Improving Learning for Children with Disabilities (ILCD)

Congress enacted the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142) in 1975 to mandate a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for all children, regardless of their disability, and to support states and localities in protecting the rights of, in meeting the individual needs of, and in improving the educational results for children and youth with disabilities and their families. This landmark law is currently enacted as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as amended in 2004.

In order to ensure a more effective implementation of IDEA, Nebraska developed an ongoing process called Improving Learning for Children with Disabilities (ILCD). ILCD is a state-supported, district-led, self-assessment process that gathers current information, completes an analysis of results, identifies gaps with both Part B (school age children) and Part C (birth to age 3) services, rates the district’s performance, stimulates the development of improvement strategies, identifies compliance issues, and develops and implements improvement strategies for the district.

ILCD is a state mandated self-assessment process with the goal of improving programs, which will result in better services and will strengthen the partnership between school improvement and special education. The ILCD process provides supports for children with disabilities, allowing them full access, participation, and progress in the general curriculum and enhances functional outcomes for infants and toddlers.

The state expects that ILCD will be linked to the Continuous Improvement Process, with the self-assessment supporting building level continuous improvement, as districts strive to meet the requirement to include all students in their continuous improvement efforts, as mandated by the law. Data collected through the ILCD process will be used to document progress in meeting the targets of the State Performance Plan (SPP), in completing the Annual Performance Report (APR), in making annual District Determinations and in publicly reporting district efforts in meeting the SPP targets through the State of Schools Report (SOSR).

ILCD, the State Performance Plan (SPP), and Nebraska’s Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP) share a goal of working collaboratively to provide leadership for continuous improvement of educational systems that ensure quality instruction, equity of services, accountability for outcomes, and enhanced learning for all students in Nebraska.