communities at all, though, so long as the local convenience store still lets them drink coffee there.

(2) The state senators suck. They pass on tax cuts for wealthy political clients to property owners in rural communities, leaving them to support their already-stressed districts with ever-more-scarce tax dollars.

[alum]

Please don't slam the farmers. They by all means do not neglect the educational programs! do you realize how many farmers have children going to school there. I believe that if they were not asking for so much money and the project was not so large it would have passed.

[Logan Wade Rogers]

blitz wrote:

Their is nothing wrong with their gym and they should be use to doing their musicals over at the old middle school.

i have a problem with that...I currently attend AHS and i will be a senior this year...i have seen the athletic problems with having only 1 gym for all grades 7-12. It works fine for PE, but when it comes to teams like basketball needing to practice, it doesnt cut it. The school has to pay a lot of money for the MS ballers to go and practice because you can only have one team at a time in the old middle school gym and 2 teams at most int he HS gym, leaving one team out to fend for themselves i guess...i think we could use another gym, just for that purpose...as for the musicals and fall plays, have you ever gone to one? do you realize how uncomfortable those seats are? do you know how little room there is for seating? have you heard the sounds of actors walking either across the stage or backstage? and lastly, are you able to hear the actors if you sit in the back of the gymatorium? the stage/backstage floor squeaks terribly and it was not built for what we need. real auditoriums have ceilings just at the tops of the backdrops so that the sound does not escape and go behind them...the ceilings force the sound forward and the gym is a great place for sounds to echo, which we dont need....thats my stance on that

HMMMM wrote:

unfortunately the elementary kids are all crammed into the calvert building and there are not enuf classrooms.

i disagree...there are the same number of grades in Calvert. it still goes from K - 3, AND they added on another building, so they DO have enough room

[so and so]

go up to Calvert and FIND and empty room and THEN disagree! There are FOUR KDG. THREE 1st grades 3 SECOND grades and THREE 3rd grades. There is not an empty corner! Yes I agree that the HS blg, is crowded but dont disagree until you have been to the elementary school this year and SEEN the problem.

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