From the Keynote Address for Rhode Island Center for Early Learning Professionals (CELP) 2025 Conference
In this country, every child is still entitled to a free and appropriate public education.
The purpose of an Individualized Education Plan is to empower a child to engage in the same learning and experiences as their peers.
Our society has many injustices- ableism, racism, oppression, poverty, abuse. More than ever some of these fundamental rights feel precarious. Special and inclusive education services give us the opportunity to interrupt the effects of those injustices on a child. It puts us in a position of immense privilege. We see a child, and we meet their needs. We get to lift them up and give them what they need to be a child amongst other children. Eventually they will be a member of our community, side by side with us.
The system will never truly understand a child, a teacher, a family, a community. But we do.
Every time we come together in our power, in interruption, we carve out a little more understanding and opportunity for the people who need it most.
