Rick Miller

Removing children with disabilities from their home schools and sending them to institutions would be a step backward in more than just monetary ways. Keeping kids in their own district has benefits that can't be measured on a spreadsheet or a dollar amount on a budget line. Having children with disabilities in the same schools as their nondisabled peers benefits not only the actual child but also the nondisabled peers as well, by normalizing disability and promoting acceptance. Before the advent of mainstreaming, disability was almost taboo - disabled kids were often sent away to institutions and denied the right to attend the same schools and live in the same communities as the rest of their family or form friendships with what would be their local peers. I was fortunate to be among the first generation where even the kids who had the more severe disabilities were included in the local district. This is my story. I was in junior high - what we would today call middle school - in the early 1990's. I was lucky enough to meet and become friends with a fellow student who, due to a traumatic brain injury, lost the ability to speak and walk. Every morning before the school day officially started, we would meet and spend time together doing whatever it was that kids did. I quickly learned his communication methods - he could understand everyone speaking to him, he just couldn't talk, but, with his unique combination of signs, gestures, and electronic communication devices, he certainly made his opinions known. I quickly realized that other than the lack of ability to speak or walk, he was just the same as any other person - and our friendship would continue through the rest of our school years and beyond. In our time together, I learned the importance of patience and ingenuity to figure out what was on his mind - sometimes it was easy, like where we would eat at the food court during our many trips to the mall or the movies - but other times it often required many games of "twenty questions" to make sure his wishes and thoughts were known. Through the time I spent with him, his family, and others with similar disabilities, I learned the importance of disability acceptance and accommodation, and focusing on what I at the time called "person-ness" - a concept we call "presuming competence" today. My values were shaped positively by those early experiences and have positively influenced me throughout my life. This experience is one I would never have had, if that very first individual had been sent away to a special school instead of the public school I went to. I didn't know it then, but, the course of my life was set by that one question I asked over thirty years ago - "Hi, I'm Rick, wanna hang out before class?" While today, I don't directly work in any disability-related field, I have in the past enjoyed the opportunity to work as a repair technician for disability related equipment, personal care helper for a number of my friends, and many sessions as a camp counselor, both in paid and volunteer roles, in New Hampshire and beyond. I hope that the young people in our state will continue to have the opportunity to know their disabled peers and, like I do, come to know them not as "cases" or "clients" but as "friends." That's a benefit to all of society, with a return on investment that is simply too great to measure. And, maybe for a lucky few, their will make a friend, and have experiences that will change their life forever. Just like I did. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.