Education Week

April Wilson is responsible for teaching 36 students this school year—not squeezed into a single classroom, but spread among 19 school buildings in 12 districts across rural southern Illinois. For her job as one of only two itinerant teachers of the visually impaired, or VI, in all of Illinois, Wilson drives as many as 1,400 miles a month. Not only does she provide instruction for blind students from ages 3 to 21, she has to supply special equipment for them, too—and make sure they, and their teachers, know how to use it.

But the future of her professional development is in jeopardy. On Sept. 5, after business hours on a Friday, the U.S. Department of Education abruptly announced it was discontinuing the federal grant paying for Wilson’s program, along with more than 30 other ongoing grants related to special education totaling nearly $30 million over the next three years.