At the Nebraska Capitol on Wednesday, State Sen. Danielle Conrad heard testimony from members of the deaf and hard of hearing community about students in Nebraska who are still not receiving needed services nearly 30 years after the Nebraska School for the Deaf closed. Conrad said the interim study was meant to identify what is happening in Nebraska schools and establish best practices.
Adam Wiblishouser at Nebraska Capitol
Adam Wiblishouser told lawmakers his fourth grader attends the Iowa School for the Deaf and that his family lives in the Elkhorn school district. He said his son first went to Ralston for kindergarten because Elkhorn chose to send him there, then pushed back after he learned about the Iowa School for the Deaf.
Wiblishouser said school districts are using PWNs and IEPs to deny services they do not want to pay for. He said he has seen the problem repeatedly and has heard it from other parents. “What it's boiling down to is the school districts are messing with the PWNs (Prior Written Notices), they're messing with the IEPs (Individualized Education Plans), and they're messing with the language that they're using in the PWNs and IEPs to deny services that they don't want to pay for, or is not of a convenience to the school district,” he said.
Elizabeth Eynon-Kokrda on interpreters
Elizabeth Eynon-Kokrda said Nebraska does not have enough education sign language interpreters to meet all the needs of the state's schools. She said schools are competing for a small pool of interpreters and offering low compensation that does little to attract people into the field.
She also said school interpreters are not subject to the same licensing requirements as independent interpreters. In one case, she said, a family found five independent interpreters willing to contract with a school district after an official said an ASL interpreter could not be found. “Who pays the price for this? Deaf and hard of hearing students,” she said.
Regional programs after 1998
Linsay Darnall Jr. said the state replaced the Nebraska School for the Deaf with regional programs after it closed in 1998, but those services are not enough. Conrad said the hearing was aimed at identifying what Nebraska schools are doing now and what best practices should look like, leaving lawmakers to work from testimony on service gaps rather than a settled statewide fix.
Eynon-Kokrda said she wants a statewide roster for interpreter availability, recognition for educational interpreters as professional technical staff, compensation improvements, and a requirement that schools document efforts to hire qualified interpreters. For families, that would shift the question from whether a district says it looked for help to whether it can show the steps it took and whether those steps led to real access.
