Thread: NE: School officials across state joining to address minorit

Nebraska School officials across state joining to address minority needs
BY OSKAR GARCIA / The Associated Press
Wednesday, Mar 05, 2008 - 03:59:27 pm CST

Leading educators in the state said Wednesday that school districts need to jointly figure out how to plan for a burgeoning minority population that is quickly changing needs in Nebraska’s schools. The Nebraska Department of Education and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln met in Lincoln with dozens of administrators, teachers and students from across the state to talk about building a network so districts can better share information and address new issues.

“We must hold our immigrant students to the highest expectations, as we do all our students,’’ said Ann Masters of the Nebraska Department of Education.

The network would help districts address a wide range of issues facing all minorities, but immigrants would be a major focus of the group, as schools assimilate young Hispanic students and encourage participation of families new to their communities.

“We shouldn’t consider this to be a project — we should consider it as something that is new, beginning and ongoing,’’ said Larry Dlugosh of UNL’s Department of Educational Administration.

The idea for the new network came out of eight meetings held across the state, Dlugosh said.

The meetings revealed recurring issues, such as helping point new immigrants to service providers and community resources or, in meatpacking towns, forming contingency plans in case school is disrupted by large-scale immigration arrests.

Educators expect those problems to become more pronounced as the state’s minority population continues to increase.

The state’s leading demographer said young immigrants have accounted for almost all the growth in Nebraska since 1990. Hispanics became the state’s largest minority in 2000, demographer Jerry Diechert said.

“We just needed people to work here because we didn’t have enough Nebraskans born,’’ said Diechert, who is with the University of Nebraska at Omaha Center for Public Affairs Research. “Folks in nursing homes are a lot different than folks in day care.’’

Wednesday’s meeting was organized for districts that are part of the RESPONSE Network, a coalition of schools in cities that have seen recent influxes of immigrants.

http://journalstar.com/articles/2008/03 ... 586177.txt

Anybody aware of anything like this going in another state?

What's this all about? I don't understand this comment. Can someone enlighten me?

“We just needed people to work here because we didn’t have enough Nebraskans born,’’ said Diechert, who is with the University of Nebraska at Omaha Center for Public Affairs Research. “Folks in nursing homes are a lot different than folks in day care.’’

forming contingency plans in case school is disrupted by large-scale immigration arrests.

Correction: should say "by large-scale arrests of illegal aliens."

We must hold our immigrant students to the highest expectations, as we do all our students,’’ said Ann Masters of the Nebraska Department of Educatio



My, my....they do have some grand ideas, the poor misguided souls.

I'm sure that MALDEF, LaRaza, and the ACLU will set them straight soon enough.

Originally Posted by FedUpInNebraska

Anybody aware of anything like this going in another state?

What's this all about? I don't understand this comment. Can someone enlighten me?

“We just needed people to work here because we didn’t have enough Nebraskans born,’’ said Diechert, who is with the University of Nebraska at Omaha Center for Public Affairs Research. “Folks in nursing homes are a lot different than folks in day care.’’

LOL He's an idiot! Common sense says if you have ALL your growth come from immigrants, then the immigrants are creating the demand for more workers. That is to say you wouldn't need more restaurant workers, because you wouldn't have that many restaurants. You wouldn't need to fund so many schools, because you wouldn't have ALL those immigrants. Does that clear it up?..

He belongs in a nursing home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!