ESU #1 Central Office
Mission: Providing Innovation, Leadership and Service
Educational Service Unit #1 proudly serves children in school districts in Cedar, Dakota, Dixon, Knox, Thurston and Wayne counties in northeast Nebraska.
ESU #1 is headquartered in Wakefield and provides a wide range of services to 23 school districts, including professional development, digital learning and internet services, and student support for individuals with special needs.
Educational Service Units were created by the Nebraska Unicameral in 1965. The purpose of the ESU is to provide services that individual school districts cannot economically or efficiently provide for themselves.
Vision: ESU #1 will model excellence by helping schools increase educators effectiveness and student learning as a result of expert services.
What's new at ESU #1
Merissa Cruye and Shelsea Bia represented the Omaha Tribe at the NeMTSS Summit. They shared how they helped establish an MTSS leadership team at the early childhood level focused on building a system of support using data-based decision-making to enhance children’s social, emotional and behavioral learning. The Head Start and Early Head Start programs plan to continue this work to ultimately foster seamless transitions for children from their programs to Umoⁿhoⁿ Nation Public Schools.
Daphne Darter, Rebecca Jepsen and Chantelle Nelsen represented ESU 1's Tower School at the NeMTSS Summit last week where they shared some exciting work they've been doing to maximize the supports they provide to students. They recognized the need for a multi-tiered systematic approach to support students with complex needs and successfully implemented this change. In partnership with NeMTSS, Nebraska PBIS and the Nebraska School Mental Health Institute, the Tower School identified opportunities to expand core practices. As a result of partnerships, teaming and professional learning through a systems-change lens, the team established and expanded practices at the universal level. Not only did they share their implementation process and successes, they also shared ideas they have to expand MTSS in the future.
ESU1 and the Region 3 NeMTSS Team extends congratulations to the Omaha Tribe Head Start team for having their proposal selected to be a School Spotlight at the 2024 NeMTSS Summit in Kearney set for Sept. 26-27. ![]()
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We'll all be cheering you on at the Summit! Way to go!