S
Lincoln, NE 68516

Unfortunately, there's not a strong academic focus at Irving. There are a few great teachers, but they don't get a lot of support from administration.

I think the review written about the benefit of their children being exposed to “minority” and “homeless” students kind of hits the nail on the head. I attended Lincoln High because I was districted in, but I went to school with a number of students who chose to attend out of district to take advantage of the school’s award-winning theater department or its then-nascent IB program. For these students, I have no doubt that this school provided a great education on par with or above that of Southwest or East. It was almost as though there were a school-within-a-school—these students and myself took different, more advanced classes, formed a separate social milieu, and in large part, mirrored the predominately white and suburban neighborhoods which bordered the district while being taught by teachers who resembled ourselves.I attended Lincoln High full time for one year as a freshman before deciding to continue my studies at a district-wide focus program, which was a wonderful reprieve and invaluable educational experience. Because I was still required by this program to supplement with classes taught at Lincoln High in the morning, however, I began attending the Lincoln High which lay underneath that of the out-of-district gentrifiers. It was not a wholly opposite experience—there were a number of educators I encountered who were seriously invested in the education of _all_ the students at this school, and their efforts were not in vain. But their tutelage were isolate experiences from the general neglect which most students who attend this school experience.When we were not tagged, searched, and being chatteled like cattle through the hallways by CO-like staff, we were sat to endure hours of being babysat by hostile retirement-aged instructors from rural Nebraska with the occasional lecture on the most stultifying and outdated curriculum. After junior year, when students turn 16 and are no longer legally bound to attend, these classes emptied dramatically, and like the commenter below stated, attendance was essentially a non-requirement. I was truant approximately one-third of my senior year, yet graduated with honors.I think what I found most disgusting was how impenetrable the school above was from below. Students and teachers both were downright nasty towards us when they pretended we were not there. Keep in mind this apartheid when reading these reviews, and consider which Lincoln High your student would be classed in.

Caring, thoughtful staff. Beautiful old building. Perfect elementary school.