The Lincoln Board of Education held its regular meeting on Tuesday, October 13, at 6:00 p.m. at the Lincoln Public Schools Steve Joel District Leadership Center, 5905 O Street. You can watch the full regular meeting video on YouTube.
First reading
Newly annexed property to the City of Lincoln
The Board of Education assigns school attendance areas to property newly annexed to the City of Lincoln. This action establishes school attendance areas prior to the sale of residential lots, allowing purchasers to know what schools their children will attend.
The area near 88th Street and Pioneers Boulevard was recently annexed into the City of Lincoln. The proposal assigns the newly annexed area to Maxey Elementary School, Lux Middle School and East High School.
The Board will hold a second reading and vote on the proposed assignments at the next meeting.
Classroom management, analytics, and filtering software-as-a-service
Computing Services staff have been working with educators, LPS Student Services and LPS Security to review current platforms and find a solution that assists in classroom management of computing devices during instructional time, analytics and content filtering.
LPS has always had separate vendors for each of these services: Ativion for filtering over the last eight years, Hāpara for classroom management for approximately 12 years, and Lightspeed for analytics for approximately seven years. The new proposal would combine all three areas into one platform serviced by Lightspeed.
By streamlining these services into one provider, LPS will be following industry standards while lowering the overall cost as the price for these separate services continues to rise. Other potential benefits include empowering teachers to monitor, direct and control student devices to align their use with instructional objectives; and increased analytics to assist with budget conversations and policy adoption.
Due to the timeline needed to implement software switchovers before the 2027-2028 school year, the Board waived second reading and voted to approve the three-year agreement to purchase Lightspeed software-as-a-service.
Second reading
Newly annexed property to the City of Lincoln
The Board of Education assigns school attendance areas to property newly annexed to the City of Lincoln. This action establishes school attendance areas prior to the sale of residential lots, allowing purchasers to know what schools their children will attend.
The area near Fire Trail PUD was recently annexed into the City of Lincoln. The proposal assigns the newly annexed area to Maxey Elementary School, Lux Middle School and East High School.
The Board held a second reading and voted to approve the assignments.
Resolution for option enrollment students 2027-28
Nebraska students may attend a school other than the one in the district in which they reside under the option enrollment statutes as long as they meet the statutory and legal conditions, and their application is received by Aug. 6, 2027.
A state law passed by the Nebraska Legislature requires school districts to adopt option enrollment capacity limits by Oct. 15 for the following school year. The capacity limits for the 2027-28 school year will be published on the LPS website.
Option enrollment is different from the High School Choice form for LPS students. Lincoln Public Schools eighth graders and those going into LPS Focus Programs will continue to have their choice of attending any of the LPS high schools as long as they return the High School Choice Form by the deadline.
The Board held a second reading and voted to approve the resolution and capacity limits.
Legislative guidelines
Each year, various federal, state and local governmental bodies will consider legislative and administrative actions that will impact Lincoln Public Schools. To communicate the positions of the Board of Education, the Board approves legislative guidelines that provide guidance to district staff and representatives communicating with governmental bodies.
The proposed draft of Legislative Guidelines for 2026-2027 remains the same as the previous year and there are no proposed changes.
The Board held a second reading and voted to approve the guidelines.
Informational items and reports
Superintendent update
LPS Superintendent John Skretta opened his comments celebrating the end of a successful first quarter.
“Accompanied by school board members on formal school visits throughout this first quarter, we have observed teachers and staff members practicing patience and persistence, guided by a belief in the potential of every child to succeed and an unwavering commitment to realizing our mission, day in, day out, in preparing students for success,” said Skretta.
Skretta also congratulated Associate Superintendent for Business Affairs Liz Standish on recently being honored with the Inspire Award for 2026 for Leadership in Education. This annual event celebrates the impact of women in leadership across career sectors. The finalists for the education category also included North Star High School Principal Megan Kroll and LPS Federal Programs office professional Sherry Johnson and New American Specialist Raya Al Zuihr Raya.
Skretta added, “As superintendent, I am truly honored to be able to work with Liz each day. I have known Liz for many years and admired her leadership impact and business affairs acumen from afar. Now having the opportunity to work together on the same team, I am even more impressed by her integrity, her diligence, her undeniable expertise and her passion for public education.”
Public comment
There were no individuals that addressed the Board during the public comment period.
Glimpses of LPS
We open every Board meeting with a video that highlights LPS. Tuesday’s Glimpses highlighted the LPS Early Childhood Avenues initiative. The program embeds college students and paraeducators into LPS classrooms for training before they begin their careers as certified teachers.