Abraham Lincoln Elementary Daily Schedule
8:10 - First Bell 11:05 to 11:55 - 3rd through 5th Grade Lunch 11:55 to 12:45 - Kindergarten through 2nd Grade Lunch 3:20 - Dismissal (2:30 Dissmisal on Wednesday's)
Abraham Lincoln Elementary School is one of five elementary schools which is part of the Hastings Public School System, located in Hastings, Nebraska. There are approximately 320 students in Kindergarten through Fifth Grade. The principal is Mrs. Cara Beckenhauer. Special programs include afterschool activities and projects to work toward community involvement. Abraham Lincoln Elementary School is a Schoolwide Title I school.
This school was first called the First Ward School. It was the oldest and the first elementary school in Hastings, built in 1880 between Lincoln and Burlington avenues and A and B streets. In 1912 the building was razed and a new structure was built in the same area. Classes were held there until 1980. Abraham Lincoln School is now located at E Street and Franklin Avenue. It has been occupied since 1980.
1897 - 1936 - The first principal was Miss Nina Carpenter. Playground equipment consisted of swings, teeter-totters, basketballs and hoops, baseballs and bats, volleyballs. There were two grades in a room and ten to twelve students in a grade. Boys wore knee pants, overalls or knickerbockers, and high shoes. Girls wore gingham dresses below the knees or sailor blouses or middies. Lunches were carried in syrup pails, paper sacks and consisted of sandwiches, fruit, milk and hard-boiled eggs. Travel: walking, bicycle, horse and buggy, and some families had a Model T Ford. Curriculum included reading, wring, spelling, arithmetic, gym, music, and penmanship.
1936-1948 - Principal, Gertrude Fisher had to manage food stamp program during World War II. When the ammunition depot was operating, about 100 extra children attended school. Classrooms had about thirty children.
1948-1966 - Principal, Mary Moran. Enrollment just under 500. Three upper grades were departmentalized. Children changed rooms and teachers. Art, Music, and P.E. were included. During the summer of 1950, Lincoln School's rooms got a new coat of paint and the blackboards were turned to green. Old desks and chairs were replaced.
1966-1981 - Principal, Lucille M. Cotner. The building and equipment were updated and improved. Hot lunch program began. Record players, tape recorders, tape players, 16mm projectors, T.V. programs, electronic machines with programmed reading, etc., were used. Library time was added, along with modular and flexible scheduling of upper grades. Aides and paraprofessionals were added, the Artist in Residence program was provided, and the Hastings business community provided much for the school. The first bond issue for a new Lincoln School. April 8, 1979 - groundbreaking for the new school.
1980 - September 1980, classes began. Lucille Cotner was the first principal of the new Abraham Lincoln School.
1982-1988 - Principal, John Nelson.
1988-1990 - Principal Jody Isernhagen. During this time a new addition was added in 1989.
1990 - 2011 - Andrew Heady became principal in 1990. 6th Grade was moved to the new Middle School in 2008, to make more room in the elementary schools. Due to increasing enrollment, a modular was brought in and placed east of the main entrance in 2010. 5th grade was moved out to the modular. Enrollment for Kindergarten through 5th grade at 300. Andrew Heady retired at the end of the school year, he served as principal for Lincoln School for 21 years.
2011-2016 - Principal, Montessa Munoz. A new lunch program was started throughout the district, it has overwhelmingly been accepted. We saw an addition to the playground completed in the fall of 2011.
2016 - 2026 - Principal, Cara Beckenhauer
