I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is the Sunday story from Up First. Across the U.S., there are more than 300,000 students categorized as emotionally disturbed.

Emotional disturbance is a federally recognized special education category. It's for kids who struggle not with learning or mobility,

but with their behavior and emotions. Like all kids with disabilities, students with the

emotional disturbance label are guaranteed a free and appropriate public education. It's baked into a law

passed more than 50 years ago,

the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. These kids are also legally entitled to services

and specialized help, but there's a big question around whether the support they're getting

is doing more harm than good.

This week on the Sunday story, a look at one student who was categorized as emotionally disturbed

when he was just a young child and what that has meant for the rest of his education.

At home, I knew how to act, but at school it was problems. I was a bad kid.

Stay with us.

I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday story.

I'm joined by reporter Lori Stern. She's spent

years covering education and joins us now to talk about her long-term reporting on the

disability category called emotional disturbance. Lori, welcome to the podcast.

Aisha, it's great to be here.

So I know you have like a specific story to tell, but before we dive into it, can you just help us understand what emotional disturbance is?

At least to me, this isn't something I'm familiar with.

Yeah.

And that's probably because emotional disturbance is a catch-all category. According to the law that created special ed, the criteria include,

and this is some of the law's language, a pervasive mood of unhappiness, an inability to maintain

...