Option enrollment changes approved

by Jason Futch
Published 5/20/26

The North Bend Central Board of Education spent a lengthy portion of its May 11 meeting wrestling with the future of the district’s option enrollment policies, weighing new state requirements, financial concerns, and the long-term impact of expanding enrollment preferences for part-time district employees and coaches.

At the center of the discussion was a recent change in Nebraska law that affects how public schools handle option enrollment applications — particularly involving siblings of accepted students.

During the meeting, superintendent Patrick Ningen explained that under the legislative changes passed during the most recent session, schools may now be required to consider and potentially accept siblings of students already admitted through option enrollment, even in situations where capacity or costs become concerns.

“You’re possibly not just accepting the one student, but all of their siblings as well,” he said. “Even if that would cause you to go over capacity or if your policy says that you wouldn’t consider a student if they had high needs, it would cause you to hire another staff or pay for expensive equipment.”

Ningen said the district’s legal counsel, KSB School Law, recommended policy revisions intended to preserve some local control by allowing districts to evaluate an entire family’s educational needs before approving enrollment requests.

“This would allow you to ask questions of the siblings to make sure that you still try not to go over capacity or perhaps have to hire extra staff or purchase expensive equipment,” Ningen said.

Board members repeatedly returned to concerns over special education costs and the financial obligations that can accompany option enrollment decisions. Several members worried that accepting one student could create long-term responsibilities for multiple siblings, including students with individualized education plans or other high-cost educational needs.

Board member Amy Williams had questions concerning long-term situations concerning coaches’ kids while referencing a public comment made by teacher Ken Streff at last month’s meeting supporting the measure. Full-time teachers’ children are treated like in-district students, and get to attend NBC whether they live in the district or not. The new policy will extend that perk to part-time employees and coaches.

“I thought that Ken did a great job of laying out really good reasons why we should,” she said. “But say after two or three years of being the stipend coach and we’ve accepted these children in the district, then he or she as a coach gets a full-time coaching position someplace else. Are we still then obligated to continue to educate their children at that point once they’ve been here two years?”

As the conversation continued, both board members Bob Feurer and Justin Taylor were concerned about the potential changes in the amount of money the state provides for the school options enrollment students.

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