Parents and advocates gathered Wednesday evening on St. Thomas for a hybrid disability education training, where speakers urged families to understand their rights and push for individualized support for students with disabilities in Virgin Islands schools.
The session was hosted by the Disability Rights Center of the Virgin Islands along with Beyond Visions Foundation, Family Voices VI, and the VI DD Council.
The Disability Rights Center of the VI was created in 1977 and is the only territory-wide advocacy organization established by Congress that provides legal services to eligible persons with disabilities in the USVI.
“We perform basically the legal service of the disability community,” said Shammi Carr, an advocate for the DRCVI, who also noted that the organization provides lay advocacy, information, training, outreach, and more. “We do all sorts of things, but I think the most important thing for you guys to know is that, when it comes to parent advocacy, we can help you out, one on one. We can help you go to review your IEP. We can go to IEP meetings. We can also assist with reviewing your records.”
IEP refers to an Individual Education Plan. To ensure community members share an understanding of key terms like IEP, DRCVI included the following slide in their PowerPoint presentation.

“There’s nothing worse than being at the table and they’re talking alphabet soup and you have no clue what’s going on,” said Carr, describing the confusion people may feel learning about the long list of acronyms for legal protections, individualized plans, and teaching approaches that shape special education. “That’s a terrible feeling, especially when trying to advocate for someone you love, like a child.”
The training session focused mainly on breaking down the three primary laws that protect students with disabilities: the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1990), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Each law offers different types of support, eligibility criteria, and documentation requirements.

While outlining where these laws cover students with disabilities, Carr noted that the Trump administration has made repeated attempts to cut funding or roll back protections for programs that support students with disabilities. She said that the uncertainty has left disability rights leaders questioning whether critical laws will continue to be enforced.
“The Rehabilitation Act is enforced by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. I did check last time, they’re still alive. You know, with everything going on with this administration, we sometimes wonder. When we go on a website and all of a sudden it’s gone, what happened? So last I checked, it was there … but that’s not a given anymore, sadly,” Carr said.

While explaining how students qualify for services under federal disability laws, Carr noted that conditions such as ADHD or sickle cell disease can fall under the category of “other health impairment” in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. IDEA recognizes 13 specific categories of disability, including autism, intellectual disabilities, and multiple disabilities, but also provides for students whose needs do not fit neatly into a single label.
“My child has sickle cell. Okay, well, there’s not one specific for sickle cell, but there’s definitely one called other health impaired. Well, my child has ADHD. I don’t see ADHD on that list, nope. ADHD is going to fall under other health impaired,” Carr explained during the session.
She added that under “other health impaired,” an individual assessment is required to determine whether the condition substantially limits a student’s ability to learn. “You can have a disability and one child is getting services, another child isn’t. That’s because every disability is different, even the ones with the same labels,” Carr said, emphasizing the importance of individualized assessment. “We want to treat each child as an individual. We want to make sure that each child is getting the exact type of service that they need, and they’re not getting overly labeled, but also they’re not getting underly labeled.”
In contrast, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act do not rely on a fixed list of categories. Instead, they define a student with a disability as anyone with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, such as learning. “There is no list … Basically, you look at the definition and you say, Yep, that’s me,” Carr said.
IDEA covers students from birth through age 22, while 504 and ADA protections extend to all ages and educational settings, including colleges and adult training programs. Carr noted that this broad coverage ensures that students with a wide range of health conditions, from diabetes to epilepsy to mental health challenges, can access the support they need, even after they are done with education.
Carr expressed concern that some schools may be steering students with disabilities into costly credit recovery programs, rather than providing the compensatory education services they are entitled to under federal law. She questioned the motives behind these programs, suggesting that financial incentives could be at play.
“I just find it very opportunistic if you’re going to do credit recovery, especially for children with disabilities. We call it something else. We call it compensatory educational services,” Carr said.
She encouraged parents to reach out for advocacy support as soon as they are offered credit recovery to see if their child instead qualifies for compensatory services under IDEA. “If you have a child who is behind and they’re talking about credit recovery, come see us first. Let’s see if under the IDEA process, compensatory services should be offered in lieu of any kind of credit recovery which has cost, where the compensatory does not have cost,” she said.
A key message from the session was the importance of early intervention and individualized support, with Carr encouraging parents to reach out as soon as they notice their child struggling in school. The DRCVI and its partners, including Beyond Vision Foundation and Family Voices, provide a range of services to help families navigate the complex web of systems and laws designed to support students with special educational needs.
The DRCVI plans to offer additional sessions later this month, focusing in greater detail on 504 and ADA plans. Parents and caregivers interested in learning more were encouraged to contact the organization for resources and information about upcoming events.