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Education inOmaha, Nebraska is provided by many private and public institutions. The first high school graduates in the Omaha area came fromBrownell-Talbot School, which was founded in the town ofSaratoga in 1863.[1] The oldest school building in continuous usage isOmaha Central High School.
In the mid-19th century, Omaha joined other progressive cities in establishing schools for girls. TheEpiscopal Church founded Brownell Hall, an all-girlssecondaryboarding school inSaratoga. It officially opened on September 15, 1863. Located at present-day 24th and Grand Avenue, this private religious school was named after an Episcopal bishop of New York, and was first located in the Saratoga Springs Hotel, a defunct resort. Students came to the school fromNebraska City,Bellevue,Florence,Fontanelle,Decatur and Omaha.[2] The school moved todowntown Omaha in 1868, and in the 1920s it moved to acentral Omaha location. Today it known asBrownell-Talbot School,[3] and is the oldest continuing school in Nebraska.[4]
Saratoga School at Meridith Avenue and North 25th Street was started in 1866 by local citizens. Theone room schoolhouse was one of the first public schools in Nebraska, and perhaps the first in the Omaha area.[5] In 1927, businessmen formed the North Omaha Activities Association to re-develop Saratoga School's playing field into a college football field forOmaha University's football team. At that time the university was located immediately south in theRedick Mansion at the affluentKountze 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.[6] The community was also home to theOmaha Presbyterian Theological Seminary, which closed in 1943.
TheAcademy of the Sacred Heart was opened in 1882 to providecollege preparatory education to young women in theNear North Side andKountze Park neighborhoods; later, the school specifically served women in theGold Coast andBemis Park neighborhoods.
Technical High School was the third high school built in Omaha. The city's largest public school building was a five-winged building with a large athletic field that occupied three square city blocks between Burt and Cuming Streets from 30th to 33rd Streets. By 1940, enrollment had reached 3,684.[7] The school was closed in 1984, and the building was completely renovated for use as theOmaha Public Schools central office. Today, it also serves as a home for the Career Center and Adult Education programs, serving 700-plus students daily.[8]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.[9]
From the 1880s through the beginning ofdesegregation busing inOmaha Public Schools in the early 1970s, severalsegregated schools in North Omaha served the city's African American students. They includedHoward Kennedy School,Lake School,Kellom School,Lothrop School, andLong School. Other schools in the area with largeAfrican American populations into the 1980s includedTech High,North High andCentral High School. Into the 1970s, these were widely regarded as the city's "black schools", with de factosegregation based on residential housing patterns. African American students and teachers felt they were kept from achievingequity with schools across the city thatwhite students attended.[10]
A different type of segregation affected the students at theNebraska School for the Deaf. The School, started in 1870 on 23 acres (93,000 m2) between Bedford Avenue and Wirt Street, between 42nd and 44th Streets, served thousands ofhearing-impaired students.[11]
As early as 2005, Nebraska State SenatorErnie Chambers proposed that North Omaha become responsible for educating its own students. Because of a proposal he made, on April 13, 2006, theNebraska Legislature passed Legislative Bill 1024 that would create three separate school districts out of Omaha Public Schools, including one specifically for North Omaha.[12] Thegovernor ofNebraska signed the bill into law later that day.[13]
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 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.[14] Five days later a motion to reconsider AM3142 failed in aroll-call vote of 9 to 31 with 9 senators not voting.[15]
It is suspected that OPS may file asuit challenging the newlaw. On May 16, 2006, theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed a suit against the governor and other Nebraskastate officials charging that LB 1024, originally proposed by state senatorErnie Chambers, "intentionally furthersracial segregation." The NAACP lawsuit argues that because Omaha has racially segregated residential patterns, subdivided school districts will also be racially segregated,[16] contrary toUnited Stateslaw. However the schools appear to be already segregated because of the neighborhoods, and children would have the option of going to any school in the district.
Primary and secondary public schools in theOmaha metro area is served by eight districts.
Portions of the Omaha city limits are in the following school districts: Omaha Public Schools, Westside Community Schools, Ralston Public Schools, Millard Public Schools, and Elkhorn Public Schools.[18]
There are dozens ofprivate schools in Omaha, including parochial and other types of schools.
| Private schools in the Omaha area | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| School name | |||||
| Brownell-Talbot School | |||||
| Legacy School | |||||
| Gethsemane Lutheran School | |||||
| Good Shepherd Lutheran School | |||||
| Montessori Learning Center Of Dundee | |||||
| Omaha Private Instruction Institute | |||||
| Montessori Children's House | |||||
| Zion Peace Lutheran School | |||||
| Friedel Jewish Academy | |||||
| Omaha Christian Academy | |||||
| Omaha Memorial SDA School | |||||
| Phoenix Academy of Learning | |||||
| Omaha Baptist Academy | |||||
| The Children's Room, Inc. | |||||
| Omaha Hearing School for Children | |||||
AllCatholic schools in Omaha are operated by theRoman Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha.
The Omaha Japanese School (オマハ日本語補習授業校Omaha Nihongo Hoshū Jugyō Kō), aJapanese weekend educational program approved by theJapanese Ministry of Education,[19] holds its classes at the St. Mark Lutheran Church in Omaha.[20]
