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While children's rights are often framed in a global context, ultimately they are upheld, defended, and realized at the local community level. Despite the United States being the only country that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, every child in the U.S. has the right to a public education as recognized in state constitutions. Also, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a federal law that makes available a free, appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities and ensures special education and related services to those children. Yet, despite these goals and protections, many children are excluded from educational opportunity. In the United States, such exclusion is particularly evident for children with special needs and Black children. An ethnographic research study by Allen and White-Smith provides in-depth description and analysis of the exclusionary and disciplinary experiences of Black mothers and their sons in a U.S. high school, offering counternarratives to the assumptions that Black parents are uninvolved or not caring about school that dominate American society today. This article highlights the story of KeiShaun and Easter, an elementary school student and his mother, is similar to those of the parents in the Allen and White-Smith study. Their story demonstrates the strength of families and positive outcomes possible when families team up with proactive education rights organizations.

The article discusses the Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the special education rights of elementary and secondary school students with disabilities. Topics explored include the Title IX protection of these students from sexual harassment, the decisions on the U.S. Supreme Court cases Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District and Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, and the conflicts between Title IX and the U.S. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).