Here you have the most recent of the weekly newsletter for Special Education Today. This covers the week that began 12 October 2026. If you are familiar with how we roll here at SET, this issue will have a familiar structure: a photo, an admin update, Spedlettes links, and editorial comments.
Let us get started with the 1854th post of SET!
Photo
The accompanying photo may look a tad familiar. I posted an image of this same phone booth in early October 2026, but it was taken from a different spot (to the left of where I took this one).
As you can see, Superman still is not changing into his tights and cape in this phone booth. However, if you look closely at the reflection in the booth’s window, you may catch a glimpse of the photographer, who is also known as Blooperman.
Updates
Here are a few notes about developments in the community.
Comments: Thanks for posting your thoughts about posts, Clay K. and Jane B. You are among the stalwarts of replies, so I do not want folks to miss me acknowledging your contributions.
Supporters: For me it is heartwarming to see that folks like Jane B., Clay K., Jose B., Ed P. (and Ed M.), Kristin S., Larry M., Linda L., Bob P., Christine T., Dan H. (who had to give his acceptance speech virtually—Sigh), Vince C., Annmarie O., Bear A., Keith L., Jean S., Jane N., Janet J., Karmelyn L., Anna O., Jeremy J., Jim F., Stephanie A.O., Sunil, Tim H., Nancy C.-W., Paige P., Tom Z., and (of course) Joel M. If you are running on a free subscription, please join them and our patron sponsors—Anita A., Kathy M., and Mike G.—as a supporter of SET.
The subscriber base for SET is just a few people shy of 1300. We added about a half dozen new free subscribers this past week. Welcome!
Spedlettes
Here is the list of spedlettes for this past week.
Free posts
Special Education Today newsletter 6(15): What happened with SET for the week beginning 5 October 2026?
Make that bird call: What about the widely distributed videos of Samuel Henderson?
Max’s family discusses his communication growth: What happened when the family gained access to services for Deaf-blind students?
Sold a Story 2 opens: Who wants to skip the launch of this new series of podcasts?
Sold a Story 2 sweepstakes has begun: Who said what about the second season of E. Hanford’s podcast?
Intersectional disparities occur in identification of autism in U.S. 4th graders: Who does and does not get identified by schools?
Friday catch-up notes—16 October 2026: How about these stories that we did not convert to full posts this week?
Special education room is scene of Oregon school shooting: Let’s remember the children and teachers of the classroom
For the faithful
Bateman’s fish story: What do you catch when you’re an ardent traveler-explorer?
That’s all that I have for this week. The story about the shooting in Oregon shut down my keyboard.
Some of you may have noted that no one received a mailing about the story about “Zero Reject”; it was a Web-only post. Here’s the obligatory reminder: Folks, regardless of subscriber status, readers can find a full catalog of posts on the Web site for Special Education Today.
Comments
Over the years I have published at least seven reports about gun deaths and children and youths with disabilities. Here are links (some behind the paywall) to those stories.
25 May 2022—School Shootings and Students with Disabilities: John’s screed: WTF?
26 May 2022—Honor Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia: Let us support teachers who care for our children
4 June 2022—Put more guns into schools?: Didn’t Archie Bunker have a similar recommendation?
28 December 2022—Editorial: Chilidren are being abused, injured, and killed!: Oh, what in the world is going on?
9 April 2023—Guns, killing, and kids with disabilities: What could we reasonably do?
5 February 2025—Shooting at Campus Risbergska, Örebro, Sweden: What happened? Who was injured or killed?
11 June 2025—Yet another school shooting: Are you prepared for a rant?
17 October 2026—Special education room is scene of Oregon school shooting: Let’s remember the children and teachers of the classroom
As the last item in this list reveals, the event in Bend, Oregon, was the most recent. I am very saddened that we have to add the name of Megan Lambert to those of Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia, special educators who have been killed in their classrooms. I bet that all of them, and their colleagues who were injured in shootings (especially remembering Becky Drury at this time), were working to create safe places for their students.
Schools should be safe places, of course. Sadly, they have not been. Between 21 May 2024 and 17 October 2026 there have been about 20001 instances of gun violence in US schools (Gun Violence Archive, no date).
What I consider unacceptably high numbers of children and youth are killed or injured by guns in the US. The accompanying chart shows data for 10 years for children and youth (ages 0-17) killed or injured by gun violence in the US (in all settings, not just schools. It looks to me like things are getting more dangerous for adolescent in the US.
The data for this graph come from the Gun Violence Archive, but see also GBD US Health Disparities Collaborators (2025) and R. R. Wilson et al. (2022). To be sure, not all of these fatalities or injuries happened to children with disabilities, but gun violence is one source of them for our kids (Samuel et al., 2023).
Perhaps we would be wise to promote violence prevention curricula. I do not know whether they would stop or even reduce gun violence, but it really ought to help kids learn better ways to solve conflicts. We could probably learn a thing or two from the Montessori peace curriculum. The Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports have good hints (see “Resource: Preventing & Responding to Violent Behavior in Schools.” And there are 100s of studies about violence prevention in schools (see Wilson et al., 2003; Wilson & Lipsey, 2007 for met-analyses).
Whatever one does, I hope that it involves keeping oneself safe, healthy, and happy. And, of course, teaching our children well.
Peace,
JohnL
John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia
Founder & Editor, https://www.SpecialEducationToday.com/
References
GBD US Health Disparities Collaborators, Strassle, P. D., Kendrick, P., Baumann, M. M., Kelly, Y. O., Li, Z., ... & Pérez-Stable, E. J. (2025). Homicide rates across county, race, ethnicity, age, and sex in the US: A global burden of disease study. JAMA Network Open, 8(2), e2462069. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.62069
Gun Violence Archive. (no date).
Samuel, D., O’Malley, F., Brink, F. W., Crichton, K. G., Duffy, B., Letson, M. M., & Michaels, N. L. (2023). Characterizing child maltreatment fatalities among child victims with disabilities in the United States, 2010–2019. Child Abuse & Neglect, 144, 106354. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213423003423
Wilson, R. R, Fortons, B. L., Zhou, H., Lyons, B. H., Sheats, K. J. Betz, C. J., Blair, J. M., & Self-Brown, S. (2022). Trends in homicide rates for us children aged 0 to 17 years, 1999 to 2020. Journal of the American Medical Association: Pediatrics. jamapediatrics.2022.4940
Wilson, S. J., Lipsey, M. W., & Derzon, J. H. (2003). The effects of school-based intervention programs on aggressive behavior: a meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 71(1), 136-149. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-006X.71.1.136
Wilson, S. J., & Lipsey, P. M. W. (2007). School-based interventions for aggressive and disruptive behavior: Update of a meta-analysis. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 33(2), S130-S143. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074937970700236
SET should not be confused with a product that uses essentially the same name and is published by the Council for Exceptional Children. SET predated CEC’s publication by decades; I wonder if CEC put “today” in all capitals to distinguish its product from SET. Despite my appreciation for CEC, this product is not designed to promote that organization nor should the views expressed here be considered to represent the views or policies of that organization. A membership in CEC does not get one a subscription to SET and vice versa!
Footnotes
That number is not rounded. That is the number of rows in the downloadable date base from GVA.