Mom fights for son with special needs to walk across the stage at graduation

KILLEEN, Texas (KWTX/Gray News) - The mother of a Texas high school student with special needs is pushing school officials to reconsider their decision to not allow him to walk the stage at graduation.

Sean Roberts, an 18-year-old student in the Killeen Independent School District, wants to walk across the stage at his high school graduation. It may be a short walk, but it’s one he’s had to train for his whole life.

“When he was born, he was missing part of his brain. Basically the connections with the two hemispheres that go across. With that, later on, he had epilepsy, he had cerebral palsy, he’s legally blind,” said Ruth Roberts, Sean’s mother.

Sean is also nonverbal and only walks with the assistance of devices and those around him, but that has not stopped him from wanting to walk at graduation.

“Any time people come here and they’re like, ‘All right, what’s your PT goal, your OT goal, your speech goal?’ That he’s going to walk at graduation,” his mother said.

But that dream nearly got crushed by a letter Ruth Roberts received just hours before a scheduled meeting to discuss how Sean could walk at graduation. The letter said he would not be able to walk in part because it would take too long.

“They had already decided at that point that Sean would just stand at graduation. He was not going to walk and that they would assist him through this process,” Ruth Roberts said.

She broke down reading those words from a school that has been nothing but amazing to her and her son.

On Friday, she shared the situation on Facebook, and on Saturday, she got a call from the superintendent, Dr. King Davis.

“The one thing that bothered me, and I told Dr. Davis this. I said, ‘Listen, I shouldn’t have to put my gloves on. I shouldn’t have to put this fight out there,’” Ruth Roberts said.

She now has a meeting later this week to discuss accommodations for Sean to walk at graduation.

“I just want them to see Sean. I want to see that they see that he can do it because I know he can do it. I know he can walk,” Ruth Roberts said.

She wants her son to take those few steps into the future right alongside his fellow students.

“He’ll probably never graduate from college. He probably won’t work, but you know what my son will do is he’s going to walk across that stage because this has been his goal. That’s something that he can do, and I feel like that’s a realistic goal for him,” she said.