Prioritizing Real Voices

Kristin Vogel-Campbell serves as the Director of Multiple Disability Programs at North Point Educational Service Center in Western Ohio, supporting more than 400–500 students across multiple districts. Stepping into this role in August, she has rooted her leadership in a clear belief: inclusion is a right—not something students must earn.

Living with an invisible disability, Kristin is deeply aware of the privilege of being able to “mask,” and she is committed to building systems where students who cannot or should not have to mask are fully affirmed. Her anti-ableist practice is grounded in disability justice, and one of her most powerful resources is the Tenets of Disability Justice, which she shares with educators to help connect daily school decisions to a student’s lifelong trajectory.

Kristin regularly draws from Learning for Justice, Rethinking Schools, and stories from disabled adults, emphasizing the importance of real voices over hypothetical “role-play,” which she names as harmful. She dreams of a future where pre-packaged curricula are anti-ableist from the start; where disabled authors and protagonists are present not as lessons on difference, but as whole people whose disability is simply part of their identity.

Her message to educators is both grounding and generous: “Be okay with being on a journey. Don’t beat yourself up. We owe it to ourselves and our students to sit in discomfort as we unlearn ableism.” Her call to action is clear: immerse yourself in the voices and wisdom of disabled students, families, and scholars. That is where real change begins.