When “Support” Means “You Can’t Come”: A Right to Belong

By Latina Nickelson, M.Ed.

Fifth grade comes with certain rites of passage. If you know anything about elementary school, you know one of the biggest is the safety patrol.

Those bright sashes. The responsibility. The pride of being trusted to help younger students. It’s a milestone that says: You’re ready. You’re capable. You belong here as a leader.

My grandson was never given the chance.

Not because he misbehaved. Not because he couldn’t handle it. He wasn’t offered the opportunity that his general education peers received as a matter of course. Right now, he’s at school practicing, hoping, still hoping, that someone will see what I already know: he is capable, he is ready, and he deserves to be there.

When Asking for Support Gets Your Child Excluded

Here’s what keeps me up at night: the pattern.

Last week, his school hosted a special speaker, a “Teach In” event. An educational assembly. The kind of enrichment opportunity that should be available to every student.

I did what any informed parent would do. I reached out to the school ahead of time. I reminded them to ensure my grandson had the appropriate support during this unstructured time. Not because I doubted him, but because I know that assemblies, with their shifting schedules and sensory demands, and unfamiliar people can be challenging. I was advocating for his participation, not against it.

The school’s response? They denied him the opportunity to attend altogether.

Let that sink in. I asked for support so he could participate. Their solution was to remove the participation.

This Is Not Support. This Is Exclusion.

When a parent asks for accommodations and the school responds by taking away the opportunity entirely, that’s not problem-solving. That’s not collaboration. That’s telling a child and his family that he doesn’t belong unless he can show up without any needs at all.

The message is clear: We’d rather you not be here than have to figure out how to include you.

And nobody at that school seems to see how this is a violation of his rights. Nobody questions whether excluding a student from an educational event, because his grandmother had the audacity to ask for support, is legal, ethical, or aligned with everything we claim to believe about inclusive education.

What It Means to Presume Competence

Presuming competence means starting from the belief that a child can, and then figuring out what they need to show us what they’re capable of. It means assuming intelligence, capability, and potential, even when a child communicates or learns differently.

What my grandson’s school is doing is the opposite. They’re presuming incompetence. They’re looking at a child with an IEP and deciding, before he even has a chance, that he can’t handle safety patrol, that he can’t participate in a speaker event, that he needs to be protected from opportunities rather than supported through them.

They’re not asking “How can we make this work?” They’re deciding, “This won’t work for him.”

Rightful Presence Is Not Negotiable

I operate from a principle I call rightful presence: the understanding that students with disabilities belong in all educational settings by right, not as a privilege to be granted when convenient.

We don’t ask schools to “include” our children as if inclusion is a favor. We work to remove the barriers that prevent them from accessing what already belongs to them. Safety patrol belongs to the fifth graders. Educational assemblies belong to students. These aren’t special requests. They’re baseline expectations.

When schools treat participation as something our children have to earn, when they make us grateful for crumbs of access, they’re telling us our children’s presence is conditional. And that is never, ever acceptable.

Why This Matters Beyond My Grandson

Every time a school excludes a child instead of supporting them, it sends a message to every student watching. They teach neurotypical children that their disabled peers don’t really belong. They teach students with disabilities that their needs make them burdens. They teach families that advocacy will be punished.

And they get away with it because too many people don’t see it as a rights violation. They see it as “being realistic,” “doing what’s best for the child,” or “keeping everyone safe.”

But here’s what I know: You cannot claim to support a child while simultaneously removing their opportunities. You cannot say you believe in inclusion while excluding children the moment inclusion requires effort. You cannot presume competence on paper while your actions presume the opposite.

To Every Family Fighting This Fight

If you’re watching your child get passed over for opportunities their peers receive automatically, if you’ve asked for support only to have the door closed entirely, I want you to know: this is not okay, and you are not wrong for being upset about it.

Your child’s right to participate is not conditional on the school’s convenience. Their presence is not a privilege to be earned. And your advocacy, your insistence that they be supported rather than excluded, is exactly what they need from you.

My grandson is still practicing for safety patrol, still hoping. And I’m still fighting, because hope should never be the barrier to belonging.

Latina Nickelson, M.Ed., is the founder of SOAR Educational Services (Students Overcoming Academic Roadblocks), a non-attorney special education advocacy practice serving families nationwide. As an advocate and grandmother to three autistic children, she brings both professional expertise and personal experience to the fight for educational equity. Latina is an active member of NPU’s Parent Power Collective.