Nebraska Public Media

Angela Gleason knew something was wrong with her son’s education by the time he began first grade in Omaha Public Schools. The district moved Teddy, who has autism and is nonverbal, from a behavioral skills class to general education. His struggles brought on outbursts of running around the room and disrupting his classmates, leading to near-daily phone calls asking Gleason to come get him. Feeling hopeless, Gleason applied for a transfer to Millard Public Schools in 2018. But the district said its special education program had no room for Teddy. Year after year, Gleason applied to Millard and received the same response, even as the district later accepted two of her other children who didn’t need special education services. She tried other Omaha-area districts. Westside. Then Bellevue. Both rejected Teddy. “It’s very disheartening as a parent to try repeatedly to get your child with disabilities accepted into a different school district, and to be told ‘no’ over and over and over again,” she said. A 35-year-old Nebraska law lets students transfer from one public school district to another — a policy known as option enrollment.