Perspective | How strangers rallied to give students with disabilities a class trip

Annie Vincent had just begun working that year as a special-education teacher for Arlington County Schools, and some of her students asked if she could take them to Disney World.One even began calling her “Princess Annie” and later, after the student decided the Disney heroine she most resembled was Ariel, “Mermaid Annie.”For many of the nation’s students, class trips that take them out of the state or even out of the country are built into the school year.

Hundreds of people contributed money to cover the costs, school system officials made the trip a school-sponsored event and TSA employees arranged to let the students practice getting through the airport and on a plane. “It’s been amazing to be a part of this and witness the community coming together,” Vincent said on a recent evening. “It shows how much good there really is in this world.”Dennis Edelbrock, who teaches trumpet at George Mason University, held back tears as he talked about how strangers rallied for the students. His daughter Emma, who is 23, has Down syndrome and is one of Vincent’s students.

Edelbrock said after he and Vincent began talking months ago about how Emma and other students were going to graduate at the end of year without ever having gone on a trip with their classmates, they decided they could try to change that., knowing he needed to raise enough money to not only cover the costs for the students but also for staff members and some parents.

Vincent said after she realized the trip was going to happen, she sent an email to TSA. Airports mean noise, crowds and stress and some of her students can respond to feeling overwhelmed by screaming, running away or trying to harm themselves. She wanted to prevent that. In her email to TSA, she explained that some of her students had never been on a plane before.Within an hour, she received a phone call.

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