Names AZ Autism Charter School Founder Diana Diaz-Harrison Deputy Assistant Secretary For Special Education
PHOENIX, AZ. In a visit to Arizona Autism Charter School, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon named Diana Diaz-Harrison Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Education & Rehabilitative Services, a post that will put her in charge of guiding policy for the more than 7 million students with special needs in the nation.
“Federal policy has too often failed students with special needs, either putting them in cookie-cutter categories that fail to advance their capacity to learn or ignoring their needs altogether,” said CER Founder and CEO Jeanne Allen.
“This will be the first time that any Administration has placed an accomplished practitioner of education for students with special needs at the helm of this critical and government program. Having had to buck the system for years before founding AZACS for her son, Sammy and thousands like him, Diana knows first hand the challenges that parents face, the obstacles and bureaucracy that stand in their way and the most innovative and forward thinking approaches to educating exceptional children.”
Arizona Autism Charter School was founded in 2013 and today serves 978 students on 3 campuses. In 2022, AZACS was named the winner of the $1 million Yass Prize, the Pulitzer of Education Innovation. In addition to expanding to other cities in Arizona, the Prize helped launch the National Accelerator of Autism Charter Schools, which aims to create in charter schools specializing and training students with autism in every major city.
“It is the honor of a lifetime to receive this appointment which I have accepted for the same reason I founded Arizona Autism Charter Schools over a decade ago: to help ensure a quality education for every child with special needs,” Diaz-Harrison said in the official release. “I look forward to working with President Trump and Secretary McMahon as we fight for these students and their families, support choice in education and empower local schools to be their best.”
CER was represented at the event by its Board Chair Michael Moe, co-founder of GSV, who also interviewed Diaz-Harrison for the Edreform in 10 podcast sponsored by Dash Media. In the interview she shares her thoughts about current issues, including HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s controversial comments about limitations of students with autism and what she is most excited about with her move to Washington.