ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA — A St. Paul, Minnesota, student named Walter began ninth grade at Central Senior High School placed in a classroom for students labeled with emotional or behavioral disorders, a special education designation made under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The federal law, passed in 1975, entitles students with disabilities to free public education in the least restrictive setting that meets their individual needs and requires schools to develop an Individualized Education Program for each qualifying student.

The act includes 13 special education categories: autism; deaf-blindness; deafness; emotional disturbance; hearing impairment; intellectual disability; multiple disabilities; orthopedic impairment; other health impairment; specific learning disability; speech or language impairment; traumatic brain injury; and visual impairment, including blindness. More than 15% of students nationwide, nearly 8 million children, qualify for special education, a figure that has risen steadily since the law's passage. About 4% of those students, roughly 300,000, are labeled with emotional disturbance at the federal level, the category Minnesota refers to as EBD.

EBD is the only special education category that does not require a diagnosis from a medical or psychological specialist. The criteria for the label include "an inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships" and "a pervasive feeling of unhappiness." Students who receive the label are often deemed too disruptive to remain in regular classrooms by teachers and school administrators, and the designation often follows them through their K-12 education, separating them from their peers. Federal data indicate that students labeled EBD are more likely to be educated in separate schools and more likely to come from low-income families of color. Research released by the National Council on Disability and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that they are more likely to be incarcerated and less likely to support themselves as adults.

Walter attended separate high-security, restricted buildings through elementary school, beginning at River Bend Education Center. By seventh grade, his family had moved to St. Paul, where he was placed in an EBD classroom at his neighborhood school before entering Jesse Kwakenat's class at Central. All but one of the high-schoolers in that classroom are students of color, and most have known each other for years.

"Usually, their story is based on being identified [as EBD] in first, second or third grade," said Kwakenat, a special education teacher. "The whole goal should be to have that student be able to exit special education at some point, because we've done our jobs. However, what we see is the lion's share of students that receive services in special education for EBD — they rarely exit." Walter said he internalized the label early. "I was a bad kid," he said.