Four mothers with children with severe cognitive disabilities have experienced a real odyssey to allow children to attend any high school in the capital in the year 2023/2024, as either refused or not able to accept due to the obvious structural and support deficiencies in schools. One of them appeals to politics and the Ministry of Education. "I never expected to live in such a situation. We contacted 12/13 high schools but in the end I was forced to enroll my son in a private school. Let the ministry do something."

The woman, mother of a 15-year-old boy with cognitive disabilities, along with three other mothers with children in the same middle school in a northern Rome neighborhood, were refused the enrollment of boys from high schools of different addresses. At first they wanted back to the Emilio Sereni Institute which, as an agricultural high school, could have been more suitable. Unfortunately, already from Sereni, the issue has become complicated to say the least and in February the no to registration arrived. From there the knot emerged: in the face of law 104 "which provides that the disabled pupil has the maximum score in the rankings - explains the mother of another boy - a ministerial circular was issued that delegates and mandates each individual School Council to decide the criteria for having priority". The "Sereni refused 3 boys with disabilities because they did not belong to the 'catchment area' of the school. And the principal was deaf to any appeal even by the USR", denounces the woman.

From here many schools screened. Something that was eventually also dealt with by the head teacher of the institute where the four young people are still enrolled, urging the USR. Among the high schools contacted there are institutes of different addresses and from different areas of Rome such as Domizia Lucilla, Vespucci, the Enrico Fermi Institute, Pascal, Calamandrei and the Farnesina scientific high school. The answer from Fermi is emblematic: "One school is worth the other if they are not able to do great things", the support teacher would have said. So comes the direct appeal to the ministry "so that this does not happen again, so that the precedence - in theory already given by law 104 - for the enrollment of these boys applies. Our children have the right to study - underlines the woman - For this, however, we need more resources for support teachers. And funds to ensure that schools provide suitable workshops and activities".