The Superior Express -

August in Nebraska is often known for two things. The first thing is that the new school year begins. The second thing is that the weather turns “hot and dry.”

Quite often they accomplish both things at the same time.

2023 for sure has.

In any case the 2023 – 2024 school year has started for most all schools in the state. The Fall High School Sports season is set to begin this week as well.

Enrollment figures for the South Central Unified School District No. 5 were obtained this week and are shown in the accompanying table.

In total, 632 students are being educated in the two schools: Lawrence-Nelson and Sandy Creek. 204 at L-N and 428 at Sandy Creek. (The figures do not include the preschool students.) We did not receive comparable figures from last year for Sandy Creek, but we did for L-N.

L-N Preschool has 33 students this year compared to 31 for 2022-23.

Sandy Creek has 39 students in pre-school.

L-N Elementary (K – fifth grades) has 89 students this year compared to 90 for 2022-23.

L-N Middle School (sixth – eighth grades) has 47 students this year compared to 56 for 2022-23.

L-N High School has 68 students this year compared to 64 for the 2022-23 school year.

Overall, there are four fewer students in the L-N school this year compared to 2022-23.

For sports competition this fall, Sandy Creek is class D-1 in football and in volleyball.

Lawrence-Nelson will be D-2 in both football and volleyball.

To round out the area, Superior is class D-1 in football and class C-2 in volleyball. Blue Hill is one of the larger class D-2 teams for football and a class D-1 team in volleyball.