Original Research by School Decision on Educational Service Unit 03
Educational Service Unit 03 is not a conventional school district. It is one of Nebraska’s regional educational service agencies, designed to support local school districts with specialized programs, rather than operating its own neighborhood schools for a complete K-12 pathway. The entity’s enrollment of about 130 students is entirely in pre-kindergarten—every single student is in PK. That composition sets it apart from every other district in Sarpy County. There are no kindergartners, no high schoolers, and no tested grades, so standard academic measures such as state assessment results and graduation rates simply do not apply. A parent looking for a place to enroll their child for kindergarten through twelfth grade would not turn to ESU 3 for that purpose.
What ESU 3 does offer are early childhood services, including a cluster of Head Start centers situated in several locations across the county and a school called Brook Valley School. The Head Start centers listed in the district’s directory include sites in Bellevue, Papillion, and other Sarpy County communities. Brook Valley School is a separate school within the agency and is likely a specialized setting, often serving students with disabilities who require intensive support. Taken together, these programs serve families with young children, particularly those who qualify for Head Start’s income-eligibility guidelines or who have children with identified special needs.
The student body in these programs is racially and ethnically diverse. White students make up the largest single group, followed by a substantial Black enrollment. About one in eight students is two or more races, and there are small numbers of Asian and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students. Hispanic and American Indian or Alaska Native students are not represented in the data. Information on economic disadvantage, disability status, and English learner classification was not available for this entity.
Because ESU 3 does not run a standard K-12 academic program, many of the metrics that families typically use to compare districts—proficiency rates, graduation rates, chronic absenteeism, and per-pupil spending—are absent from the record. That is not a weakness of the agency; it is a reflection of its role. The Sarpy County comparison set, which includes five districts, flagged these metrics as not applicable because the entity does not produce the underlying data.
No recent district-level changes or strategic initiatives were found in publicly reported sources. The agency’s work is largely behind the scenes: providing professional development, technology support, and specialized instruction to the counties it serves. For a parent whose child requires an early childhood special education placement or who is seeking Head Start enrollment in the Omaha metro area, ESU 3 is one of the providers in the region. For most other families, the entity will not be the school district they think of for their neighborhood school. The peer environment here is entirely pre-kindergarten, shaped by the purposes of Head Start and special education, and the support available is intensive and tailored to early childhood and developmental needs.
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