Disabled students are struggling to get what they need at school

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🗓️ 5 July 2024

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

Students with disabilities often face a tough time getting the services they need at school. When they can't get them, many families seek help from the federal government. And, right now, the Department of Education is swamped with a record number of discrimination complaints. The backlog is leaving families across the country waiting months, even years, for help.

NPR's Jonaki Mehta visited one such family, in central Georgia

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Sam is a six-year-old with an infectious laugh.
0:05.0	He lives with his seven siblings and parents in a small town in Central Georgia.
0:10.0	I just brought him down and changed his
0:12.6	spooky dog by him.
0:14.3	Sam starts his date with his nurse Kisha.
0:18.0	He refers to her as robot Kisha in American sign language or ASL.
0:22.0	It's how Sam primarily communicates because he's
0:24.3	partially deaf. So he has just related her to one of his favorite things and so she
0:30.4	does the robot dance for him. That's Sam's mom Tabitha. She's a full-time
0:34.8	parent and former special educator. Since Sam started going to school, he's
0:39.1	faced quite a few challenges getting the services he needs, including instruction in ASL.
0:44.0	How do you teach a child to learn if they don't even speak the same language as you and you haven't found
0:49.6	a way to bridge that gap?
0:51.2	On top of language barriers in the classroom, Sam also hasn't been
0:54.5	getting special education support and has had trouble accessing the school grounds in his
0:59.4	wheelchair. I think that these stories are tragic for the teachers.
1:07.0	I think they're tragic for the students.
1:10.0	And I think what we failed to do as a society is not make it tragic for the people who are making the decisions.
1:18.0	A federal law guarantees every student with a disability, a free and appropriate public education, which Tabitha feels
1:25.4	Sam is being denied. So Tabitha eventually turns to the federal government for help. She
1:30.5	filed a complaint with the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.
1:34.0	When I got to the point where I felt like I couldn't do anything about it and yet I knew the law was on my side,
	...

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