Ministry of Special Education
"Advancing evidence-based, inclusive education for students with disabilities through truth, accountability, and policy reform."
"To educate students with disabilities through evidence-based practice and unwavering integrity is to administer justice to the Image of God they bear."
— Sarah Lowry
About the Program
The Ministry of Special Education, a program of Love that Surpasses, was founded to advance truth, justice, and evidence-based reform for students with disabilities. Our mission is to ensure that every child receives the educational opportunities and legal protections guaranteed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), while promoting inclusive practices grounded in research, accountability, and human dignity.
Sarah Lowry, CEO of Love that Surpasses, brings a rare combination of lived experience and professional expertise to this work. As the mother of two children with disabilities—Hayden, who has Level Two Autism, and Emmett, who has Down syndrome—she has experienced firsthand the challenges families often encounter while advocating for appropriate educational services, meaningful inclusion, and faithful implementation of federal disability law.
Professionally, Sarah is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner whose background includes oversight of federally regulated pediatric clinical research at Stanford University, where she led oversight of the Pediatric St. Jude clinical research trials. In that role, participant protections, implementation fidelity, informed consent, adverse-event reporting, regulatory compliance, and independent review were essential safeguards designed to identify risk and prevent harm before it occurred. That experience continues to shape her conviction that vulnerable children deserve systems built on prevention, transparency, and accountability—not simply correction after harm has occurred.
The Ministry of Special Education was established under her leadership to advance justice, integrity, and excellence in special education at both the local and national levels. Our work seeks to bridge the gap between what research demonstrates is possible for students with disabilities and what many families experience in practice.
"Rights without independent oversight do not reliably prevent harm to vulnerable populations."
Our Why and Conviction for Every Disabled Child, Not Just Our Own
One of the Ministry's primary initiatives is the Emet Educational Committee (EEC), an independent federal oversight proposal designed to strengthen accountability under IDEA.
The Committee takes its name not from Sarah's son, Emmett, but from the deeper Hebrew meaning of his name, the word emet (אֱמֶת), meaning truth.
In the Hebrew tradition, emet represents far more than factual accuracy. It embodies integrity, faithfulness, reliability, and truth lived out through justice. It reflects the enduring principle that lasting justice cannot exist where truth is hidden, distorted, or ignored.
This principle defines the Emet Educational Committee's mission: to ensure that decisions affecting students with disabilities are grounded in objective evidence, transparent oversight, and faithful implementation of the protections guaranteed by IDEA. Through independent review, accurate documentation, and evidence-based accountability, the Committee seeks to strengthen public trust in special education while safeguarding the rights of children and families.
We believe that protecting our most vulnerable students begins with an unwavering commitment to truth, because truth is the indispensable foundation upon which justice is built.
Why We Believe Reform Is Needed
The vision for the Emet Educational Committee emerged through our family's experience navigating the special education system.
During the 2025–2026 school year, Emmett experienced a series of documented failures in the administration of his special education program. These events revealed concerns involving IDEA compliance, implementation fidelity, procedural safeguards, parental participation, and student safety. More importantly, they exposed a broader systemic problem: there was no independent mechanism capable of identifying escalating risks or requiring corrective action before significant harm occurred.
Instead, the responsibility for discovering violations, documenting deficiencies, and pursuing enforcement rested almost entirely with our family.
Our family raises a question policymakers cannot afford to look away from: is it true justice to ask a vulnerable, dependent, disabled child to be harmed first and protected only after?
A system that waits for a parent to discover, document, and fight before it acts is not protecting
children — it is asking them to be hurt before help arrives. An independent oversight framework capable of identifying systemic implementation failures earlier would not ask schools to be perfect. It would simply ensure that no disabled child has to be harmed before the system finally listens.
Just as healthcare relies on independent oversight to protect vulnerable patients before adverse events occur, we believe special education should incorporate preventive accountability that identifies implementation failures before they result in educational loss, safety failures, or violations of children's rights.
The Emet Educational Committee is our proposed solution—an independent oversight framework designed not to seek perfection from schools, but to strengthen transparency, improve implementation, and ensure that the protections Congress established through IDEA are consistently realized for every child.
We believe truth leads to accountability, accountability protects children, and justice becomes possible when systems are designed to prevent harm rather than merely respond to it.
Why Partner with Us?
Every child with a disability deserves more than legal rights written into federal law—they deserve systems that ensure those rights are faithfully implemented. By signing this petition and donating to this cause, you are supporting a stronger, more accountable special education system that:
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Protects vulnerable students before harm occurs through proactive, independent oversight rather than relying solely on investigations after violations have already happened.
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Reduces the burden on families by ensuring parents are not left to discover violations, document failures, and enforce the law on their own.
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Strengthens transparency and accountability through independent review, objective evidence, and meaningful oversight of IDEA implementation.
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Promotes evidence-based educational decision-making so that students receive services and supports aligned with research, best practices, and individual needs.
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Restores public trust by creating an independent accountability framework that helps ensure federal protections are implemented consistently and fairly.
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Establishes a preventive safeguard modeled after oversight systems Congress has already created to protect vulnerable populations in healthcare and clinical research.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees important rights—but rights are only meaningful when they are consistently protected in practice.
Together, we can help build a special education system where accountability is proactive, transparency is the standard, and no child has to experience preventable harm before the system responds.
Donate
Your financial support enables the Ministry of Special Education to advocate for systemic reform, educate families about their rights, develop policy solutions, engage with lawmakers, and expand initiatives that promote inclusive, evidence-based education.
Every contribution—large or small—helps advance our mission to ensure that truth leads to accountability and accountability leads to justice for students with disabilities.
"Every failure that preceded our son Emmett's abuse and educational harm —
the unimplemented behavioral plan, the ignored safety concerns, the absent reporting — was a failure of implementation oversight, not a failure of law."
