good career counseling--another reason for consolidation

One of the most important things that a young person needs today is good career counseling. The economy of today is drastically different then what it was 20 years ago. If a young person stays in Leigh, about the only options for jobs are the Coop or the local hog confinement operation.

The present school can NEVER provide the counseling that a student needs. At the most, the counselor can only be a part timer who is also teaching English and coaching the girls volleyball team. The counseling I had was ridiculous---basically given a handful of college brochures and a "good luck".

Bad career counselling and the subsequent bad career decision can be devastating. It can take years to overcome getting into a bad profession.

If we had a larger school, there could be a dedicated student counseling department with full time counselors. The counselor would be someone who has had knowledge and experience of the larger world out there, and NOT someone who has barely gotten out of the Platte/Colfax county area in their entire lives.

Desperately seeking property tax relief

Let's not beat around the bush: Property taxes in the Leigh District 39 are outrageous!

Eighty percent of the property tax levy goes to support the local Leigh school district.

Property tax payers in the Leigh area desperately need immediate and real property tax relief. Reducing the expenditures for the local school is the answer, and SCHOOL CONSOLIDATION is the ONLY viable alternative to reduce the property tax burden.

We MUST have immediate and determined efforts to consolidate the Leigh, Howells, Dodge, and Clarkson public school districts. Here we have FIVE separate school districts within a 20 mile distance. This is no longer sustainable.

A few individuals who have well-profited having good local jobs in the Leigh community school are the main opponents to any real reform. Determined to protect their jobs in a community where such jobs are scarce to non-existent. We CANNOT let this small minority--the "school at any cost" people to continue to oppose high property taxes on the rest of us! The truth must be faced that Leigh (and the other communities mentioned) cannot afford to keep individual schools. The benefits of consolidation are immediate and well-documented. We must have serious efforts towards school consolidation NOW!

Out of Control NRDs

It is interesting to note that the Natural Resources Districts of Nebraska have a highly paid, and quite questionably professional, staff. And yet they are ambivalent but probably and most likely unaware and ignorant of this blog which has heavily and repeatedly criticized the Lower Elkhorn NRD for its support of the Leigh Dam Project. I have repeatedly pointed out that the Leigh dam project is a fiasco, supported by only a handful of bullying so-called upstanding citizens of Leigh. Please, please, please stop wasting my tax dollars! It is time for the board to stop funding this project and do what is right to the good farmers of this community who have lost their land to the Leigh Dam Project.

Next Time: Leigh School Taxes Squandered

Stay tuned for a major expose on how our Leigh school taxes are being squandered on staff time.