SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Students with disabilities have a legal right to a public education that meets their needs. It's an issue so important to families that U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon vowed at her confirmation hearings to preserve that right and the funding that comes with it even as she works to close the Education Department. And as Nebraska Public Media's Jolie Peal reports, even with that funding, making certain their child gets the right schooling takes hard work for many parents.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting, inaudible).
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JOLIE PEAL, BYLINE: Twelve-year-old Gigi Dahl claps her hands and chants to support her local high school's varsity basketball team in Ashland, Nebraska.
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PEAL: Gigi, short for Genevieve, has Down syndrome. Her parents, Jacob and Katy Dahl, smile as they watch Gigi dance.
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PEAL: Her dad says she's one of the most popular girls at school.
JACOB DAHL: If we go somewhere and there are people that don't know Genevieve, I'm always surprised. It doesn't really matter where we go, it's, oh, hey, there's Gigi.
PEAL: She hasn't always felt this at home in her school community, though. At Gigi's old school in Omaha, her parents say she was often separated from her peers. Her mom says Gigi's school would pull her out of her fourth grade class to work on social skills in a kindergarten classroom.
KATY DAHL: The more I thought about it and the more I talked with other people, I was like, that's just completely inappropriate for a 10 or 11-year-old to be working on her social skills with 5-year-olds.
PEAL: NPR asked Omaha Public Schools to confirm Gigi's placement in a kindergarten classroom, but a spokesperson said they could not comment on individual students. Gigi's parents say she was often sad about how often she was separated from her friends or told to sit apart from them to work on lessons independently. They spent weeks advocating for their daughter before they finally succeeded in getting Gigi out of the kindergarten class. But by then, they were fed up.
DAHL: That pretty much solidified our decision to move the kids out of the district because we have to support her.
PEAL: A district spokesperson said the district has a, quote, "collaborative process to help determine students' needs." They work with parents to develop learning plans and inform families of their rights and their child's rights every year. But the Dahls say the whole thing left them feeling powerless, and that feeling isn't uncommon. Families of students with disabilities are often on their own when it comes to making sure their child's needs are met.
SELENE ALMAZAN: That's not the way it was supposed to be designed, but parents are left with advocating for what they believe their child needs.
PEAL: Selene Almazan is the legal director for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, an organization that works to protect the legal rights of students with disabilities. She points to one part of the process that can be especially intimidating for families - the meetings where families and school staff map out what services a student is entitled to.
ALMAZAN: Parent education is crucial for parents to understand that they are an equal member of the team, even though the dynamics and the way that it's set up, it doesn't necessarily make you feel like you're a member of the team.
PEAL: Almazan says parents should not be their child's only advocate in education, but that's often how it ends up.
TIM ROYERS: The problem is we don't have the capacity in this state.
PEAL: Tim Royers is the president of the Nebraska State Education Association, a teachers union. He says it's not that teachers don't want to advocate for their students; they just don't have enough resources.
ROYERS: Unfortunately, right now, a lot of educators don't really feel like the public understands what it's like to teach in 2025 because it's different than it was even five years ago. First of all, there's more and more kids that need special education services.
PEAL: Federal data shows nationwide, 7.5 million students received special education services in the 2022 to '23 school year. That's an all-time high. Meanwhile, a federal survey published in October shows the shortage of special education teachers continues. In Nebraska, schools reported about 150 unfilled positions this school year.
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DAHL: Yeah, Gigi.
PEAL: At her new school district in Ashland, Gigi's parents say her attitude about school is night and day compared to before.
DAHL: She loves it. She's totally independent there. They have all the sports that we could ever ask for.
PEAL: Gigi won't even let her dad walk her into school. And better yet, Gigi's parents haven't had to advocate nearly as much as they used to.
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PEAL: For NPR News, I'm Jolie Peal in Ashland, Nebraska. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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