Transcript

Jessica Fein: Welcome. I'm Jessica Fein, and this is the “I Don’t Know How You Do It” podcast, where we talk to people whose lives seem unimaginable from the outside and dive into how they're able to do things that look undoable. I'm so glad you're joining me on this journey and I hope you enjoy the conversation. 

Welcome back to the show. Before we get into today's episode, I want to share with you some news about my book, Breath Taking: a Memoir of Family, Dreams, and Broken Genes. We have been out for less than three weeks and have already gone into a second printing and been chosen as a Zibby Owens summer reading pick.

If you've read it, I would love to know what parts are resonating with you. And if you haven't read it yet, you can get a copy wherever you love to get your [00:01:00] books. 

And now I am so excited for you to meet today's guest, Dawn Oates. She's somebody who has inspired me for a while for her tenacious work and advocacy for disability rights.

She's one of those people who sees something wrong and figures out how to fix it, not just for her family, but for entire communities. The catastrophic spinal cord injury during the birth of her youngest child, Harper, sparked Dawn's commitment to the inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of life, from playgrounds to classrooms to major league baseball games.

In this episode, you're going to hear the story of how Dawn took on an elite private school in Boston when they denied admission to Harper because of her disability. Dawn's fight against their discriminatory practices sparked a federal investigation and forced systemic changes. Dawn is a reminder that one passionate voice can create ripples of change.

Dawn lives with her husband, three children, and two Labradoodles in Brookline, Mass, which happens to be my hometown. 

It is my pleasure to bring you Dawn Oates. [00:02:00] 

Welcome Dawn. I'm so happy to have you here today. 

Dawn Oates: I'm happy and I'm honored. 

Jessica Fein: Well, I got to tell you, I don't know how I first started following you, but I've been following you and watching all the things you're doing for a really long time.

That sounded kind of stalker-esque and creepy, but that's not what I mean. I've been like standing up in my room by myself and giving you standing ovations and just like cheering you on because thing after thing, advocacy after advocacy, fight that you take on that you just are tenacious about and that you, I think, are speaking for so many of us.

Dawn Oates: It's hard for me to take a compliment, but I have to get better at just saying thank you. I appreciate it because the work that I do is for that exact reason, not the admiration or any of that. It's so that people will pay attention so that people will notice that there's a lot of work to be done in all the different areas that I'm working in.

And often when I'm doing this work, I don't know if people [00:03:00] notice and the idea of advocacy work in any advocacy work is taking a small moment and blowing it up bigger so that other people can notice it and think, Oh, huh. What does that mean to me? What does that mean to my community? How can I bring that forward in an ideal situation and engage people in my community or do something in my own community or make people notice in my own community?

And so the idea of making this snowflake of leadership that starts with a single person, and then another person, then another person, then another person, that's what I do. 

Jessica Fein: Well, you do it so beautifully, and we're going to get into how it is that others can learn from that and can speak up and speak out.

Let's go back and bring all of our listeners onto the same page. Let's begin by hearing a little bit about your family. 

Dawn Oates: All right, so I will start with that. I have twins, Jack and Olivia. They are now 14. And then I have another daughter, Harper, who's 12 now. And my husband, Justin, and of course a couple of dogs that are in the background napping right now.

But basically, you know, I [00:04:00] had Harper after Jack and Olivia. I had been working in this really soulless job where I was good at it. I made decent money. But I just really felt like The drag every day going to work. And I just felt like, what is my purpose? And I think a lot of people have that question. And a lot of us go our whole lives without ever really knowing that.

And I remember my mother in law saying, well, one day, you know, after you have kids, you're going to really discover your purpose. And I went, yeah, that's, you know, I don't really think my purpose is to be a mom and just, I'm going to have all my life fulfillment from being a mom. That's just not how I'm wired.

I love being a parent, but that's not what makes me tick every morning. What makes me tick every morning is doing something that. I wake up in the morning and I feel like I have to do it. I can't help but do it. And it doesn't feel like work. And I thought, well, how am I going to find that? I went to a career coach.

I spent 13 weeks filling out questionnaires and asking myself questions about what are my strengths and what are my interests and how those two intersect and how can I have a job doing that and all of that. [00:05:00] And as soon as I had Jack and Olivia, it was tough to have twins. I figure I'll stay home for a little while, figure this out.

And then I had a third sort of unexpected pregnancy and Harper comes along. Everything's great, totally normal, healthy pregnancy. And I go in to deliver her and things go terribly wrong. And we would find ourselves in a medical malpractice situation where she was catastrophically injured. Her spinal cord was injured.

We didn't know at the time, but when she was born, she wasn't moving. She had sort of what they called seizure like movements for a minute, and then she just didn't move and nobody knew what was going on. And that led me to just really wondering, is this child going to live or die? Am I going to take her home?

Do I tell the other kids who were 18 months old at the time? Do I tell them that she was born and do I, you know, prepare them for this? And what if she dies at our house? And what will this do for my marriage? And all of these sorts of questions. So it was really dark, heavy [00:06:00] time. And when we finally got her home six months after she was born, I thought, okay, this is horrible.

What now? I don't know how to be a parent to a child who's so different from my other children and so different from everybody else's children and she's paralyzed and we would learn that she had a spinal cord injury at a high level of her cervical spine. Paralyzed her from the chest down so she can move her arms, but not her hands.

She can move her biceps, but not her triceps part of her back works. She can't walk. She has a lot of internal issues because of all of this. And it just really got to the point where I just would be home with her sad all day, but not sad for me. Sad for how do I engage with other children and families?

How will she have a friend? How will she have multiple friends? How do I get back into the community? Because, you know, two things people are really awkward about are [00:07:00] death and disability. Amen to that. I think that people have the purest intentions, but say the wrong things a lot. Say the wrong things because they don't know what to say or how to say it.

And to most people, what has happened to us is really awful and sad. And what do you do? And what do you say? And what questions do you ask? And what do you stay away from? And it's just, we experienced all of it. And we were extremely socially isolated at that time. Friends that we had had for years just sort of dropped away.

There's always the excuse of like, well, we know she's really busy. We, oh, she, oh, she's really busy. We just don't want to bother your family, blah, blah, blah. But really we were just like, where is everybody, you know? And so our feeling of social isolation around disability. And my imagination telling me that, wow, Harper needs friends and needs to be a part of community.

I'm not going to live in my house for the rest of my life. I'm not going to keep her here because the world isn't created for her or because I don't know what to do. Uh, I need help, right? So the origin [00:08:00] story of this work was Harper Oates and it was, how do I find a community that doesn't exist? I have to build it.

I'd have to build a community that can see what disability looks like, that can see the challenges, but can also see the opportunities. And I want to do work that resonates. I could build a playground in my backyard. I could do a lot of things just for my kid, but my kid is not the only person. Who's in this situation?

So I reached out, I got a student, a new grad who came in to help me out a little bit. And I said, Hey, listen, could you do me a favor? Could you call Brookline and see if they can put a swing in the playground down the street, an accessible swing. So end of her first day of work, she just gave me the update on everything she had done that day.

And she said, Oh, and by the way, yeah, I talked to Brookline and they're going to put a swing in. And I went, Oh, wow, great. But then I thought that was a little too easy. Maybe I should have asked for more. Maybe we should have a fully accessible playground. And so we started trying to [00:09:00] fundraise to buy accessible equipment and build a playground.

And I quickly learned that Brookline does have a reputational issue when it comes to fundraising. A lot of people don't know there are vast areas of poverty in Brookline, but when you're trying to fundraise in Brookline, Brookline also has a lot of affluence. And so, you know, once we hit about 30, 000, the fundraising slowed down and I realized, well, this isn't really about building a playground.

This is about changing opinions and educating people about inclusion and how people with disabilities should be included in all aspects of life and how we're falling short here. And I chose initially to focus on play, recreation, and sports, because that's what was important to my family at the time.

How do I get Harper Oates to the playground with other kids, with and without disabilities? Not, hey, all the people with disabilities are over here, and all the people without disabilities are over here. That's not how diversity works. Diversity is, we benefit from differences. We learn from differences.

And what I've found, [00:10:00] sort of skipping to the punch line is that when people understand and appreciate and want diversity, disability should be a part of that diversity conversation, but because it's not so black and white, because it's not so cut and dried, what does this look like? There's still this level of discomfort.

And when we talk about inclusion and we talk about diversity, we're talking about race, we're talking about gender, we're talking about sexual orientation, and sometimes we're talking about disability. So that's my voice over here trying to be a part of that conversation, trying to say, Hey, this is a part of what we all want, what we can all benefit from because kids who are in inclusive classrooms, for example, test higher on standardized tests.

They have deeper levels of compassion. They have the ability to brainstorm and troubleshoot and problem solve. And often they'll go on to. Places in their life where they realize this is something that I learned at a young age. Compassion and being a good leader and working with a team and all of these things.

It's part of where we're [00:11:00] starting right now on the playground. 

Jessica Fein: There is so much there and so much that resonates with me personally. And you know, when you talk about the benefits to the kids in the classroom, I think we don't even need to look further than in our own home. And we see. See how our kids siblings grow up differently with more compassion, with more understanding, with more of all the things you're saying because they get to be siblings to these glorious kids of ours.

The play thing is really interesting to me. It reminded me of the last mainstream, if you will, birthday party that I took my daughter Dalia to when I think she must have been about seven at the time. She was in a wheelchair and the birthday party was in one of those bouncy house places. You go in and there's like 18 different kinds of huge bouncy houses.

And I was like, well, what are we going to do? But it was her best friend and there was no way I was going to say, you can't go. So we went to the party and there was this one bouncy house situation which had like these inflated steps, like a ladder, and then you'd slide down. This is hard for somebody whose [00:12:00] legs are working as they're meant to, to climb up the thing, you know?

And all the other moms are sitting on the benches on the side, chatting on their phones, doing whatever. And I, time and time again, was behind Dalia, you know, with my arms under hers, walking up that ladder thing, and then sliding down with her on my lap. And then, of course, we'd get to the bottom and she'd look up to me and she'd say “again!” So, you know, for two hours, we're going up this thing and coming down.

There was no way this place was built for a child with disabilities. And I felt so other, I felt so removed, not only from the other kids, you know, on behalf of Dalia, but these other moms. None of whom was coming over and saying, Hey, let's do this together or whatever. So the idea of starting at play, which we know is so important for kids, the job of children is play.

And so I love that you started there. So you formed what's called the Play Brigade. Tell us about that. 

Dawn Oates: Before I go there, I want to tell you a story that I don't typically tell, but you're making me remember. And it was actually a really good memory about how other [00:13:00] parents receive a child or a family with disabilities.

It is. Years ago, my children went to a preschool, and it was the preschool where Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen's children went, and my son Jack was in the same class as their son Benny. And so over time, I developed this relationship. We weren't besties or anything like that, but a relationship with the family.

And so there was one day that I had invited a few moms over, including Gisele, it was just maybe five moms, and they all brought their kids, and we were all at the pool. And I remember, I think we were all very grateful that Gisele decided that she was not going to go swimming and wear a bikini that day.

Mom bodies and everything. So we're all sort of sitting on one side of the pool. And this was when Harper was still napping. And I had said to her nurse, who was working with us at the time, when Harper wakes up, I want her to come downstairs and I want her to take her in the pool with the other kids and normalizing disability, letting them be exposed to So that kids can stare and get the staring out.

And then it just becomes Harper or [00:14:00] not the kid that we're just going to have over here. Right. And so the nurse came down, there was Harper. Harper at the time looked very physically disabled. She wasn't hanging on to the nurse. She was sort of floppy and she was in her bathing suit. And I just remember everybody looked up, they saw her come out of a door that was sort of down the other end of the pool and one mother got up.

And walked the full length of the pool and looked right at Harper. And this mother was Gisele. And she said, “Hello.” Right to Harper. Didn't talk to me. Didn't ask me questions. Just said, “Hello. My name is Gisele. What is your name?" And that moment just stayed with me. That. A human sees a human, you know, and that's what it is, you know, and that's not to discount the reactions or the other parents or whatnot, but it was just this compassion and this wonder and that the two of them held with each other for that moment.

And then I remember they chatted together for a little bit and then Gisele came and sat down and she said, would you tell me her story? And so, [00:15:00] I mean, I still get a little choked up at, you know, thinking about. That moment of pure humanity, pure connection, the wonder and the fearlessness of having a conversation.

And so I really respect when parents say, and I get this a lot, do you mind telling me what happened? And then I have other parents with, is it a genetic thing? I walk around life thinking everybody knows what happened to Harper. Harper Oates was injured. Harper Oates would have had the life that you have, would have had the life that you had or you had.

But Harper Oates was. It's subject to somebody's mistake and this is the life she has and she's happy and this is the life she knows. And so I appreciate when kids stare and I say to kids, Oh, do you want to say hi? Or, you know, just sort of trying to help broker that communication. Something that happens a lot is kids will stare because they've never seen a kid like Harper, in a wheelchair with arm braces that help her stabilize her wrist so she can drive independently and people make assumptions. [00:16:00] Maybe she is not smart. Maybe she can't talk and things like that. And they'll ask me questions and say, Oh, well, why did you ask her? So a parent has a really important role in these situations.

Most often parents will say, “don't stare.” And so then what happens is people are looking away from our children, right? And they don't intend is don't want my child to be rude. Let's just, and what I do is I invite them in. “Oh, would you like to say hi?” Or “it's okay. Do you have questions?” And Harper, you know, we empower her to tell her own story, to tell what she's comfortable telling.

And I think we have a lot of work to do to. help people become more comfortable around us as a community and as a family. And that work could be as simple as letting people stare. And why I decided to start being on social media and start talking about inclusion. I mean, I talk about three things on social media.

I talk about my family and post pictures of my family. Doing our family things, and sometimes that's different, [00:17:00] adaptive skiing or hiking. And then I talk about disability inclusion, my family, and food. Those are sort of my three passions. That's what you're going to find on my page. I find that social media initially was a way for me to quiet the same questions and to push out answers so that every time I go out to try to have respite outside of my family, I wouldn't answer the same questions over and over again.

Oh, how's the baby? How's the baby? How's she doing? How's she doing? Here's how she's doing. Find me on social media, follow me, care about our family, learn a little bit as well. And it's really, really worked for us. 

Jessica Fein: I think what you say is so important for the audience to hear that it's better to engage and ask the questions.

And I think sometimes that feels really counterintuitive. I know it did to me before this was my world. And I remember one time I was at a doctor's appointment with one of my kids. This was pre-Dalia’s disability phase of our lives. And we were in the elevator with a mom and her kid who was in a wheelchair, who [00:18:00] looked quite different, maybe even had a trach.

I mean, looked very, very different. Of course, I had no idea that this was foreshadowing my life, but my kid said to the parent, what's wrong with your child? And I was Mortified. Mortified. I mean, I turned 12 shades of red and I said to the parent, my God, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And I'll never forget it because the mother looked at me and she said, please don't apologize.

I would much rather have somebody ask. She said to my kid, so and so's body works differently and explained in a way that my child could understand. But the mother taught me a lesson that day. And I was of the like, don't ask, don't look mentality because we don't know. We don't know. And so that's why people hearing this and the work that you're doing is so important.

Dawn Oates: I mean, I do it because there's a need. 

Jessica Fein: Yeah. So what happened with the play brigade? Because that grew into quite a thing. 

Dawn Oates: Yeah, it's expanded. So about 10 years ago, I said, all right, well, you know, we ended up helping design the [00:19:00] Brookline Ave. playground. That's down the road from children's hospital. And it's what I would call an inclusive playground.

There's something for everyone. And when I say inclusive, I don't mean just disability friendly. I mean, people with strollers. Elderly, anybody can use this playground and there's so much equipment that anyone can engage with and inclusive to me means anyone in the community can find something for them.

And I'm talking about with play value, not just, Hey, there's an accessible playground here. Well, when we talk about ADA, ADA is the bare minimum standards for what needs to be there. And when you look at ADA playground guidelines, you have to have a certain percentage has to be low to the ground. That could be a stepping stone.

That could be the little kaleidoscope. It could be the little thing you talk into. These are things that kids will go up to and they'll play with for maybe 60 seconds and they're off to the next thing. They're climbing, jumping, rocking, swinging, all these other things, but it checks the box that it's compliant.

So the idea was go beyond compliance. Worked with the city of Boston to help develop playgrounds in the city of Boston. Franklin Park, for [00:20:00] example, we donated a bunch of equipment and money so that There could be inclusive equipment there, game tables, pads that are next to benches, so wheelchair users can sit next to their friend on a bench.

Really simple things that people don't think about. But pretty soon I realized, wow, this is really expensive. We're not about building playgrounds. We're really about creating. A ha moments, creating demonstration projects. How do you show somebody what community inclusion is so that they look at it and say, ah, I get it.

It's one thing for me to tell you, this is what it means to be inclusive. You know, I'm going to mess this up, but it's sort of like, it's one thing to be invited to the birthday party. It's another thing to be able to play all the games at the birthday party. You don't be sitting in the corner at the birthday party while all the other kids are doing stuff.

It's also about kind of thinking about everybody else when you don't need to. There's a quick story I'll tell you. It's about what's happening right now. As much work as I've done, it still doesn't always prepare us as a family or as a community for everything. So Harper's class, [00:21:00] got invited to a block of seats at a Red Sox game on the last day of school.

One class arranged all these seats, and I think there were a lot of seats, so we were invited, this other class was invited, and I went on to go look at seats, and there's two areas where there's seating, and I went, huh, are any of these seats accessible? Now, Harper is the only student who's a wheelchair user in the entire school, and she's been there for eight years.

It's a great school. The school community has been very welcoming and amazing and just really inclusive. But this was an oversight. Nobody really was thinking about Harper Rhodes because these tickets weren't intended for her or her class initially, from what I understand. So I emailed the class rep, Hey, are there accessible seats?

And oh, I don't know. Let's find out. And then that parent talked to the other parent, the other parent. In the meantime, I'm like, I'm just going to go to the box office. So I go to the box office because I live near Fenway and I say, Hey, can you tell me this is the class and this is the group? And I show on my phone, these are the seats.

Are there any accessible seats in this area? Oh no, neither of the two sections have accessible seating. And I'm sitting here going, I can't [00:22:00] hijack the entire group and bring them to an accessible section, or can I? So, um, okay, well, what should I do? Well, we can get you seats in section 23 over here. And I said, well, then she's not going to be with the school and it defeats the purpose of having a whole group thing.

What would you do if you're in my situation? Oh, well, you should talk to the group sales guy and here's his name and here's his phone number, et cetera, et cetera. So I call him and I'm like, Hey, how's it going? And his response initially was, well, if you want to have a handful of other seats over here, and maybe your daughter can invite some other people to sit over here, I can seat her in this accessible row.

And then maybe the row in front of her and like, okay, so now the school has three different sections. There's no camaraderie. She has to now do the engineering of who she's going to invite. And if they want to sit over there, or if that section is closer or better, they're going to want to sit over there, et cetera, et cetera.

So believe me, it felt like rolling a boulder up a hill. But finally, I just said, can you take all of the unsold tickets thus far and move them into section [00:23:00] 23 surrounding the accessible seating? I really don't want Harper Oates to have to do the work of trying to rally friends to go over there. If it's no difference to you, you're still getting the same amount of money for seats.

Could that happen instead of us having to do the legwork here? And he actually said yes. And so all the tickets that were unsold, he moved them over to this other area. So now we have inclusion in the school section and she is not just going to a game that her friends are at, but she's not near them. So sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't.

Jessica Fein: And you got to ask. So you went down there and you asked.  

Dawn Oates: I went down there and asked. Sorry, when I got there, that guy then sent me away. I mean, there's a lot wrong with what happened, but you can't really pinpoint it to one specific thing, because again, the intention was not, let's be thinking of Harper Oates, right?

Like you're not programmed to think, Oh, I need a section with somebody who's a wheelchair user. Is she even going to come? She's not even in our class. Like, you know, there's a lot. And then the guy at the [00:24:00] box office. It would have been nice if he had made the phone call to the sales guy and said, Hey, look, we got this situation.

Can you do like the brainstorming behind that stopped with, Hey, call this guy. So now I've walked from my house at Fenway Park. Now I'm walking from Fenway Park back to my house. Now I'm making this phone call. Then I'm sending this email to my class rep. She's emailing the next class rep, that class reps emailing the sales manager.

When the reality is, Whenever you do a group ticket sale, let's build it into the protocol at Fenway Park, that group tickets. Let's always ask, is there anybody in your group who could potentially need accessible seats? Or let's make sure that we build this group in a section that has accessible seating in the same area, not these other two that we know don't.

Because it's very difficult to undo that. Once you've sold tickets over here and people have picked and paid and all of that, he said he didn't want to refund those seats. And I'm sitting here going, well, as a matter of sort of restoring dignity, there were only a smattering of seats sold. Look, you have to think about how far do you really want to go [00:25:00] before you're, uh, The person who's derailing plans that were fine for everybody else and making you something that they become resentful about, which is not the world I want to be in.

But fortunately, both class reps were just incredibly accommodating and we were all working together and it took a couple of days to work it out, but it did work out and not coincidentally and not ironically, stadium seating. And accessible concert venues and sports arenas and all that, something that the Play Brigade has been working on pretty closely over the past year and a half now.

Jessica Fein: I love that the school, they didn't think about it at first, but then they were right there with you. Which brings me to something else that I obviously want to talk about, which is your case against The Park School, that's one where I was absolutely watching from the sidelines because it was one of those scenarios where I can envision a parent getting the news that their child wasn't going to be admitted and fuming silently and moving on and no, no, no, that is not what you did.

So can you tell us what happened and what you [00:26:00] did? 

Dawn Oates: I would be very happy to tell you. I want to tell this story far and wide for many years to come, because I think it's so important for a bunch of different reasons. One, Harper Oates was, and is, a very, very smart person and she just uses her brain in ways that you don't typically see.

There's a lot of sensory input there. It's sort of magical to watch. So, my other two kids had gone to Park School where their dad had gone and where his dad had been on the board for a period of time and we had a relationship with the school. And I'm a public school girl and I got a great education, but having the opportunity to have education I thought was important for Harper.

She's going to need to learn to be a great self advocate. Education will take her far. And as a family, it's one of our areas of interest and focus in terms of giving back to education and making sure our kids are lifelong learners. So here's the story. Jack and Olivia were in Park School. We knew that we were going to apply to Park [00:27:00] School for Harper.

She didn't really need special ed, so to speak, because she's a great learner. She needed adaptive tools to be able to access the curriculum, didn't need an adapted curriculum, didn't need any changes. She needed a teacher, a classroom, and peers. That's it. I had an aide for her. I had a nurse for her. I had all the tools and technology she needed.

We were prepared to send Harper to Park at no expense to the school and absolutely no extra time or energy spent by the school. It became very clear as early as the admissions process that they weren't interested in Harper. 

Jessica Fein: What grade was she applying for? 

Dawn Oates: Harper was applying to pre k and this is a private school and you know with two family members there It's pretty much a lock that you're going to have a sibling be accepted and Harper is you know Like I said, she's a smart kid and funny and sociable and she has a lot of things that she can do and especially with adaptive tools and technology and all of that.

This is you know, this is sort of an okay. Let's do this Let's, let's apply, let's get her into a [00:28:00] good place where she can realize her potential without any extra effort or expense to the school. And really quickly we realized that the school was not really having it. They passed over her and didn't return my calls after they did the call out for siblings to come in and have sort of priority interviews and I bumped into another parent and kid I knew who was a sibling in the parking lot one day and I was like, wait, they never returned my phone call.

And then when I called, they were like, oh yeah, we don't have any more slots and how did Jan, you know, December. And I was like, What? It's October right now. I see what's happening. And so I just watched and researched and thought what a lot of people think, which is can private schools do that because they're private?

Can they decide they don't want her because they're private? And the answer, which I found out, as you know, I always say a worried mother does more research than the FBI. I learned quickly that disability rights law prohibits that, that private schools, just because they're private, doesn't mean they can discriminate openly and say, you can't come here if you have a [00:29:00] disability.

The rule really is that this student is otherwise qualified. Absent the disability, she would be qualified to come to this school. with the disability she's qualified to come to this school, right? So I think that maybe, and I'm speculating, and maybe I'm being too nice to Park, but I think maybe they were concerned that this would open the floodgates for all kinds of people and all kinds of resources to be spent on people who weren't otherwise qualified, that had other disabilities that wouldn't be the appropriate placement for them.

I don't know. I can only speculate at this point. So, we finally got an interview, we had an aide go in with her, I got feedback that she did fantastic, and she was, you know, speaking out, and she was solving puzzles, and all kinds of great stuff, and then I got the call from admissions, and the head of school.

Oh, Harper is a smart, bright, wonderful girl that certainly is ready for the four year old pre K course of study, which is play. But we don't have special ed. We don't have technology. And I'm like, we're not asking for that. Well, you know, why can't she go to Brookline [00:30:00] Public and all this trying to get us to look in a different direction.

And I thought, I see what's happening. And this is really horrible. And I just couldn't believe my eyes. And when you look at this from a historically marginalized population perspective, try to substitute in, you're black. You're gay, you're disabled, go over there with the other black, gay, disabled people.

Alright, just pick your historically marginalized population and insert it. Does it feel wrong? Does it sound wrong? It's probably wrong. So that was really a moment for me when they were trying to send us with the other people who go over there, instead of, well, why not here? You said she's smart, she's bright, she's ready for this.

We're not asking you to spend anything. We're not asking you to do anything extra. We're telling you we'll pay for and provide all of that. Flash forward. We knew she wasn't going to get in. So we applied to the competing school of equal caliber and she [00:31:00] easily got in. They admitted, we don't know how to do this.

But if you're willing to work with us and learn together and have open communication and collaborate on what we need to do to get Harper the education that she deserves, we'll give it a try. I love them. Right? Yeah. They gave her a look where she was handily dismissed and we were put through a bogus process that the US attorney stepped in and they did a year long investigation and they found that Park School did discriminate against Harper Oates on the basis of her disability.

They did not put her through an admissions process that assessed whether they could meet her needs as a student. She had a different process than everybody else. It was handled differently, which is illegal. And so it's funny because at the end of this, you know, we're talking two front page Boston Globe articles.

Feel free to Google all listeners, Google it, Park School, Harper Oates. You'll see a front page Boston Globe article about the investigation, and then you'll see a front page Boston Globe article. about the settlement agreement. [00:32:00] Now, let me tell you about that. You mentioned in the beginning, Jessica, your case against Park School.

It actually wasn't my case against Park School or our family's case against Park School. This was the United States of America on behalf of not Harper Oates, but all of the Harper Oates all across the country, which I found really enlightening. Because very quickly when the U. S. attorney caught wind of this story, the assistant U.S. attorney, she came to me and she said, I'm not your attorney. I am investigating on behalf of every kid like your kid. And we're going to get to the bottom of this. And we're going to do an investigation. And at the end of the investigation, if we conclude that there was a violation of the law, and it's a matter of public importance, And we feel like we could win in court.

We will go to the park school and sit down with them and say, let's talk settlement. Let's talk, what is the agreement? What are you going to do? Now, I want to be really clear, Jessica, that right out of the gate, this is an optics issue. You've got kids in a private school. You've got privilege. And you've got a lack of empathy because of it.

But you also have lots of other kids that might [00:33:00] be in underserved communities that might have private schools for varying needs, a school for the deaf, a school for the blind, you know, different situations, but they're really kind of the same. Can a student who's otherwise qualified in a different socioeconomic setting go to a private school if they have a disability?

What was unique about this case is people thought we sued Park School. We did not sue Park School. We could have easily sued Park School. We could have sued on top of the U.S. attorney case. Once the U.S. attorney entered into the settlement agreement, we knew that it was because there was enough evidence and they didn't want to waste taxpayer money going through a long trial just to prove Park School discriminated.

Instead, Park School got to not admit that they discriminated and instead do all of the things that we wanted them to do. And there was an opportunity for us to get a settlement, a monetary award of some sort. And we declined that. We said up front, this is not about money. We're not interested in that.

We're interested in educating communities. Because the important thing about this case, well, there's a lot of important things about this case, but it told [00:34:00] other schools that they can't discriminate on the basis of disability, public or private. They have to make reasonable accommodations and modifications to their policies and procedures, so long as it doesn't provide an undue burden to the school.

And so long as it doesn't fundamentally alter the way that they do business. And it told educators, staff, faculty, board members, don't do this. And it used Park School as the example. It told parents, oh, wow, if this happened to me, it was wrong. And I do have a voice and there is something I can do about it.

And I can speak up and my kid can do this. And most importantly, It told every student like Harper, someone who is cognitively able to have peers in a school and work in a way that will allow her to be a benefit to the community just as that community is a benefit to her, I can do this. I'm entitled to this.

I'm allowed to do this and I should do this if I want to do this. And so that's what the purpose was. Stop shrinking into the shadows, parents out there. [00:35:00] There's so many parents in this situation and I hope that I reach those parents today. I have had so many calls over the years. I mean, it's been years.

This was 2015 and 16 that this was happening. So many calls from parents. I just had one this past week. Can I talk to you about a situation that's happening at my kid's school and can you connect me with an attorney? Hey, let's talk. Let's see if it needs an attorney or if it's just conversations. It's scary to me how many parents in this situation don't speak up and a lot of times I would imagine they're afraid, especially in a private school situation, right?

You have this like, Oh, like let's not make waves. And also I want to protect my child. Now, Harper Oates has very visible disabilities, but imagine you have a child who has ADHD or has a speech problem or a hearing problem or a reading problem that requires, say, an Orton Gillingham tutor. And we see even today that schools are saying, Oh, we don't have Orton Gillingham tutors.

We have this other tutor. Well, that's not what the assessment says. that my kid needs. And that must be provided in the private school setting if the [00:36:00] public school or these assessments say it's not just a public schools where they have to follow an IEP. There can be a learning plan in a private school, even if you get your IEP from the public school and carry it forward into private school.

So I see a lot of families quote, counseled out is what they call it, where these families are made to feel terrible and that they should voluntarily leave a private school because the private school School doesn't have services. Well, that's not good enough. These private schools have to have services.

As I said before, they must make reasonable accommodations to afford a child with a disability the ability to have an education. And that should be at no expense to the parent. It's just been like a really wild ride. A lot of press came out of the park school thing, really strange reception though. A lot of people really alienated us at the time because they didn't know what side to take.

And then when the settlement came out, I thought this was just absolutely shocking. Park school sent out a memo to all of their families. All the way back, not [00:37:00] realizing that we had many friends and relatives going years and years back in Park School, sent out a memo saying, Oh, you might've seen the Boston Globe.

We just want to say we did nothing wrong when we didn't offer it. The U.S. attorney said we didn't do anything wrong by denying the child admission. Not true. It was a total gaslight to their entire community. That's not true. It was like a blatant lie to everybody in the community. You got pinched, you did something wrong, you violated a federal law, you did it to a person that is an underrepresented group, a marginalized group, a protected class.

And now you're turning around and saying, we didn't do it and sort of inadvertently vilifying me, my family, my child, trying to like build up your stock again. Well, it was very transparent. We had a lot of people then come forward and say, Hey, listen, by the way, even though we didn't tell you at the time we were on your side, it's like, then they came forward.

Jessica Fein: I hope they all left the school. So there's so many families who are dealing with this stuff and so many pieces of your story resonate not only for me as a mother of Dalia, but [00:38:00] as a mother of a child with ADHD and some really challenging school situations we had all along the way in that respect. So families are listening to this and they're probably doing what I did, which is, you know, standing up and giving you standing ovations as they hear this story, but they don't know how to start.

They don't know how to speak up. What are some easy ways people can begin, whether it's for their own child or for somebody in the community or for a cause that they believe in? 

Dawn Oates: So, well, you say easy, that's, it's, none of this is easy. I mean, there's simple ways that are very still challenging to the human.

And I would say a few things. One is, Really, really dip into your courage reserves because you will, as a parent, have to build that thick shell when you know in your heart that it's wrong and that this shouldn't be happening. The first thing you do is your research. You have to know you're right to kind of embark in a battle like this.

I knew I was right. So I was like, well, am I going to just shrink if I'm wrong? And I said to my husband at one point, you know, he didn't want to make waves. He's from Brookline. He went to the school. [00:39:00] People talk, you know, socially, we were dialed into a lot of people, you know, circles of people in the group.

You know, he really was like, that's what most people are like. Now remember, I'm the scrapper from Dighton, okay? You know, public school, grew up in the farms, like, I don't care! I don't care what you think of me. Like, I, I don't care. I have integrity. I have my own moral code. There's stuff that I know is wrong and I'm never gonna go there.

And if you ask me to be quiet on something, because it suits you? Absolutely not. I will shout from the rooftops when I know it's wrong and somebody did something wrong. Just like I'd expect people to be an upstander in other areas. Race. We saw the whole Black Lives Matter movement. We saw a lot of upstanders.

LGBTQ movements, gender awareness, all of this, right? We have upstanders. We have allies who are upstanders. And now we have disability and I'm saying, okay, yes, you want to keep it private. I understand that you don't want to shout from the rooftops that your kid has a disability if you're secretive about that.

And there's a stigma still sadly, but you know, you don't [00:40:00] want to alienate your child. You don't want to call out your child, make your child feel like they're not as able as the other kids. I mean, this could be damaging to the child. So it's really careful, delicate dance. But I would say if it looks wrong, smells wrong, feels wrong, right?

It's probably wrong. And so be armed with ADA. Be armed with what are your rights under federal law for your child. And when you're having these conversations, go and have them collaboratively and constructively. Don't be angry. Even if you're boiling inside, go with the intention of making it right. What is your goal?

And it's not to trash and crash and burn, but along the way, in order to achieve your goal, you have to kind of serve it as the educator, not as a holier than thou, I know this and you don't, and look how smart I am. No, you have to go into these conversations like, look, maybe you didn't know this. But people are afraid to throw down the law.

Jessica Fein: You describe yourself as a writer, an [00:41:00] advocate, and an optimist. I love that, and I wanted to know what keeps you optimistic? 

Dawn Oates: You know, I feel like you have to wake up with yes in your head every day, and I think that every parent who's been through something that I've been through has an auxiliary tank.

That tank is energy, that tank is emotion, that tank is everything that you need, and you don't know that it's there. But now I know it's there and I know it's there because of Harper. I know that when I'm like, at rock bottom, there's a yes out there. There's a yes somewhere. And what keeps me optimistic, it's the knowledge that I feel like people are in the dark about a lot of issues.

And when they can see this light, things turn around. And that's just been my lived experience with Harper. That I don't believe anybody inherently wants to discriminate. I don't believe people are inherently mean or biased. I think that ignorance is where people start if they haven't been exposed. [00:42:00] And so my job is to keep exposing, to keep sort of educating in a way that's not, I'm going to tell you what to do and how, but more the life that I live is one of, I'm just being me, and I'm asking for things that people haven't thought of.

Like, the Red Sox didn't think, hey, let's make all group seating, or ask the question when group seating comes, or make sure that group seating is near accessible seating. And I think that that experience can lead to change. I think, optimistically, that the Red Sox will learn about this and will change their group sales process so that they will ask the question.

You know, it might fail because you don't always know what the disability is or that somebody wanted to invite a friend who was a wheelchair user or needed specific seating, but I think that it's a baby step and that's all I do. I baby step my way through life. Okay, great. That's working for me. 

Jessica Fein: It's working for you and it's working for so many other people. Your baby steps are working for other people. 

You wrote that [00:43:00] as a parent of a child with special needs, you've learned to look for what's possible rather than what's easy. And I think that your story really shows that and it's just so inspiring to so many of us, again, who you don't even know exist, who are on the sidelines cheering you on, but who also can watch what you do as a model and can tap into their auxiliary reserves that they might not even be aware of.

Once they hear your story. So thank you for the work you're doing and thank you for sharing it. 

Dawn Oates: Like I said, it doesn't feel like work. Most of the time it doesn't feel like work. Yeah, it's hard sometimes, but it needs to be done. And I think we're in a good position to keep making these baby steps of change and have that ripple effect.

I'll throw the pebble in the pond. And if the ripple reaches you, that's good. You'll take something hopefully and take that back to your own family or friends or community. 

Jessica Fein: This was just such an important conversation, and I'm so grateful for you for taking the time. 

Dawn Oates: Well, thanks for thinking of me, really, because there's a lot of people out there with a lot of different stories, but the idea of being included in something like this, I'm [00:44:00] glad to have the opportunity.

Thanks. 

Jessica Fein: Here are my takeaways from the conversation with Dawn. Number one, if things feel a little too easy, don't hesitate to ask for more. That's how one accessible swing ultimately led to the Play Brigade. Number two, if something looks wrong, smells wrong, or feels wrong, trust your instincts. It's probably wrong.

Number three, speak up when you see discrimination or lack of inclusion, even if it's uncomfortable. Research your rights and have courageous conversations. Number four, look for the yes and remain optimistic. Change often starts with small actions that create ripples. And number five, educate and advocate with patience and empathy rather than anger.

The goal is to bring people along, not to alienate them. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. It's really one of my favorites we've done thus far. If you've enjoyed it, forward it to a friend, and I'd be so grateful if you would take just a second to rate and review the show. That's the best way for more people to find it.

Have a great day. Talk to you next time. 

Music: I've got the whole at my fingertips. [00:45:00] I feel like flying. I feel infinite. I know where the kind to think along some other lines, but will be fine.

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