Before Walter even reached kindergarten, his teachers were kicking him out of class.
" I kind of noticed that he was like really aggressive," his mom, Crystal Deramus, remembered. "Like, instead of him expressing himself, he throws things, he throws tantrums, he bites, he scratches … and the school started noticing too, and it just got worse."
At home in Minneapolis, life was turbulent. Walter's father beat his mother and was in and out of jail before Walter even started school. Then, when Walter was just 5, Deramus was in a car wreck that left her in a wheelchair with paraplegia.
She said that by kindergarten, Walter had gotten even wilder; he would run away from school whenever he got the chance. So she was relieved when his therapeutic day care recommended that he go to a high-security public school that locked its doors.
"I'd rather have him locked in the school than him run out of the school and I have to get a call saying my son … ran into the street and got hit [by a car or truck]," she said.
Walter was sent to River Bend Education Center, a public school for students labeled EBD, which stands for emotional or behavioral disorders. In Minnesota, that's the label for students who need special education services, not because they have a learning or developmental disability, but because they struggle with their emotions or behaviors. Other states use different labels, but every state has a similar special education category. At the federal level, it's called emotional disturbance.
EBD is the only category of special education that doesn't require a diagnosis from a medical or psychological specialist. The criteria are subjective and include "an inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships" and "a pervasive feeling of unhappiness." Often, students labeled EBD are kids whom teachers and school administrators have deemed too disruptive to remain in regular classrooms.
Once a student gets this label, it's hard to shake. It often follows them through their K-12 education, separating them from their peers. Walter is 19 now, but I met him two years ago, toward the end of his junior year in high school. We're using only Walter's first name in this story because of the stigma associated with being labeled EBD.
For lots of students like Walter, the EBD label provides support and protection, but it may also limit their choices and even change the course of their lives.
Mr. K's class
Central Senior High School sits up on a hill a few miles from downtown St. Paul. It's one of the largest high schools in the city, and a lot of people in Minnesota say they're proud to have gone there. It has a reputation for being socioeconomically diverse and academically rigorous for college-bound students, with lots of extracurriculars, especially in the arts.
It's fall of 2024, and up on the fourth floor, in a windowless corner classroom, a veteran teacher named Jesse Kwakenat is trying to start class. He's tossing snack bags of Takis to students who take their seats and put up their hands. Kwakenat — Mr. K to his students — is a teacher for students with the EBD label, like Walter, who need special education support for more than half their school day.
Walter started high school at Central in Kwakenat's class. He had attended separate schools in those high-security, restricted buildings through elementary school. By seventh grade, the family had moved to St. Paul, and Walter was placed in a classroom for students labeled EBD at his neighborhood school. So for all of Walter's K-12 education, most of his classes were with other students with the same label — students whose behavior was a problem.
Supporters of separate classrooms say they allow specially trained teachers like Kwakenat to offer truly individualized instruction; some critics argue that separate classrooms (inadvertently) leave some students behind to insulate others. All but one of the high-schoolers in Kwakenat's classroom are students of color, and most have known each other for many years.
"Usually, their story is based on being identified [as EBD] in first, second or third grade," said Kwakenat.
Their comfort in his classroom is a double-edged sword. On one hand, Kwakenat has earned students' trust and affection; on the other hand, he says most don't do well in school outside of his room, unless they're with the other EBD teacher. Kwakenat says lumping them together defeats the purpose of special education, which is to educate students in the "least restrictive environment (LRE)."
"The whole goal should be to have that student be able to exit special education at some point, because we've done our jobs," he said. "However, what we see is the lion's share of students that receive services in special education for EBD — they rarely exit."
The 51-year-old law now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) entitles students with disabilities to free public education in the least restrictive setting that meets their individual needs. Schools are supposed to come up with an individualized education program (IEP) for each of them. But what those programs look like depends on which of 13 special education categories they fit into. According to federal data, if they are labeled EBD (like Kwakenat's students), they are more likely to be educated in separate schools from other students. They are also more likely to be from low-income families of color.
Today, more than 15% of students nationwide qualify for special education, almost 8 million kids, a number that has risen steadily since the law was passed in 1975. About 4% of those students — or roughly 300,000 students — are labeled with emotional disturbance.
According to research released by the National Council on Disability and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, students who are labeled EBD are more likely to be incarcerated and are less likely to be able to support themselves as adults.
Kwakenat said he would like to upend the system, but it's hard because he's part of it.
"A bad kid"
Kwakenat said that Walter was one of the most brilliant students he'd ever had, but that's not the message Walter had received before he got to Central.
"I was a bad kid," Walter told me. According to teachers and academics, kids see themselves as "bad" because others have described them that way.
Rachel Fish, a sociology professor at Smith College, said students like Walter are often told they're bad from the moment they start school. It's a view they internalize. Their identity becomes "about being a behavior problem," she said.
For Walter, being bad in grade school got him sent to locked and padded rooms. But he said that starting in middle school, bad behavior got him sent home instead.
When I met Walter at the end of 11th grade, he'd been suspended so many times — usually for fighting — that he had a little more than half the credits he needed to graduate.
"You got people that think they're bigger than you, they're better than you, think they can run over you," he said. "And you're not going for that at all."
Walter told me he was raised to fight back, to stand up for himself and his family. His teacher said a lot of students in EBD classrooms were raised the same way.
Kwakenat and his students are caught in a catch-22. Students labeled EBD are kept separate from their peers until they can show they can manage their behavior. But being apart from general-ed peers often limits what they are able to learn behaviorally and academically. Students I talked to said they act like the other people in their classrooms — other students labeled EBD.
"Why would you want to be the only person changing? As a kid, you watch. You want to follow what other people do. … Why would you be the only person in the room trying to change, knowing that everybody else in the room trying to follow the clown?" Walter told me.
Kwakenat wonders how his students would have done if they had spent more time in regular — not special — classrooms. He wishes that moving them out of EBD had been a priority in earlier grades.
"If you are 'othered' from first, second or third grade," he asks, "by middle school or high school, how are you supposed to see yourself any differently?"
He also questions what got them labeled EBD in the first place. He was one of many teachers and school psychologists who told me that behavior is how students — especially young students — communicate their needs. Many also said EBD could just as well be called PTSD, because, like Walter, so many students with the EBD label had traumatic childhoods.
A trauma label
Not all disruptive students who land in special education get the EBD label. Experts who study this category of special education said the label that a student gets can depend on what they look like.
"It's definitely true that the white kids are ending up with OHD [other health disabilities] and autism instead of EBD," said Braden Schmitt, a school psychologist for a special education school district adjacent to the Twin Cities, "while the Black and brown kids are getting EBD."
Fish, the sociologist, argues that some disabilities are seen as "higher status" than others—and that EBD is often at the bottom. Cognitive delay or blindness are perceived as more legitimate because they have medical or genetic explanations. Even ADHD, which falls under "Other Health Impairment," and Autism Spectrum Disorder, are more clearly defined than EBD.
"It's not a clear-cut diagnosis of something that's necessarily biological the way that people like to think of disability," said Fish. "These things are fuzzy, and they depend on who you are and how people see you and what kind of resources you have access to."
She added, with a sarcastic tone, "Black kids choose to be naughty while white kids just can't control their bodies."
In his book The Unteachables, historian Keith Mayes, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote that educators and psychologists have systematically pathologized Black behavior since states mandated compulsory education early in the 20th century.
Mayes told me that this pattern is why so many students of color have been labeled EBD. Sure, IDEA mandated access to education for all students, but, Mayes argued, it also codified systemic racism "by sorting and removing Black and brown students from regular classrooms."
"Behavior is subjective," Mayes said. "And so if I'm the teacher and I am the one who is the interpreter of the behavior and I want a kid out of my class, I can get 'em out. People always say, 'Keith, are you saying that white kids don't have these labels?' White kids do have all the labels. They're just not in the categories disproportionately."
Finish line reset
In the fall of Walter's senior year, Kwakenat realized there was no way Walter could graduate on time. That's because Walter had been suspended for a week after he hurt a younger student in a fight in the gym. Walter had just turned 18, and both he and Kwakenat were relieved the student's parents had not pressed criminal charges. But Walter was out of time to make up the credits he'd need to graduate with his class.
The best way to help Walter, Kwakenat told me, would be to send him to Journeys Secondary School, another St. Paul public school, specifically for students labeled EBD. "I would never send a kid to Journeys unless I think they can do better in that setting," Kwakenat said.
Journeys supports students until they're 22. Academic credits are off the table; instead, students complete a checklist to demonstrate that they've learned life skills, such as how a credit card works and how to find an apartment. They also have to find a job and keep it for 90 days.
At first, Walter did not want to go. Kwakenat couldn't and wouldn't force him. They kept talking about it through the winter. Walter would rather have stayed at Central, with his friends and his teacher. He told me he was just focused on graduating and moving out of his mom's house, where home life continued to be stressful. One day in March of his senior year, Walter told me he was ready to make a change. His sister had just been arrested, and home life was more turbulent than ever.
"It actually is motivating me to really get my stuff together and get away," Walter said, "because somebody's got to take care of Walter. And it looks like it's going to be Walter."
After Walter started at Journeys, it became harder for me to reach him. He was supposed to show up at Journeys two days a week, but that was only a guideline, not a rule, and Walter wasn't showing up. His new case manager, Eric Paquette, said it was because Walter had found a job.
"This is not an uncommon occurrence," Paquette said. "Students come in, they start out really strong, they get that job, and then the job kind of takes over."
Graduation
When I started reporting Walter's story, I thought it would end with him graduating from Central in June 2025. He did walk the stage at Central's graduation ceremony in June 2025, even though he won't earn his diploma until he completes the Journeys checklist, something he said he wants to do. He visits Kwakenat's classroom from time to time, partly because his 18-year-old brother is there now. Walter told me he still wants to graduate and has his sights set on college, but it's hard to squeeze in schoolwork with his job as a personal care attendant.
Meanwhile, public schools are still dealing with fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, which hurt student attendance, achievement and mental health. Since the pandemic, the number of K-12 students who qualify for special education has been steadily climbing. Children of color continue to be overrepresented. Almost every state faces a shortage of special education teachers.
The Trump administration has said it would like to shift education to more state control, a move that researchers say would likely exacerbate disparities in funding, standards and achievement for students with emotional or behavioral disorders. Research into education best practices has been stalled since the Trump administration slashed funding for the Department of Education's research arm.
The researchers and teachers I talked to emphasized that when IDEA mandates "the least restrictive environment," it's not talking about a physical location, although that's sometimes how it's interpreted. The law requires that the focus of special education, including the EBD category, be on teaching and supporting students. There is also broad consensus that the federal definition of emotional disturbance is outdated and too subjective.
Many educators say schools could do more to include students labeled EBD in general education classrooms. When the St. Paul school district tried "mainstreaming" them during the Obama administration, the effort backfired and ultimately failed. While some families said kids benefited from mainstreaming, many teachers and parents argued that classes became too chaotic because of the way the policy was implemented.
These days, some innovative school districts and nonprofit groups are trying to help students labeled EBD by tapping Medicaid money for therapy and family support, providing what are called wraparound services to get students with EBD back into mainstream classes.
Kwakenat is wrapping up his 16th year at Central, knowing that his students leave the school for, as he puts it, "a dangerous world." It seems unlikely that his wish for a system overhaul will be fulfilled any day soon.
Walter is getting by. When I spoke to him last, he was living with his longtime girlfriend, who's a nursing student at a college near their home, a few blocks from Central. He credits Kwakenat with pointing him in the right direction and helping him grow up.
Without Kwakenat, Walter said, "I wouldn't be who I am today or what path I'm trying to be on. I'm better than I was before, but I'm not where I want to be. Let's just say that."
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