I gave up a day of summer break for this. Not because someone told me to. Because this issue can't wait. Oregon requires schools to provide special education services. It does not fully fund them. When districts have to make up the difference, every student feels it. Every single one. And I know what that looks like up close, because I have been watching it my whole life. Let me take you back. It's 1987. I'm nine years old. My brother Dean is about to be born, and I am convinced I am going to be the best big brother in the history of big brothers. I had it all planned out. Snowboarding. Playing ball. Teaching him everything I knew. I was ready. And then the milestones didn't come. Not the way they were supposed to. Not on the timeline the books said. And as a kid, you don't have the vocabulary for what you're watching. You just know something is different. You just know the world your brother is going to live in is going to require more from the people around him. More patience. More fight. More funding. Here's what I also knew, even then: my family had been in this fight long before I was born. My grandmother didn't wait for laws to exist. She fought for stronger special education protections that became the foundation of what we now know as IDEA, and she later pushed for the ADA. She did it because her son, my uncle, has severe brain damage, and she refused to accept a world that would throw him away. She sat in rooms where people looked at her like she was asking for too much. She asked anyway. I grew up in the shadow of her advocacy. Even after her lobbying days were over, the values she fought for never left our family. It got inside me. I have two uncles with disabilities. I have a niece with Rett syndrome. I have a nephew on the autism spectrum. This is not abstract policy to me. This is Sunday dinner. This is the phone call where someone is fighting the school district again. This is my family. I started out in graphic design. Thought that was my lane. But somewhere along the way I ended up in a classroom, and the classroom became everything. I'm a teacher on the outskirts of Portland and the president of the Centennial Education Association. Every day, I see how a broken system squeezes our schools. Right now, I am helping lead a statewide special education campaign with one goal: end Oregon's 11% cap on special education funding before it does any more damage. Oregon's funding formula provides additional funding for students with IEPs, but generally only counts up to 11% of a district's enrollment—even when districts serve far more students. The students don't disappear. Their disabilities don't disappear. Their IEPs don't disappear. Only the funding does. Districts still have a legal and moral obligation to provide those services. So every dollar above that arbitrary cap comes out of the same general fund that pays for teachers, counselors, intervention programs, electives, classroom materials, and opportunities for every student. The district swallows it. Teachers stretch thinner. Students get less. We have put together a 10-point plan. We are organizing before the November election to secure commitments from candidates and carry real legislative accountability into the next session. So here is what I am asking. If you are running for office in Oregon, tell us where you stand. If someone represents you in the Legislature, call them. Email them. Show up to their town hall. Ask them directly: What will you do to end Oregon's 11% special education funding cap? Demand a real answer. Not a talking point. Not another statement about how much they value education. A commitment. Before November. Because my grandmother didn't fight for half a law. She didn't fight for rights with a ceiling placed on them. And I am not going to either. Special education isn't optional. Funding it shouldn't be either.