The Work of Shifting Paradigms

By Jean Wade Mayer, Pflugerville ISD trustee, disability advocate, host of the Moms Talk Autism podcast, and proud mother.

Think about the last time you rolled a suitcase through a city.

You probably didn’t think about the curb cuts built into every intersection. Yet people fought for them for decades. Wheelchair users, mostly, who couldn’t navigate a world designed entirely around steps.

They won.

Today, those same curb cuts make life easier for parents pushing strollers, delivery workers moving carts, children on bicycles, travelers pulling luggage, and countless others who may never realize why they exist.

Closed captions followed a similar path. Originally designed for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, they’re now used by students learning a second language, commuters watching videos without sound, and anyone trying to follow along in a noisy room.

Automatic doors.

Elevators.

The wide-handled kitchen peeler OXO designed for people with arthritis that turned out to be easier for everyone.

None of these innovations began as conveniences.

They began because someone refused to design around the people facing the greatest barriers.

They asked a harder question.

In doing so, they built something better for everyone.

Those victories weren’t accidental. They were the result of persistence, advocacy, and a willingness to trust a process that insisted everyone be considered from the very beginning.

The lesson is simple.

When we build with those facing the greatest barriers in mind, we build something stronger for everyone.

Over time, I’ve realized this principle doesn’t just apply to sidewalks or product design.

It applies to schools.

It applies to communities.

It applies to leadership itself.

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For years, I’ve said that process matters.

Some people hear that and think I’m talking about bureaucracy or rules.

I’m not.

I’m talking about trust.

Process protects people when emotions are running high.

It creates predictability in uncertain moments.

It allows disagreement without destroying relationships.

Most importantly, it creates confidence that everyone’s voice has a place.

I’ve learned something over the past six years of public service.

People can accept difficult outcomes when they believe the process was fair.

What they struggle to accept is feeling unheard.

Feeling surprised.

Feeling excluded.

Transparency isn’t simply releasing information after decisions have been made.

It’s helping people understand how decisions are made, why they are being made, and where their voice belongs along the way.

Good process doesn’t guarantee everyone gets the outcome they hoped for.

It does guarantee everyone is treated with dignity.

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I’ve also come to believe that trust is one of the most misunderstood resources in public education.

We often think of trust as something emotional.

Something we focus on after financial problems are solved.

I believe the opposite.

Trust is infrastructure.

Public education operates on public confidence.

Families have choices.

When trust erodes, families disengage.

When families disengage, enrollment declines.

Enrollment affects funding.

Funding affects opportunities for every student.

Trust isn’t separate from fiscal responsibility.

Trust is part of fiscal responsibility.

Communities can survive difficult decisions.

What they struggle to survive is the belief that those decisions were made without them.

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That brings me to a conversation I believe is still incomplete.

We talk a great deal about equity, and rightly so.

But too often disability remains on the margins of those conversations, treated as a specialized issue instead of an essential one.

The truth is that disability is the one identity that intersects every other identity.

Every race.

Every ethnicity.

Every language.

Every neighborhood.

Every faith.

Every income level.

Every political belief.

Every family.

No community exists apart from disability.

Which means disability inclusion isn’t about serving one group.

It’s about strengthening every group.

That’s why I often say that when we serve people with disabilities, we are, in fact, serving all.

Not some.

Not most.

All.

Because every community intersects here.

Every family is either living this experience now or will one day know someone who is.

Disability isn’t outside our equity conversations.

It belongs at their very center.

When we build systems that work for the people facing the greatest barriers, we almost always build systems that work better for everyone else.

The curb cut never stayed a curb cut.

Universal design rarely remains universal to one population.

Neither does thoughtful leadership.

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I’ve seen this lesson play out throughout my own life.

Long before I served on a school board, I worked as an event planner.

Every planning meeting began with one question.

“Does anyone need accommodations?”

That simple question changed everything.

Because it was asked at the beginning, inclusion became part of the design instead of an afterthought.

Nothing had to be retrofitted.

Nothing had to be apologized for later.

When that question wasn’t asked, the outcome was almost always the same.

“We didn’t think about that.”

Communities work exactly the same way.

Accommodation isn’t something we add later.

It’s something we build into the blueprint.

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My perspective also comes from being the mother of a child with significant disabilities.

Raising my son has fundamentally changed how I understand systems.

I don’t ask whether something works in theory.

I ask whether it works for actual people.

I’ve watched extraordinary educators perform incredible work within constraints they didn’t create.

I’ve watched families spend years navigating systems that promised, “We’ll get to your child.”

I’ve learned that policies written on paper become lived experiences in classrooms and living rooms.

Leadership isn’t measured by how quickly we solve problems.

It’s measured by whose voices we remember while solving them.

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That is why I believe leadership isn’t about choosing a side and digging in.

It’s about building bridges.

Parents.

Educators.

Students.

Business leaders.

Taxpayers.

Disability advocates.

Community organizations.

Public servants.

We don’t all arrive carrying the same experiences or perspectives.

Nor should we.

Healthy communities aren’t built because everyone agrees.

They’re built because people believe they have been heard.

Process creates trust.

Trust creates belonging.

And belonging gives communities the resilience to navigate difficult conversations together.

I’ve never believed the work is about winning arguments.

I’ve believed it’s about building relationships strong enough to carry us through the moments when agreement is hardest to find.

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When I first ran for the Pflugerville ISD Board of Trustees during COVID, I wasn’t looking for a political career.

I had only recently become part of this community.

I was a mother navigating the uncertainty of raising a child with profound disabilities during one of the most challenging periods public education had ever experienced. That journey taught me something I will never forget: access to a quality public education isn’t just important—it can be life changing, and for some families, it is life or death.

As I worked alongside teachers, therapists, administrators, and other families, I came to understand that the people closest to students often wanted to do more but were working within systems, policies, and resource constraints they didn’t always control. That experience shaped my belief that meaningful change happens when we support educators, strengthen systems, and keep students at the center of every decision.

That experience shaped how I serve.

It taught me that meaningful change rarely happens overnight.

The larger the system, the harder the levers of change can be to move.

But it also taught me that lasting change happens when people are willing to stay engaged, ask better questions, and keep showing up—even when the work is difficult.

Six years later, I believe that more deeply than ever.

The work isn’t finished.

Neither is the opportunity before us.

Shifting paradigms has never been easy.

A curb cut doesn’t appear because everyone immediately agrees it’s a good idea.

It appears because someone asks the hard question early, refuses to push it aside, and remains committed long enough for the answer to be poured into the ground.

That’s the kind of leadership I believe in.

Leadership rooted in trust.

Grounded in transparency.

Strengthened through inclusion.

Committed to building bridges instead of barriers.

Because if we build for those who face the greatest barriers, we don’t just create better schools.

We build a stronger district, a stronger community, and a stronger future for everyone.