Letter: Are Students with Disabilities Not Deserving of a Quality Education?

from: ARPS Special Education Parents Advisory Council (SEPAC) Steering Committee

We have watched as the Trump administration has slashed critical social programs impacting millions of Americans, many of them our most vulnerable citizens. Of these millions, one target has been individuals with disabilities.  From the Texas v. Becerra lawsuit seeking to demolish Section 504 preventing discrimination in education and healthcare, to the House Bill just passed calling for $1.5 trillion in spending cuts in programs like Medicaid, millions will be left out of protections and funding that support their daily lives.  The Department of Education is now on the chopping block and the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) will be next. 

As parents and caregivers of children with disabilities we watch in alarm.  But not just at this federal landscape. What equally raises our alarm is the ways in which this slashing of budgets at the federal level is also happening here at our local schools in the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District. The FY 2026 Regional and Elementary School Budgets outline deficits of $1,391,998 and $1,561,314 respectively.  Of that amount, nearly 70% comes from reductions in the budget of Special Education programming.  Specifically, the budget outlines cuts to five Special Education & three Paraprofessional Staff at the Elementary level, three paraeducators at the Middle School Level, alongside five Middle School Teachers, and a sharp reduction in instructional time for all specials & band teachers.  At this writing, we hear teachers are already being informed of their terminations, like our beloved reading specialist who has taught so many of our students with disabilities to read.

When the majority of cuts come at the expense of our special education programs, we as parents and caregivers have to ask about the message this sends to us and what we can hope for our children in the near future. Is a quality education for children with disabilities less valuable or urgent? 

Our programs have long been struggling. Our district has more students than ever that qualify for IEPs and 504s.  This is part of an overall national trend that we cannot ignore.  According to a recent study by the Advocacy Institute, the number of students with disabilities ages 3-21 increased by 1 million between 2021 and 2025. To reach that kind of jump previously took 20 years, from 1997 to 2017.  What this means is that more students than ever are eligible for Special Education, and this includes here in Amherst as well. 

For the past three years, we as SEPAC have come to countless Town Council and School Committee meetings begging our elected officials to refrain from making sharp cuts to our special education programs. We have pointed to arguments time and again about the real impacts such cuts will have on our kids.  How reductions to special education teachers and paras mean our kids are not getting what they need to succeed, let alone what is their legally mandated right under existing law.  We have relayed what this means to our children, how taking away the support provided by ARPS staff members means regressions, inability to access material, loss of self-esteem, school elopement, and mental health concerns.  It affects our children emotionally and physically, treating them like second class citizens restricted from a quality education same as their peers.

We say all this with passion and civility, but after pleading each year, our elected officials don’t seem to be listening.  Instead we are told that budget cuts are necessary because we must “learn to live within our means” and because special education programs cost too much.  If we say, please reconsider cuts in other areas of our town services like capital projects, or at least treat us with the same parity and equity as those projects we are told: do you like your roads and your drinking water?

Education for our children is just as essential as the water we drink and the food we eat.  And just as food prices have gone up, so has the costs of education.  Are we expecting our schools to properly educate our children if we give them for their food an allowance that cannot keep up with the school-version of the sky-rocketing price of eggs today? Should our teachers and children be penalized for these things which they cannot control?

We are not asking for luxuries, but necessities and urgencies.  We are asking for our schools to not be willfully plunged into crisis.  We are not asking for anything pollyanish, simply that our children do not study in moldy, leaky buildings, that they have access to music and art teachers, and the same teachers that they depend on and love.  We are asking them to simply be given the same opportunities that generations of other Amherst Regional residents had in the past, that we abide by the obligations that we have to our younger generations.  We think that is not too much to ask, and thanks to the hard work of our fellow citizens, we know that in a town like ours, the money is there.  In a town of haves, we families with school-age children are the have nots.

To begrudge our children a quality education is shameful and we can only conclude that it is a result of either a lack political will, different priorities held by our elected officials, or both.  We find this deeply troubling and hope, beyond hope, otherwise.  After all, we love our community and believe in the people of Amherst, and know that despite the dark times that engulf us at the moment, that we will return to our better selves and our commitment to key democratic values like a quality education for all.

ARPS Special Education Parents Advisory Council (SEPAC) Steering Committee

Contact: abernal@umass.edu