Southeast Nebraska state school board race highlights mental health, teacher retention

Three candidates are vying for the State Board of Education's District 2 seat currently held by Lisa Fricke of Omaha, who declined to seek reelction. From left: Maggie Douglas, Karen Morgan and Linda Vermooten. (Photos courtesy of the candidates; School bus photo by Rebecca Gratz for the Nebraska Examiner)

LINCOLN — Three educators with backgrounds in mental health and nursing are looking to succeed a two-term board member who declined to seek reelection this year.

(Courtesy of Legislative Research Office)

Three candidates are looking to succeed District 2 board member Lisa Fricke of Omaha, who was first elected in 2016 and declined to seek reelection in 2024, as did all three other board members who could have run again this year. The candidates to replace Fricke are: Maggie Douglas of Bellevue, Linda Vermooten of Bellevue and Karen Morgan of Alvo.

The district consists of Sarpy, Cass, Otoe, Johnson and Nemaha Counties.

Voters will decide during the officially nonpartisan May 14 primary election which two candidates will compete one-on-one in the November election for a four-year term.

Douglas

Maggie Douglas

Age: 42

Political party: Democrat

Education: Bachelor’s degree in elementary education (Creighton University); master’s degrees in secondary education with an emphasis in math and mental health counseling (University of Nebraska at Omaha) and math education (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

Work experience: Teacher (Omaha Public Schools), adjunct math instructor (Metro Community College), student teacher supervision (UNO)

Political office: None

Douglas taught for 10 years in public schools and for five in parochial school. She graduated from high school in Scottsbluff before coming to Creighton University for her undergraduate degree in elementary education.

She taught in Omaha Public Schools and soon learned that math was her forte, earning master’s degrees from the University of Nebraska’s Lincoln and Omaha campuses. 

Douglas said she then got more concerned about students’ well-being and mental health so she earned a third master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling.

“[I] made the decision to put my energy and efforts towards helping our schools, our students and our teachers,” Douglas said of why she’s running.

From both her personal experiences and those of teachers she’s spoken to, she said there is still not the ideal amount of respect toward educators and that’s one thing she wants to improve by working with superintendents, administrators, teachers and families.

“We can all get on the same page and know that our best interest is for the students,” she said.

Douglas added that, while a registered Democrat, she does not have a political agenda, just experience in the state’s education system that she wants to improve.

Morgan

Morgan has a wide range of teaching experience, including internationally, in Nebraska, Hawaii, Texas, Florida, Iowa, California and Brazil and concluded each had a culture that needed to be valued.

Karen Morgan

Age: 80

Political party: Democrat

Education: Bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education with emphasis on English, speech and language; registered nurse license, as well as bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing with emphasis on adult education; teaching certificates in first aid, CPR, EMS and nursing education

Work experience: Teacher (English, speech and theater); mental health counselor

Political office: None

“When you come across the culture that’s different and start saying there’s something wrong with this culture because it’s not my culture, you’re defeating the whole purpose of education,” she said.

One of her main reasons for running is to restore “balance” through her more progressive and liberal ideas, she said. A registered Democrat, she holds strong feelings about teaching “truth in history.”

Some students are learning inaccurate information, she said, involving, for example, the national government’s actions against Native Americans or the Civil War being about slavery, not states’ rights.

“We’re lying to our students, and by lying to them, we’re undermining our own educational process, because once our kids — who are smart — discover that we’ve been lying, all credibility is gone,” Morgan said.

She wants the State Board of Education to use its power to enforce anti-discriminatory laws and rules, such as for transgender students, and to fight against censorship that removes books from classroom and library shelves “because somebody doesn’t find them to their liking.”

Morgan has multiple undergraduate and graduate degrees, as well as teaching certificates, in nursing or related fields.

Vermooten

Vermooten, who grew up in South Africa and spent time in the Netherlands before finding a home in the United States, said she has always been passionate about education even though she was “one of those kids who got left behind in school.

“I was told that I’m not smart enough to go to university or college and get any kind of degree. Now, clearly, that was not accurate,” Vermooten said.

Linda Vermooten

Age: 64

Political party: Republican

Education: Doctorate, Forest Institute of Professional Psychology

Work experience: Registered nurse, midwife, clinical psychology, Grace University department chair

Political office: None

She is now armed with a doctorate degree and said her personal experiences could help students who face similar struggles. She also wants to help students who may be facing mental health challenges in a world that is rapidly changing.

“I want to make sure that we don’t do any disservice to our students but that we ensure that we help every student achieve their fullest potential,” Vermooten said.

Understanding there are eight people on the board, Vermooten said, she wants to bring a fiscal responsibility perspective that provides greater parity between taxpayer dollars and student achievement — test scores and general success.

Vermooten, a registered Republican, noted the race is designed to be nonpartisan for a reason and she wants to appeal to all voters.

Teacher retention and recruitment

Among the top issues for all three candidates is teacher retention and recruitment. Morgan suggested a first-year or first-semester probationary program for new teachers who could have a guide or mentor available to them should they get stuck or have questions. 

“Once they get past that, they’ve got the option of going full time, and you raise their salaries,” Morgan said.

Teacher contracts could also be restructured to be multi-year commitments within districts, instead of schools, coming with the option for renewal and promotions at the end, Morgan said.

Douglas said she wants to build on the state’s current, positive trajectory that includes multiple incentives and pathways toward licensure for teachers.

“I still think there’s more work we can do,” Douglas said.

Douglas noted that high schools and colleges already have many programs that create pathways into the profession, which should be continued and could provide greater representation among teachers so students see teachers who look like them.

Vermooten said the state must retain long-term teachers and build interest, such as by strengthening retention bonuses or boosting entry-level teacher salaries so they are more equitable when compared to administrators’ salaries. However, some of that work is outside the board’s control.

She also wants the board to work beside teachers, such as on a subcommittee or working group, to ask,“You in the trenches: What do you think would work to retain teachers and we’re not yet doing?”

“We have to become innovative and look at things differently than we have looked at them before,” Vermooten.

Curriculum changes

Douglas said she wants to ensure that experts are being involved in the field when it comes to crafting curricula, noting there is a “pretty good balance,” which she would ensure stays.

“We need to hear from our teachers, and we need to hear from the experts in the fields,” Douglas said.

Morgan said much of her teaching experience has been at the secondary level and suggested more blue-collar-type classes, such as home economics and welding, are critical.

“Why don’t we prepare our kids who are not going to be going to the post-secondary education system, who have declared they’re not going to, and offer them something that would be available for immediate hire as soon as they graduate from high school?” Morgan said.

Vermooten noted that the board and the Legislature have emphasized work with phonics and reading and said that work should continue, as should work to strengthen the “basics” of a school day — English, reading, writing, math, science and geography.

She also wants strong civics courses so students know that the United States is the “best country in the world” with the best educational system, even if it’s not perfect.

“Every nation has good and bad — as they say, the good, bad and ugly,” Vermooten said. “Can’t hide the ugly part of our history, it’s part of our history, but what do we learn from that as we move forward? And how do we embrace who we are as Americans?”

Parental involvement and library books

Vermooten said she is hearing from voters, particularly parents, who are concerned that they don’t have a say over their children and about what’s happening in schools.

Parents need to be kept in the loop, Vermooten explained, seeing the board as a possible tool  to provide parenting skills training.

“You buy a brand-new piece of technology, you get this amazing guidebook,” Vermooten said. “You get married, you have a baby, you go to the hospital and you come home, well, there’s not a manual that goes home with you.”

Vermooten said content policies should be age-appropriate. Asked how to create those, she said it comes back to having a right mix of backgrounds on the board, arguing she understands brain development and how inappropriate content affects children.

She is a regular testifier at the Nebraska Legislature, supporting proposals that, for example, sought to address obscenity in schools and expand criminal liability for providing obscene materials to children.

Morgan said she also wants age-appropriate standards, stating she would not have books about being gay or about same-sex relationships in elementary schools, and likely not in middle schools.

Students are discovering their identities in high school, Morgan said, so putting a stigma on such books and telling students not to read those books would likely have the opposite effect.

“Telling high school kids that they can’t do something, it’s just a trigger that says that’s what they’re going to do,” Morgan said.

Douglas said that policies involving school books should remain at the local level and that the state board shouldn’t be deciding which books are available.

“People that are closer to the students know the students and their needs better than we would at the state,” she said. “I don’t think that there is a one-size-one-book-fits-all rule that would work.”

Douglas is seeking to maintain a positive attitude toward parental involvement and said it could help to encourage parents or community members to engage at local school events or to thank teachers, such as by donating supplies.

“Everything we can do to make our schools feel appreciated is going to create a better morale and a better education setting for our students,” Douglas said.

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