Getting to school isn't elementary

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Rowdy Nielsen's winding daily trip to kindergarten and back home may be all you need to know about the effect of Missouri River flooding on families with schoolchildren.

Rowdy and his mother, Tabatha Nielsen, of Niobrara, Neb., use an all-terrain vehicle to cross four cow pastures, then travel three miles down a dusty gravel road and follow a little-used county road for two more miles to get to Niobrara Elementary School.

When floodwaters aren't covering the closed Nebraska Highway 12, it takes the family five minutes to travel the two miles to school.

"Now it takes over 30 minutes to get there," Nielsen said. "I don't know what we would do if our neighbors didn't let us cross their land."

All along the Missouri River valley in Iowa and Nebraska, school officials and families face the same problem as the Nielsens and are working out how to get their students to campus.

Bus routes are changing, starting early or being canceled. Extracurricular activities, especially sports schedules, are being reviewed for adjustments to start times to accommodate longer travel times.

And kids are headed to bed earlier to be ready for really early morning departures.

Missouri River flooding began in late May, when most schools were done for the year. The river could drop below flood stage as early as the end of this month near Niobrara and by early October near Falls City, Neb.

Of course that won't mean everything returns to normal. Crews will have to assess damage to roads, bridges, businesses and homes that have been wet — if not under water — for weeks. And the cost of those repairs won't include the added transportation expenses for schools and families, not to mention the disruption to work and family schedules.

Schools are taking various approaches to the challenge.

Bus routes in Fort Calhoun, Neb., and Missouri Valley, Iowa, for example, have been rerouted and some have been canceled.

Families displaced by flooding may be eligible for bus rides under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, which says that schools must provide help getting homeless children to school.

Glenwood Public Schools Superintendent Devin Embray said flooding has displaced an "undetermined number of families" in his district. He knows of only one family that will take advantage of the federal act. The family evacuated to Omaha and wants to keep its two young children in their Glenwood school.

"We are working with the Omaha Public Schools to make that happen," Embray said. "OPS will take the students part of the way and hand them off to our transportation people."

OPS spokeswoman Luanne Nelson said the Glenwood family is the only case it has had of sharing busing with another district.

Nielsen, the Niobrara mom, is coping with her transportation challenge for now — school started just last Tuesday — but she's worried about later this year.

Nielsen's not keen on making her journey in the dark, so the family hopes Highway 12 reopens before too much longer.

"It isn't an easy drive, and you have to get out to open and close gates for each pasture," she said. "I would prefer not doing it in the dark because not only do you have to worry about hitting cows but deer, too. Then you also have to worry about sliding into the ravines."

Tabatha and her husband, Derek, would like to enroll 3-year-old son Payten in Niobrara's Head Start program that begins Oct. 3 but worry about getting him there. If the road's not open, Tabatha Nielsen said, "I would be taking that trip four times a day."

The transportation dilemma also interferes with the family's sleep schedule.

Last year Rowdy got out of bed about 7 a.m. to prepare for preschool. This year he needs to rise and shine closer to 6 a.m., his mother said.

"He's going to have to go to bed a whole lot earlier than last year," she said. "That will be an adjustment."

Many of Niobrara's other 150 students also face earlier-than-usual wakeup calls. Margaret Sandoz, the superintendent of Niobrara Public Schools, said the closing of Highway 12 east of town adds 20 minutes each way to bus rides for approximately 90 students, moving up their boarding time to 6:45 a.m.

"The buses will have to go onto county and township roads instead of the highway," Sandoz said. "This has created some safety concerns, but we are doing everything we can do and we're hoping Highway 12 is deemed safe and reopened by the end of September."

About 300 miles southeast, at Falls City, river flooding shouldn't inconvenience students coming to class, but extracurricular activities will be an adventure.

Tim Heckinlively, the superintendent for Falls City Public Schools, said students there compete with a large number of Missouri and Kansas schools. With Interstate 29 shut down, he expects detours to add two and three hours to travel time.

"A 50-minute ride to Rock Port, Mo., could now take three times as long," Heckinlively said. "Our students, parents and staff will have to travel south to Hiawatha, Kan., east to St. Joe, Mo., and then back north to Rock Port."

Heckinlively, who has sons in the seventh and ninth grades on football teams, said school officials are studying the schedules of junior high and reserve sports teams to see if any contests might be postponed, switched to neutral locations or even canceled.

"I know that the (officials) at the schools we play are doing the same thing," Heckinlively said. "From everything I hear, it could be the first of the year before the water goes down and roads are repaired."

Ron Jordening has a son playing football and a daughter playing softball this fall for Falls City High School. The family is already looking over schedules and planning their trips.

"I just know that it's going to be a long road this year," Jordening said. "Just to get to Maryville (Mo.) it's about 120 miles versus 60 in the past. Anything east of the river will be an adventure."

Contact the writer:

402-444-1272, kevin.cole@owh.com

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