It’s ableist to assume a child doesn’t have the potential to go further than high school just because of their disability. Unfortunately, Florida doesn’t seem to recognize that potential or even give it the time of day. They proved this when they recently chose to phase out certificates that help children move forward in the workplace after high school. Now, one woman is sharing the truth about the subject and why it should make everyone furious.
TikTok user Morgan Foley shared a video discussing a recent change to schools in Florida for students with disabilities. “Florida’s Board of Education just decided that disabled students will no longer be getting the Certificate of Completion,” she says. She even shares an article from Central Florida Public Media to back up her statement. To Morgan, this is incredibly distressing because the certificate is “the thing that you literally go to school to get.”
It’s as if they’re saying, “Disabled people don’t get anything out of school.” Morgan fears this will lead to schools outright rejecting disabled students altogether. Somebody needs to inform the Board of Education disabled students can and do go on to get very real employment and even go to college. Do they understand disabilities are a spectrum?
We’re in a very desperate state of time where “inclusivity or accessibility in being cut” and people are going without Medicaid, SNAP, and more. If you make it where disabled people are unable to receive gainful employment, what options do they have? At that point, as Morgan mentions, “They don’t have money to house or feed themselves.”
The point Morgan is trying to make is “the system is designed for disabled people to fail.” With safety nets disappearing to protect disabled people, there is much to fear for Americans. One commenter angrily stated on behalf of Morgan’s video, “I wish there was a way to get these lead poisoned sociopaths out of politics because wtf?!?! They keep inserting policies into departments that they are literally ignorant of. They have no working knowledge to be able to judge yet they keep inserting their opinions into politics.”
“I feel like it’s important to note what a certificate of completion is; it means you failed but still deemed as completing public schooling – less than a diploma/GED but it gets you jobs and even allows you to enter community college and trade schools! Public schooling fails to many of us it’s a necessity we have this,” one commenter laid out flatly. So, without it, where will that leave the future for disabled people?
