Is 'Out of My Mind' the perfect movie?
Plus: Maine settles federal lawsuit with promises of services and South Dakota debates pros and cons of U.S. Department of Education
Medical Motherhood’s news round up
Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the full story.
• From the Associated Press: “Maine, Justice Department enter settlement to improve services for children with disabilities
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Officials with the U.S. Department of Justice and the state of Maine announced Tuesday they have entered into a settlement that requires the state to increase community-based behavioral health services for children.
The settlement stems from a lawsuit the Justice Department filed earlier this year that said Maine unnecessarily segregates children with behavioral health disabilities in institutions. Investigators said at the time that the state’s actions violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the children’s right not to be confined away from their families.
The Justice Department said the settlement requires Maine to make changes that help children remain with families or foster families and avoid emergency department stays and institutions. The department said the changes must also help children move out of institutions and instead receive services at home. […]
• From Dakota News Now: “Dissolving the US Dept. of Education: Educators weigh in”
Senator Mike Rounds said he’s been working for years to eliminate the US Department of Education and on Thursday, he introduced legislation to do just that.
The “Returning Education to Our States Act” coincides with President-elect Donald Trump preparing to take office again, who had made similar statements about the DOE while on the campaign trail.
[…]One area of concern is special education. While Rounds said it’s best for the states to decide, the executive director of the South Dakota Democrats said as a substitute teacher for eight years, he’s seen firsthand how state decision-makers affect those in Title I.
“Let’s take the bureaucracy out of this process. Let’s go back to the basics of what was there before the department ever started. Things such as special education rather than having the department go through and work at. Let’s take it back to where it came from in the first place,” Rounds proposed.
“I’ve spent six years in the legislature fighting for better funding and programs for education and access to special education services for our children with disabilities. And these things shouldn’t be hard to convince people to do. Yet here in South Dakota, it has been increasingly difficult,” Dan Ahlers, executive director of SDDP.
[…]Many are still asking questions about state funding and if it would mean more or less money for South Dakota.
• From CinemaBlend: “Jennifer Aniston’s New Disney+ Film Has A Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score (And A 94% Audience Score To Boot)”
[…]As of this writing, Out of My Mind, a new film that hit Disney+ last week is currently sitting with a perfect 100% score among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, with an equally impressive 94% among the audience that has a Disney+ subscription. It’s a rare feat for a film to achieve such universal acclaim, but then Out of My Mind is a fairly rare movie.
Out of My Mind, based on the novel of the same name, is the story of Melody Broks a sixth grader who is confined to a wheelchair and non-verbal due to cerebral palsy. While Melody has difficulty communicating, she’s no less intelligent than her peers, and smarter than most, which leads to her getting the opportunity to step away from special education and attend regular sixth-grade classes.
Since the character is non-verbal, Melody’s inner thoughts are narrated to us by Jennifer Aniston (a meta move as Melody is a fan of Friends) and thus tells us that she chooses to sound like Aniston because, with no voice of her own, she can sound however she likes.
[…]What sets Out of My Mind apart from most stories of disability on the big screen is that the film stars a disabled actress. Phoebe-Rae Taylor is making her film debut as Melody and Taylor also has cerebral palsy. Rather than an actor pretending to deal with the disability and trying to understand what that’s like, the actor here has an intimate knowledge of how it all works.
While it’s unlikely that Out of My Mind will retain its perfect critics score forever, because, again, nobody agrees on everything, what’s clear is that the film is special and that almost anybody who sees it will be glad they did.
Not ready to subscribe but like what you read here? Buy me a coffee.
Medical Motherhood brings you quality news and information each Sunday for raising disabled and neurodivergent children. Get it delivered to your inbox each week or give a gift subscription. Subscriptions are free, with optional tiers of support. Our paid subscribers make this work possible!
Follow Medical Motherhood on Facebook, X, TikTok, Instagram or Pinterest. Now on Bluesky, too! Visit the Medical Motherhood merchandise store.