Navigating Disability in Schools: Stories Across the System

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 1.3 billion people, or 16 percent of the global population has some type of a disability, making it the largest minority group in the world. The disabled community is also the only demographic group that anyone can join at any point in their life. Disability can occur for a variety of reasons, including genetics, injury, or just the natural progression of aging. The disability community is diverse not only in type of disability but in age, race, ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic status.

People with disabilities and their families navigate a number of systems throughout their lifetime. For many, the first is the education system.

The cornerstone of this system is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the federal law that covers children from birth to age 21 who have a disability in one or more of 13 disability categories. These children, whose disabilities affect their educational performance and/or their ability to learn and benefit from the general education curriculum, receive an Individualized Education Program Plan (IEP) to support them in making progress in school. Starting with early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities, IDEA enables services and supports for children through the school system until they graduate or exit high school. IDEA, however, does not follow students past high school to provide any accommodations they might need in higher education or employment.

While not without its flaws, IDEA brought revolutionary changes to the educational rights and services provided to students with disabilities when it was first passed in 1975 as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act.

The system is commonly referred to as “special education”

Special education got its name in the 1960s around the same time as the term “special needs,” and both are assumed to have come from the growth of Special Olympics. Today, “special education” as a term is controversial yet commonly used in schools and communities to refer to the services and system for students with disabilities. “Special education” and the shortened “sped” can create a separation between kids who are “special education” and those who are general education. This goes against the core purpose of IDEA to provide access to students with disabilities alongside their nondisabled peers.

Alongside IDEA sits another federal law that provides services and accommodations to students with disabilities in schools, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. This is a civil rights law that prohibits schools that receive public funding from discriminating against students with disabilities. Students who receive services under 504 have what’s known as a 504 plan to provide supports when their disability interferes with learning in a general education setting.

Together, these laws create the foundation for the special education system. This system includes a complex set of rules, procedures, and processes and an array of people playing a variety of roles. But what is it like to navigate this system from the inside? What is it like for educators, leaders, students and their families to identify early intervention needs or to develop IEP?

In posts to come, through a series of stories, we will explore how students with disabilities move through the education system, the other roles and actors within the system, what is working and what is not.

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