Omaha Public Schools’ Oversight of Individualized Education Programs

The U.S. Department of Education administers the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which authorizes formula grants to States under Part B to assist them in meeting the excess costs of providing special education and related services (services) to children ages 3 through 21 with disabilities. Most of the Federal funds provided to States must be passed on to local educational agencies (LEA). Federal funds are combined with State and local funds to provide a free appropriate public education to children with disabilities. Under IDEA, a free appropriate public education is provided through an individualized education program (IEP) based on the individual needs of the child. Omaha Public Schools (Omaha), the largest LEA in Nebraska, was awarded approximately $15.3 million in IDEA Part B funds for school year 2023–2024. We conducted an inspection to determine whether Omaha designed and implemented sufficient processes for overseeing the development of IEPs for children with disabilities and ensuring that those children receive the services described in their IEPs. The inspection covered Omaha’s processes in these areas from July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024. We found that Omaha generally designed and implemented sufficient processes for overseeing the development of IEPs and ensuring that children with disabilities receive the services as described in their IEPs. However, there were a small number of instances where IEPs and related documentation did not show that all applicable IEP requirements were met or that students received all of the services described in their IEPs.  When documentation is lacking or does not exist, stakeholders do not have sufficient assurances that the IEP teams considered all required elements when developing the IEPs, the IEPs contained all required information, or all services described in the IEPs were provided to children with disabilities. We made two recommendations to improve Omaha’s oversight of IEP development and documentation of IEP services provided.