Eric Bell serves as the principal at Lexington High School. Bell sat down with The Antelope to share how Lexington Public Schools and its students are doing since the Tyson plant closure.
“Do you anticipate that enrollment numbers will decline after the school year ends because of students’ families having to relocate?”
We did a parent intention survey during our February student teacher conferences, and the results seemed pretty optimistic. 80 to 85% seemed to say that we are staying, and that felt pretty encouraging.
Even before the parent intention survey, it left the administrators with a question: if potentially even students’ families have to relocate, will that leave teachers without jobs because there wouldn’t be a need for them in the district?
“Even anticipating a percentage drop, like that 15%, would that affect staffing at all throughout the district?”
Yes, it would. We as a district are trying to absorb those losses now. The last thing we want to do is risk losing someone at the end of this year. If you wanted a job in Lexington Public Schools, you would have a job.
Being a public school in the state of Nebraska, the district receives local and state funding, and that also depends on enrollment numbers. 57% of the funding comes from the state, 29% is local and roughly 14% comes from federal. Their spending per pupil is roughly $14,000, which is near the national average. This is a district that relies more on state aid rather than local tax revenue.
“Is there going to be a big hit in the funding that you receive?”
If there is a 10-15% drop, then yes, we will lose money. That is why we are trying to absorb some of our positions now.
Obviously, at this point, we don’t know if numbers will go down and what is going to happen because things can easily change so fast. With numbers potentially going down, that means that certain activities in the building could be affected.
“How will numbers being down affect certain activities within the building?”
We will still be a healthy Class B school, even with the anticipated drop. We will not be dropping a class in that area. Unless something unusual happens that we were not aware of in the beginning, everything should look relatively the same for us in that aspect.
