Vanessa Aceves

The Project

Vanessa’s (she/her/hers) project will ensure academic success and future independence for low-income students with complex communication needs by expanding access to highly needed augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).

Upwards of 91,000 students in Illinois have complex communication needs and would benefit from communication devices to express themselves to fully participate in their education. Despite federal and state laws that protect students who require communication devices, Illinois school districts systematically fail to appropriately evaluate and train educators to implement a communication device. For low-income families, school is often the only place they can turn to access a communication device for their children due to challenges with health care access.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Vanessa will provide direct legal assistance to families in both English and Spanish, including advocacy support, representation at Individualized Education Program Meetings (IEPs), mediations, and administrative due process hearings. Vanessa will conduct community outreach trainings to increase advocacy support and inform of legal rights to communication devices. Vanessa will also collaborate with community partners to develop a direct referral base for AAC throughout Illinois.

As a life-long Chicagoan and former CPS student, Vanessa is deeply passionate about quality public education for all. When she discovered special education law existed, she knew it was the path for her.

The Project

Rachel’s (she/her/hers) project will provide advocacy and direct representation to low-income students in Washington, DC experiencing health-harming education in which their behavioral health needs are not being met.

One in five students in Washington, DC has a disability, and their education needs frequently go unmet by their schools. Students with disabilities in DC have lower academic success rates than their peers in other urban areas. COVID-19 has magnified this disparity, leading to insufficient solutions and leaving students with disabilities behind.

Fellowship Plans

Through the Healthy Together Medical-Legal Partnership, Rachel will provide accessible, on-site legal services to families of students with disabilities at the Shepherd Park Pediatric Primary Care and Complex Care Clinics and the Rare Disease Institute. In addition to directly advocating for the educational needs of students and their families, she will provide collaborative education and outreach to medical providers and community members about special education rights and best practices for identifying at-risk children.

Rachel’s ten years of experience as a public school teacher motivates her to advocate for all students to receive the educational foundation they are both entitled to and deserve.

The Project

Jaden (she/her/hers) supports community-led development of an alternative to juvenile court case adjudication and the establishment of a youth-led education defense network.

Out of nearly 20,000 youth in California placed on probation in 2019, 87% were Black or Latinx. Students of color are always less likely to receive diversion and more likely to remain on probation longer than their white peers. These racial disparities are unambiguously connected to a status quo of racism in schools, from inequitable resource distribution to bias in discipline. The school-to-prison pipeline and the criminal legal system stack the odds against students who are already at a disadvantage. Young people need support, not discipline, in order to achieve their potential both in and out of school.

Fellowship Plans

During Jaden’s Fellowship, she will contribute to the realization of a Los Angeles free from constant juvenile probation surveillance. She will provide policy and legal research to community partners who are building juvenile court alternatives. Jaden will also empower system-impacted young people to defend education access of other young people through the development of a peer advocacy program. Additionally, she will document, investigate, and litigate the harms of LA’s School-Based Probation department.

Jaden is motivated by her commitment to ending violence against youth in schools and improving the quality of education for Black students. She is dedicated to transformative approaches to addressing anti-Black racism in schools and beyond.

Media

The Project

Lily’s (she/her/hers) project aims to provide direct and systemic advocacy for special education students in Mississippi to enforce their rights, improve outcomes, and empower them to be leaders in effecting sustainable change.

Mississippi consistently receives a “needs assistance” designation from the Office of Special Education Programs due to the state’s failure to meet the needs of its nearly 70,000 special education students. More than half of those students are Black, and almost 80% are low-income. Special education students in Mississippi lack support in the classroom and are twice as likely to be excluded from school than students without disabilities. Although federal law provides protections for these students, many parents and students do not know their rights under the law, do not have time or resources to bring due process claims, and do not have the ability to obtain legal assistance.

In Mississippi, Black students in special education are five times more likely to be suspended than white students without disabilities. In her role as a Mississippi high school teacher, Lily saw the human reality of these statistics.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Lily will provide direct representation to Mississippi students with special education needs by advocating on behalf of students at their Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings, filing due process complaints against school districts that violate students’ rights, and representing students facing unlawful school exclusion. To expand the reach of her project, she will host legal clinics for parents and develop an online resource bank of Know Your Rights materials. She will also work to identify opportunities for impact litigation and legislative advocacy through which she will center students’ voices and perspectives.

The Project

Makiah’s project aims to eliminate school discipline policies and practices that disproportionately harm girls of color in Georgia and other southern states through action research, community education, direct advocacy, and policy advocacy.

Racial and gender biases influence how school discipline policies are drafted and implemented nationally. Southern states, like Georgia, are responsible for staggering rates of exclusionary discipline of Black students. As a result, many girls of color—particularly Black girls—are overdisciplined in southern schools and punished pursuant to vague and often sweeping policies in decisions that go unchallenged. These disparities have immediate and lasting negative consequences for girls of color, their families, and their communities.

Makiah grew up as a deaf Black girl in the South and belongs to a family of proud and passionate educators. Makiah’s family and her time as a teacher inspires her to fight for education access and justice.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Makiah will develop a legal participatory action research project to collect the stories and experiences of girls of color in Georgia schools and work within impacted communities to generate solutions. She will engage in direct advocacy on behalf of students who are harmed by harsh or punitive disciplinary decisions. Additionally, she will develop know-your-rights workshops for girls of color and their families as well as trainings and toolkits for educators and advocates.

The Project

Through direct advocacy, educational outreach, and policy reform, Madisyn (she/her/hers) will advocate for Arizona K-12 students with chronic physical and mental health conditions who were denied a free appropriate public education (FAPE).

Children with chronic health conditions face substantial barriers to obtaining an education, let alone an appropriate education. They are discriminated against solely because their conditions may be more complex or require more individualized care than their peers, neither of which justify denying a child the aid and accommodations needed to ensure they receive an appropriate education. Yet Arizona K-12 students with chronic conditions are increasingly being denied FAPE—an issue only worsened by teacher shortages and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because any denial of an appropriate education is an egregious violation of a student’s rights and could substantially impact the student’s long-term academic trajectory, every case is urgent.

Madisyn’s project was inspired by her own experience as a student with chronic conditions and the concomitant challenges. She is committed to ensuring that all students receive an appropriate education.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Madisyn will represent students with chronic conditions against schools that have denied them FAPE. She will develop accessible “Know Your Rights” resources for students and parents regarding students’ rights to an appropriate education, including presenting in local communities to reach as many people as possible. Additionally, Madisyn will advocate for statewide policies that better support students with chronic conditions—particularly behavioral and mental health conditions—through research and communication with state representatives.

The Project

Rebecca (she/her/hers) will advocate for Black and Brown students with behavior-related disabilities who are being excluded from the classroom in D.C. She will work towards her goal through legal representation, community outreach, and education.

In the wake of COVID-19—which exacerbated youth mental health and behavior needs in D.C. and across the country—many D.C. students with behavior-related disabilities are not receiving appropriate support and are instead being excluded from the classroom through shortened school days and placement in segregated educational settings. In fact, students with disabilities in D.C. are placed in separate schools at three times the national rate. Black and Brown students with behavior-related disabilities are particularly likely to be removed from the classroom and placed in separate schools, residential programs, or hospital facilities. For many students, this school pushout can have significant long-term consequences and may lead to academic difficulties, school dropout, and ensnarement in the juvenile justice system.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Rebecca will represent D.C. students with behavior-related disabilities in special education proceedings while seeking to secure access to education in the most integrated setting appropriate. Rebecca will collaborate with community-based organizations and stakeholders, including mental health providers, social workers, and parent advocates, to conduct outreach and provide training to families to promote self-advocacy in the special education process. Rebecca will also lay the foundation for systemic litigation to address the disproportionate exclusion of Black and Brown students with behavior-related disabilities.

Rebecca’s work is informed by her prior experience as a high school special education teacher in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She is dedicated to ensuring that students with disabilities have the opportunity to learn with their peers and receive the supports they need and are entitled to.

The Project

Alexis’s (she/her) project will address racial bullying in Massachusetts’s public schools through direct representation, Know Your Rights training, and working with school districts to implement race-responsive anti-bullying policies.

In the 2018–2019 school year, 5.2 million students ages 12 to 18 reported that they experienced some form of harassment or bullying in school, with one in four experiencing bullying related to their race or national origin. In highly segregated schools, racial bullying and harassment are a prevalent issue. In a sample of Greater Boston school districts, several districts had a student populations with 70% (or more) white students. Other school districts had a Black or Hispanic population of 10% or less. Incidents of racial bullying and feelings of racial isolation can increase where students of color attend predominantly white schools.

Racial bullying is a unique problem that needs a comprehensive response to seek immediate relief for the students and a systemic approach to change the culture within schools.

Alexis’s experience as a teacher and advocate motivates her commitment to working with students, families, and districts to promote educational equity for students of color.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Alexis will provide direct representation to impacted students and families. She will send demand letters to school districts to secure enforcement of anti-discrimination and anti-bullying laws. Additionally, Alexis will create a Know Your Rights guide to empower students and families in the K-12 system to reference when experiencing racial bullying. This effort will target districts that have high rates of racial bullying. She will work closely with school staff on preventative measures they can and should take to reduce the racial harassment and isolation of their students.

Media

The Project

Breanna (she/her/hers) will empower tribes and tribal families to provide trauma-informed education advocacy for tribal children in California’s child welfare system.

Historically, the United States has used “education” to assimilate Native children, take tribal land, and disrupt tribal economies, and these events still affect tribes and Native children today. Native people have the highest rates of trauma and child welfare involvement, and the lowest rates of academic achievement compared to any other racial group. Without trauma-informed education advocacy, Native children in the child welfare system are especially at-risk for not being able to access an education.

Breanna is continually inspired by the child welfare advocacy provided by tribes and California Tribal Families Coalition. It is a privilege to help expand this trauma informed advocacy into education systems, which have continued to fail tribal children.

Fellowship Plans

Through her project, Breanna will identify tribal children within California’s child welfare system who are being unlawfully denied an adequate and trauma-informed education. She will then work with each child’s tribe to ensure that education advocacy support is provided. Breanna will also raise awareness of new caselaw establishing that trauma is a disability for special education purposes and provide comprehensive special education trainings and resources for tribes and tribal families. If necessary, Breanna will collaborate with pro bono attorneys and other non-profit organizations to pursue impact litigation on behalf of tribes, tribal parents, or education rights holders for tribal children.

The Project

Through her work at A Better Balance in New York, Samantha (she/hers) will utilize direct legal services and public outreach and education initiatives to assist pregnant and parenting students in obtaining the accommodations they need to stay in school.

In New York, over 20,000 students become pregnant each year. Schools often fail to grant students necessary accommodations for their pregnancies or parental status, such as remote exams, adequate restroom breaks, adjusted course completion deadlines, and provided space and time for pumping. The result is that pregnant and parenting youth—particularly Black students and other students of color—are pushed out of school, making it difficult to obtain a quality and complete education. This gap in education creates a snowball effect with serious repercussions for their future educational and work opportunities and financial stability. Ensuring pregnant and parenting students have meaningful access to accommodations will help bridge the gap between pregnant students and their diplomas.

Samantha’s project coincides with the anticipated issuance of a new Title IX regulation that aims to to provide students with more robust pregnancy and lactation protections. In addition to utilizing and enforcing the existing federal, state, and local protections, Samantha will provide public education around these new protections. Expanded access to accommodations will protect pregnant and parenting students in New York by ensuring they do not have to choose between their education and their families.

Fellowship Plans

Samantha’s project has two primary goals: to provide direct legal services to students who need assistance obtaining accommodations; and to conduct outreach and education to inform students of their rights. During her Fellowship, she will establish a strong connection between students and the legal services offered by A Better Balance. She will also educate students about the rights they have at their educational institutions, including what accommodations should be available, and she will serve as their legal advocate, whether it be a simple accommodation request, an administrative complaint, or a lawsuit.