The shortage of special education teachers within the Omaha Public School system came to a head last Friday, the 8th, as State Senators in the education committee questioned three OPS officials about the situation. This issue resurfaced just before the new OPS year started and OPS informed about 140 parents of special education students that their north Omaha schools would not have a special education teacher. The parents would have to find a different school if they wanted special education learning for their children or opt out of the special education program. Bussing to and from this new school would be provided by OPS, the parents were promised, and this also recently became an issue because some students not receiving the promised bussing.
     OPS official Charles Wakefield said, “I don’t think there’s an easy answer,” concerning the staffing of special education staffers. This has been an issue for years with OPS and as the Omaha World Herald stated, it’s gotten worse since the pandemic. What was more troubling is that there were not any solutions offered and this was evident as several times Senators seemed to be frustrated at the answers they were given. At one point, north Omaha Senator Justin Wayne, seemingly exasperated asked, “What are we doing?” There was only silence from the OPS officials.
     Other Senators were confused by conflicting numbers concerning the teacher shortage and the lack of responsiveness and transparency. At one point Senator Danielle Conrad of Lincoln asked, “Why can’t you return an email?” Senator Wayne pointed out that OPS had a surplus emergency fund of over 150 million dollars which could be used. Senator Conrad asked, “Is this an emergency” and Spencer Head, the President of the Omaha School Board, said, “Yep.” Senator Murman from Glenvil, the Chairman of the Education Committee, intimated that their solution of moving special education students to different schools didn’t seem like the best most well thought out solution.
     Kelsey Escobar testified about the bussing problem her special needs son had at the first week of school. OPS has told her that they would provide bussing to and from the new school her son was having to go to now since her school did not have a special education teacher for him. They picked him up in the morning but several times they didn’t pick him up after school and she wasn’t notified till 4:30-5:00 o’clock, an hour or so after school was out. This situation upset her son and Escobar said, “It was very stressful for me.” She said that the bussing issue has since been fixed but, “I always have my phone next to me just in case the school tells me, ‘Hey, the bus is not coming today.”
      It is apparent that OPS has serious issues concerning shortages of teachers and bus drivers. These are not new issues for OPS, yet there doesn’t seem to be urgency in fixing these issues, they continue year after year. There also seems to be confusion and a lack of transparency in how these issues are being addressed by OPS. The Legislature has provided many incentives for hiring new teachers and even more for special education teachers but it is apparent that more must be done so staffing issues like we see at OPS can be fixed and our most vulnerable children provided the best education possible.