75 CENTS
OMAHA STAR
THE
Women’s History Month:
Proudly Serving Our Community for Over 80 Years Dedicated to the Service of the People that NO Good Cause Shall Lack a Champion and that Evil Shall Not Go Unopposed
Nebraska’s Only Black Owned Newspaper Vol. 82 - No. 5 Omaha, Nebraska
Friday, March 6, 2020
75 cents
Nebraska Arts Council Announces 2020 Individual Artist Fellowships The Individual Artist Fellowship program recognizes exemplary work by Nebraska artists and provides support through public recognition and monetary awards of $1,000- $5,000. Professional, out-of-state jurors adjudicate work according to the merit of the artists’ work. The program rotates annually, highlighting different artistic disciplines each year. Those Performing Arts Recipients from our community includes: Denise Chapman,Theater /Playwright; Lite Pole, Music/Sound; and Beaufield Berry, Theater/ Playwright. Denise Chapman graduated from Creighton University with a BA in theatre. She went on to receive her MFA from the Theatre Conservatory at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. After graduation, she performed with Qwest Educational Programs touring elementary and middle schools in the greater Chicago land area and worked as a Solo performing artist. She returned to Omaha in 2006 and worked with Blue Barn’s Witching hour for three years as Co-Artistic director/ensemble member and at the Omaha Community Playhouse as the director of education and outreach. Currently she is the Producing Artistic Director of Theatre at The Union for Contemporary Art and an adjunct professor at Metro Community College and the University of Nebraska Omaha. Denise began writing plays as a part of her theatre practice after her time at Creighton University. Later, inspired by her graduate schoolteacher Bruce Kirle who said, “Don’t leave your narrative in the hands of people on the outside looking in.” She deepened
Denise Chapman
Lite Pole (LP)
this practice with solo performance work and eventually worked with the Great Plains Theatre Conference and Metro Community Theatre to create new work for Playfest, a new work festival that uses theatre as a catalyst for dialogue within our community, using stories that bridge our human experiences. https://www. dechapman.com/ Lite Pole (LP) is an aspiring artist from Omaha, Ne. His articulate rhyme scheme and use of whimsical metaphors define him as one of the most distinguished and unorthodox lyricist on the music scene. Always having a natural inkling for art since a child; LP found his passion for music in 7th Grade after being exposed to his peers free-styling during their daily lunch periods. Since then LP has been developing himself into a fine lyricist and an established producer, creating instrumentals under the alias “2 Stomachs”. In 2011, LP began UnPlugged Connection™ (UPC) under which he operates his music and clothing line. His goal is to spread peace and consciousness to his listeners and breathe life back into the “Art” of storytelling. LP’s work explores the underbelly of society that is often neglected. With influences such as Amir Suilaman and Maya Angelou to 2pac and Kurt Cobain, he grasps the emotional spectrum of the “average man” and gives it wings through descriptive story telling. Even as a child, he appointed himself as “the
Beaufield Berry-Fisher
Women’s History Month: Celebrate The Women Who have Influenced You
people’s voice.” In that role, he recognizes the wrong in the world and hurt within the downtrodden as he strives to be the herald of the “streets” and exploit the less glamorous side of the coin. His motto is “one must ruffle feathers to remind birds they can still fly.” Beaufield Berry-Fisher is an Omaha-based playwright, novelist and arts education professional. Her work has been performed across the country and in multiple conferences, including the Great Plains Theater Conference, Philadelphia Sparkfest, Manhattan Rep and Colorado New Play Summit. She served as a guest artist with Inge Fest in Independence, Kansas, on several panels and boards. Berry was the Vice President of the Omaha Entertainment and Arts awards and as an educator with Omaha Performing Arts. Beaufield is currently the Performing Arts Editor at the Reader and Resident playwright at Creighton University. Her play, In the Upper Room (Oneill 2018 Finalist) will be produced by Great Plains in May of 2020. Her latest play Red Summer, held a successful run at Omaha’s Bluebarn Theater in 2019. $5,000: • Denise Chapman, Theater/ Playwright (Omaha) • Seth Shafer, Music/Sound (Omaha) $2,500: • Lite Pole, Music/Sound (Omaha) • Sydney Shead, Filmmaking/ Screenwriting (Omaha) $1,000: • Katherine Fackler, Choreography (Omaha) • Ellen Struve, Theater/ Playwright (Omaha) • Beaufield Berry, Theater/ Playwright (Omaha) • Stacey Barelos, Music/ Sound (Omaha) • Darcy Lueking Bahensky (Holdrege)
OPS Launches Strategic Plan of Action for 2020-2025
A world-class city needs a thriving public school system to match – one that meets and exceeds the needs of students, families and staff at every school within the district. On Feb. 3, the Omaha Public Schools Board of Education approved a new 5-year Strategic Plan of Action in a 9-0 vote, giving positive momentum to a comprehensive plan for an even stronger school district. “We need to believe that we have the opportunity to make Omaha Public Schools the best urban school district in the country,” said Dr. Cheryl Logan, Superintendent of Omaha Public Schools. “It’s important for us to understand what we have to do to make it happen, and that’s what this plan is all about.” Omaha Public Schools leadership used a process called “Strategic Foresight” in developing the Strategic Plan of Action. The forward-looking approach allows the district to anticipate and respond to global and local trends that affect OPS students, teachers, families and the community as a whole. “These trends fall into five categories: Society, Technology, Environment, Economy and Politics,” said Logan. “Some examples of trends we aim to address include teacher shortages, rising poverty, an increase in racial and ethnic diversity, and growing funding challenges.” Identifying Shared Values Over the course of more than a year, the OPS executive leadership team worked with staff, parents and community members to establish a set of organizational values, norms and attitudes that unite everyone in the OPS community. These shared values – Equity, Results, Leadership, Accountability and Joy – guided every element of the plan’s creation. “One of the things that was really fundamental to planning was understanding what we value. As we were working together, we realized how crucial shared values are to having a plan that reflects the entire organization,” said Logan. “Going forward, programming within Omaha Public Schools should embody these values in order to represent what our families want and our children need.” The planning process included more than 680 hours of stakeholder input, seven comprehensive reviews of data and results, and the guidance and insight of third-party organizations that provided a financial audit and budget projection, a comprehensive review of literacy, and an audit of the programs OPS currently offers. Setting Goals for Graduation
Next Issue: March 20, 2020 Submissions to paper by March 12, 2020
The resulting plan features a “Portrait of an Omaha Public Schools Graduate,” which defines what every OPS graduate should know and be able to do by the time they graduate. In the plan’s example, the OPS graduate is defined as a Resilient Achiever, Collaborator, Communicator, Critical Thinker, Innovator, and a Civic and Global Contributor. “Our plan is to reference this graduate portrait from Pre-K through high school graduation as a means of ensuring each student has the skills they need to succeed after they move on from OPS,” said Logan. The plan also identifies four Strategic Priorities, or indicators of success for the coming years. They are, in order, Academics, Staff, Financial Accountability, and an Ethic of Care – how the OPS community cares for its students, one another, and even the earth. “Academics are our number-one priority, of course,” said Logan. “We’ve identified key areas where we want to see every single one of our schools succeed.” One example is that by June of 2025, each school in the district will aim to increase the percentage of ninth through twelfth-grade students identified as on-track for graduation by five percent. Measuring Success Going forward, OPS will monitor progress toward the Strategic Plan’s measurable goals through internal monitoring, with reports provided to the Board of Education and the community twice a year. Reaching these goals will require collaboration between OPS leadership, staff, families, the Board of Education and the community. “We all have to do our part,” said Marque Snow, Board of Education President. “On behalf of the Board of Education, we’re going to align resources so that Dr. Logan and her staff can meet their objectives. We’ll equip students and teachers with the best technology and the best support so we can hit our goals.” Logan has confidence that the shared values presented in the plan will help to keep all parties involved on task. “If our community adopts these values, then I have confidence that progress will be made,” she said. “By setting goals for our students and providing the resources they need to succeed, making sure our staff feels valued and appreciated, remaining fiscally responsible, and showing care and compassion for everyone in our community, we can make improve individual schools and strengthen our entire school district.”
How many Women do you know in the Word Cloud?