Part 3: Disability Rights: Building a Vermont for everyone

By Anne Henshaw
©2026 Telegraph Publishing LLC

If housing, healthcare, and transportation determine whether disabled Vermonters can live in community, public education determines whether they were ever fully a part of their community to begin with.

For many disabled children, school is their first public community. It is the first place where systems affirm their belonging or signal that they are “other.”

Schools are where we should learn that different bodies and minds require different supports — where accommodations are access, not special treatment. Public schools are where non-disabled and disabled children learn together what equity looks like in practice.

We know from decades of research and data that disabled students and non-disabled students learn better together. That universally designed curriculum leads to better outcomes for ALL students. Inclusive education is not a buzzword, but good practice.

We also know from research that disabled students of color are disproportionately disciplined, suspended and referred into the juvenile justice system. We know that communication mislabeled or misunderstood as “bad behaviors” or poorly implemented behaviors supports lead to stigmatization and poorer outcomes for disabled students. The school-to-prison pipeline does not bypass disability; it runs straight through it. We know that when behavioral supports are insufficient, when evaluations are delayed, when trauma is misread as defiance, when neurodivergence is treated as disruption rather than diversity, students are pushed out of classrooms and into systems of control and segregation.

Federal law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees students with disabilities the right to a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in the Least Restrictive Environment. These are not aspirational goals. These are federal civil rights protections. But rights on paper are not the same as rights in practice.

At Disability Advocacy Day, special education attorney Cammie Naylor described a growing pattern: delayed or denied evaluations, incomplete assessments, insufficient staffing and overloaded special educators. She reported growing numbers of Vermont students placed in restrictive environments for lack of supports. Families are being told there is no staff. No capacity. No funding. No program that “fits.”

I see it everyday in my advocacy groups. Parents and caregivers asking what to do, now that they’ve been told that public schools just can’t educate their children.

Across Vermont, including in our own region — we are hearing phrases like “redesigning the special education service delivery system” from our public school officials. Redesign can mean innovation. But will it? Historically, redesign often means consolidation, centralization, and increased restrictiveness. Not through open defiance of IDEA, but through procedural delays, narrowing eligibility, or shifted services out of general education.

When districts are strained, services narrow. When services narrow, inclusion can become deprioritized. And when inclusion is not prioritized, disabled children are quietly separated from their non-disabled peers.

Segregation in childhood normalizes segregation in adulthood.

In contrast, when disabled students are meaningfully included and appropriately supported, they grow into adults who know they have rights, including access, agency, and autonomy. The children of an inclusive classroom grow into the adults of an inclusive community.

Public education in Vermont is in turmoil. And disabled children will disproportionately bear the repercussions.

Financial stability and fair wages

Disabled Vermonters are disproportionately living in poverty. Many rely on Supplemental Security Income or SSDI, programs designed as safety nets but structured as barriers to financial security.

David Scherr, Vermont’s deputy treasurer, said that for decades SSI has imposed strict asset limits — historically just $2,000 for an individual. That means a disabled person can lose essential benefits for saving even a modest emergency fund. Saving for a car, a housing deposit, or unexpected medical costs can jeopardize Medicaid and income supports. The system forces disabled Vermonters to remain poor enough to qualify, or risk losing the services that make survival possible.

Scherr highlighted the importance of ABLE accounts — known in Vermont through the Vermont STABLE program. ABLE accounts allow eligible disabled individuals to save without losing Medicaid or SSI. But savings are only part of the equation.

Disabled Vermonters face lower employment rates, less access to full-time work with benefits, and persistent wage gaps. And under Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act,  disabled workers — particularly those with intellectual and developmental disabilities — can still legally be paid sub-minimum wages.

In practice, this has meant disabled adults earning pennies per hour in segregated work settings. While Vermont has moved away from some subminimum wage practices, its legacy persists in employment structures that limit opportunity.

Financial policy is disability policy. If a person cannot earn a fair wage, cannot save without penalty, and cannot build assets without risking healthcare, independence becomes theoretical and equity is out of reach.

Disability rights are civil rights

Disability activists and advocates are desperate for people to understand that disability rights are civil rights. Self-determination, autonomy, agency — things many of us take for granted — are at risk or out of reach for disabled Vermonters.

When systems are designed without disability being included, that is a civil rights violation. When shelter capacity is cut without accessible alternatives and disabled people are forced onto the streets because community-based supports were never written into policy, that is a civil rights violation. Denying a disabled child education alongside peers is a civil rights violation. So is inaccessible transportation. So is inaccessible civic participation.

You can help

T/dropcap]he broken system that disabled Vermonters are expected to navigate should now be clear. My hope is that you feel radicalized to join the disability rights movement.

“Contact your legislator” can sound like a broken record. But this is where we have power.

In the Statehouse cafeteria, my family sat beside legislators working through lunch, approachable to anyone who needed a moment. This is a rare privilege, one many Vermonters may not realize if they’ve never lived elsewhere. You have real power to affect change.

Here’s what disabled Vermonters need you to champion:

• Ask what your legislators are doing to support home and community based services. Strengthening HCBS funding is critical to keeping disabled Vermonters in their communities and out of institutions.
• Support legislation that builds communication access and participation in public life for disabled Vermonters.
• Encourage housing legislation that expands affordable and accessible housing and stabilizes emergency housing. Housing policy is disability policy: more than half of Vermonters experiencing homelessness have a disability.
• Follow legislative oversight of special education funding and IDEA compliance, and engage with school boards about the rights of disabled students — particularly as districts consider “redesigning service delivery.” Redesign must strengthen inclusion, not narrow eligibility or increase restrictive placements.
• Join grassroots groups and community initiatives that are doing the work. Your energy is needed.
• Follow task forces and organizations like Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights, Disability Rights Vermont, Vermont ACLU, Vermont Center for Independent Living, and State of Vermont Human Rights Commission.

Advocacy does not require expertise. You have power to affirm and protect the human rights of your fellow Vermonters — and to make your community stronger, safer, and more equitable.

The take away

[dropcap]Disability is a natural part of the human experience. On Disability Advocacy Day in Montpelier, with my family beside me, I saw that truth in practice. My daughter watched female leaders advocate with strength and grit, learning that power looks and sounds like diverse voices.

My son lay on the floor beneath the stained-glass ceiling, accessing his environment in the way his body desires, fully included and visible, while strangers at podiums advocated for him and thousands of other disabled Vermonters. We navigated halls filled with Vermonters using speech assistance, mobility aids, wheelchairs, and ASL. In the cafeteria, disabled diners stimmed and vocalized freely. A Statehouse alive with representation.

This is what community must be. It is parents, self-advocates, legislators, neighbors and strangers insisting that policy reflect the full range of human experience. It is community investing in each other. It is the understanding that when we advocate to build systems that serve disabled people, we build stronger, safer, more equitable communities for everyone.

Part 1: From institution toward independence

Part 2: Housing, healthcare and mobility challenge Vermonters

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Anne Henshaw, a Chester resident and member of the board of the Green Mountain Unified School District, is a 2020 graduate of the Partners in Policymaking program, a member of the National Down Syndrome Advocacy Coalition, a 2015-2020 member of the Council of Parent Advocates and Attorneys, certified in Person-Centered Thinking and Planning, and an former IEP consultant. For more than a decade, she and her family have engaged in legislative advocacy and intersectional activism focused on equity, inclusion, and community belonging.