Sometimes we miss the heart of the matter. It is the juxtaposition of parent-professional within special education.

Here we have career people who want to improve learning and happiness in people who are born different. And then there exist families who carry the child in their heart yearning for them to learn and be interdependently well in life.

Positionality is one of the most impactful and overlooked perspectives in the special-education conversation. Beyond our education, knowledge and structural positions, it is positionality that creates structures of innovation and happiness. Positionality can also perpetuate systems of disproportionality and inequity.

Core to our positionality is what we believe should and can be achieved by people who are born different. This core belief dictates how, even in the best of schools, a child can receive a poor education.

When ignored and unchecked, positionality can harmfully excise systems about who can learn and what they should learn. In our own community, it can be seen in who learns to read words and who reads safety signs in first grade.

Disproportionality in special education happens too often, even in the Champaign-Urbana community. As a family, we experienced the system of positionality and disproportionate attitudes of achievement.

While our story is unique to us, it ignited a movement that we call ExcelPrep. We knew that by not making a change for our child, we would lose her confidence and wanting to learn.

What is unmentionable is that families want to know that their children will have the tools to exist in this world without them. We want them to be well without limitations placed by systems that have evidenced historical disproportionality in special education.

These realities are not easy to ignore when families are asking for their children to learn to read, write and do math in one of the smartest communities in the nation. The scales are unbalanced, not just locally but in many areas. Disproportionality in special education is a well-documented issue and a lived reality for parents and practitioners.

Children with autism and related challenges, especially those from historically marginalized communities, face unequal access to educational resources. Reading instruction is often not prioritized or addressed for non-verbal or non-vocal learners.

Teachers and staff lack the resource of time, coaching and support to consistently utilize best practices, including ongoing data collection necessary for learner progress. Learners with ADHD get strategies and calls for early pickup when behavior gets to be too much. Black children with learning differences, including dyslexia, may not be recognized with this diagnosis and not given access to the necessary interventions. And learners with autism and behavioral challenges in this community are given shortened days in comparison to their peers without a diagnosis.

These savage inequalities place emotional, financial and academic burdens on families and the educational staff who are passionate about their progress. Issues of access, opportunity, economy and intervention are conversations at the heart of matter for many families and a result of the positionality of those in positional power.

What is required for solution is not a work-around the policy and law, but the work of innovation, resources and (out)sourcing support where needed.

At its best, positionality is a heart check. An action-based system filled with healthy collaboration, time-filled solutions and accountability measures that exclude intimidation and inequity as a socialized norm of the job.

After decades of working with families and educational systems, this time, it was my child. In our individualized education program meeting, I witnessed the inappropriate and admittedly failed use of multi-tiered system of supports. Even with a documented diagnosis, we were denied services and support. I felt the weight of deciding the next steps. I didn’t feel empowered; I was saddened by how positionality and structural abuses of process, in this case, would be a barrier to my child’s learning, confidence and education.

It was in this moment of sadness that my happy 7-year-old looked to me and said, “I’ll go to the school you build for me.”

It was her confidence in my husband and me that a solution would be found for her. And we did.

We are.

Children should trust us to make things right for them.

And we must.

Because all brains are capable. Every brain can learn. Without limits.

ExcelPrep founder and Executive Director Landria Seals Green is a board-certified behavior analyst and speech-language pathologist with over 20 years of experience. She has consulted and developed education programs within public school systems and developed clinical programs. ExcelPrep is an ISBE-authorized K-8 school for neurodiverse learners ages 5-13 serving central Illinois. For more, visit  excelprepschools.org.