Learning community elimination, changes proposed

The Education Committee heard testimony Feb. 26 on a bill that would terminate the Learning Community and coordinating council.

Learning communities were established by the Legislature in 2006 for any city of the metropolitan class in an effort to improve minority academic achievement. The Omaha Learning Community was established in 2007 and currently is comprised of 11 school districts: Bellevue, Bennington, Douglas County West, Elkhorn, Gretna, Millard, Omaha, Papillion-LaVista, Ralston, Springfield-Platteview and Westside. The learning community is governed by a coordinating council and authorized to assess and distribute a common property tax levy to support operational costs in conjunction with state aid appropriations.

LB179, introduced by Papillion Sen. Bill Kintner, would dissolve the Omaha Learning Community effective July 1, 2014. Kinter said the bill would eliminate a failed experiment that has added to the property tax burden of Omaha taxpayers without any substantial improvement in minority academic achievement.

“The achievement gap does not seem to have changed in any meaningful way since the learning community was created,” he said.

Papillion-La Vista Public Schools superintendent Rick Black supported the bill, saying the learning community has not lived up to its original mission.

“The main components of the original bill could have been accomplished without the learning community,” Black said. “The collection and redistribution of the common levy has never achieved its original purpose.”

Sara Goodell, a teacher at the Omaha Learning Community Center, opposed the bill, saying it has helped many students achieve success.

“We may be taking small steps, but we’re taking thousands of them in the right direction,” she said.

Dimas Criceno of Omaha also opposed the bill. He said he attends the center twice each week for three hours a day to study English and take parenting classes.

“It’s a really important program for my family and especially my kids’ future,” he said. “They have changed my life. My kids are happy. I speak more with my kids and spend more time with them.”

The committee also heard testimony on LB9, introduced by Omaha Sen. Bob Krist, which would amend the existing mandatory transportation provision within the Learning Community. Currently any student attending a school outside of their home attendance area is provided transportation to school at the expense of their home district.

Under LB9, transportation would be provided only for students who increase socioeconomic diversity in their chosen school district.

“This would control costs while preserving the diversity goals originally intended in the law,” Krist said.

Andrew Rikli, assistant superintendent of the Omaha Westside School District, supported the bill, saying approximately one-third of his district’s students come through open enrollment.

“We’re spending more on transportation for students than teacher salaries, textbooks and technology,” he said. “Any resources diverted from student achievement is misguided.”

No one testified in opposition to LB9.

The committee took no immediate action on either bill.