Arizona autism school founder appointed to role in Trump administration
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon was in Phoenix on Friday, visiting a charter school for kids with autism and that’s where she announced the school founder and executive director will be the newest member of the Trump administration.
Diana Diaz-Harrison started Arizona Autism Charter Schools after her son was diagnosed with autism. More than a decade later, she is heading to Washington D.C. as the deputy assistant secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.
Students at the Arizona Autism Charter Schools Phoenix campus welcomed McMahon with a pep rally and then a roundtable discussion was held with advocates and community leaders. The school is the first of its kind in the state, serving a public school for autistic students in Arizona.
Diana Diaz-Harrison’s new role comes at a time when President Donald Trump has directed McMahon to move forward with dismantling the Education Department. It’s a move critics have said will severely impact students with disabilities.
Without funding for disabled students, Arizona’s Family asked them how communities could be affected by this new version of the Education Department. “We are looking at regulations, like which of those regulations can we get rid of? Which agencies can best perform some of the functions now that the Department of Education is doing? Like, for instance, would it be better served to be at HHS and Title I funding, where it actually started? But we’re already working with Treasury relative to student loans, starting with the collection process. So that’s what we’re doing, moving different segments, you know in different places, but keeping the functions, keeping all of the priority work that we need for education moving in all in the right direction,” McMahon explained.
Diaz-Harrison, who is set to assume the role next week, also had a response to her new role and how she intends to make a mark. “I am so excited to join the administration and work with our top leaders, to make that more accessible, create more programs across the nation for the growing number of children on the autism spectrum while trying to create solutions to find out the causes and support more families that way too,” Diaz-Harrison said.
The Department of Education has long enforced the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees about 7.5 million children with disabilities, including neuro-diverse students, a “free, appropriate public education.”
Friday, McMahon explained special education will be handled by the Department of Health Services, headed by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He recently drew national criticism after he made sweeping comments about autistic children, saying they will never pay taxes, hold a job or go out on a date, among other things. Critics called his comments harmful and regressive.
But Diaz-Harrison, founder of Arizona’s only public school for autistic students, says she believes the narrative will change with her in D.C. “I think it’s a matter of understanding that autism is a spectrum and it does break my heart that some children are very, very impacted and will need a lifetime of support. Does that mean they cannot be productive? No,” she said. “I understand where RFK is coming from. He has so much love and urgency to find the causes for autism because when my son Sammy was diagnosed, it was one in 150 children was diagnosed with autism back about 20 years ago. Today, it’s one in 31 children are diagnosed with autism,” she said.
Experts, however, have attributed that increase to better understanding of and screening for the condition.
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