Cosmo Duncan is about to graduate from high school, in Burlington, Vermont, and embark on his life as an adult. Cosmo, who has Down Syndrome, sits down to talk with his mom, Scarlett Duncan, and occupational therapist Catherine Armani-Munn. They talk about what life has been like for the family in Vermont, Cosmo’s new business, and some important differences between life in rural and urban Vermont.

“I think that it’s really important to see the difference between the two Vermonts: the rural and the urban Vermont. And we are still good here in Burlington, but people who live in the boondocks? There’s nothing there. And if the person does not have a driver’s license, which a lot of people with developmental disabilities won’t be able to have, then they’re stuck.” –Scarlett Duncan

https://youtu.be/GnqQGBGi13I?si=FTIeoSbHtREEniEK

A full transcript of the episode is available below.

Catherine: Welcome to Green Mountain Disability Stories. I’m so happy you’re here today! And I’m going to introduce myself: so I’m Catherine Armani-Munn and I am an Occupational Therapist or OT, state consultant with the I-Team. And here today, we have… Cosmo, do you want to introduce yourself?

Cosmo: Cosmo Duncan. My name is Cosmo Duncan. I am 19 years old and I live with Down Syndrome. I have graduated with my friends, 2023, with my… But I spent longer time at the high school. I am a super senior. I will be alone–

Scarlett: Done.

Cosmo: … I mean done with school this June.

Catherine: Thank you, Cosmo. And we also have?

Scarlett: Scarlett Duncan. I’m the mom, his guardian and his fierce advocate, if I may say so. I’m excited that we are here. I’m always excited if we can get stories out that encourage other parents or other therapists or teachers, whoever, and how this can run and how beautiful the stories can be if it works.

Catherine: Exactly. So today I’ve asked you, Cosmo and Scarlett, to share your story, but really focusing, like you said, Cosmo, you just graduated and you’re really entering that next phase of life of becoming an adult and living on your own. So I’d love to talk about today what your leisure activities or what brings you joy, because you’re going to be away from your school community soon. So really what you plan on doing once you leave school and you’re out in the community and how you’re going to find joy every day. So that’s what I would love to hear your story.

Scarlett: Do you want to tell her that or do you want me to start you off?

Cosmo: Yeah. Start me off.

Scarlett: So maybe I give a little start-up, so he knows where to take off.

Catherine: Yeah, exactly. Maybe a little back.

Scarlett: So Cosmo is a super senior. That means he stays in the school’s district even though he doesn’t really have school anymore. He’s supposed to get transition services and other services. Due to workforce problems and funding problems, that has been really sketchy. Up to now, they have not been able to find a job placement or even an internship that would make sense, because the funding for the program he was in stopped in the middle of the school year. But exciting news, as we don’t seem to find the right placement, Cosmo is planning on his what?

Cosmo: I am having my own business.

Catherine: Oh, I can’t wait to hear more about that.

Scarlett: So right now, that’s his biggest thing. It’s all worth it. He’s totally for it.

Catherine: I believe that. So what have you found to be the best thing about the systems of support or the education that you’ve worked with here in Vermont, Scarlett or Cosmo?

Scarlett: So the best thing here in Vermont is that everybody ever in our, well except one or two exceptions, I shouldn’t say everybody, but nearly everybody has always tried everything they could, and that was in their power to make things work. And as we are the pandemic generation up and running and also the PCV generation, which means we didn’t really have a high school, that took a lot of our educators to make it work. We always found everybody tried to make him feel belonging, which is more important than anything else. So that part of Vermont and the education is something that I value highly. From the educational system, I have to say we went through both rural and urban education system. The rural education system in Vermont is non-existent for people with a disability. There is nothing. There’s nothing.

If there is, they can’t get there. And so, that is really something that has to change. We had to move, we had a beautiful house and we felt very happy where we were. But for Cosmo’s sake, there was nothing that we could offer him, whether it was school or in his leisure time. So to have him have his best life, we needed to move. And that’s fine, we are happy here now, but I think it’s very devastating that families have to come to the conclusion and we are not the only ones that had to do so.

Catherine: Yeah. And kind of on the flip side of that question, what are some areas that these systems could improve, right?

Scarlett: Yes. So I mean what could improve is you have to train the teachers to be inclusive. If we would have an inclusive school system, the other things would not matter so much. So when you went to school, Cosmo, who was the most inclusive teacher?

Cosmo: Daniel Garvin.

Scarlett: Daniel Garvin, our German teacher, right? Not because he was German, but because he never even thought there could be a difference in the students in his classrooms, whether they were other ethnicity or had a disability. It didn’t make any differences and it worked great. So it was just proof that if you intend to include everyone, it works, because everyone will help you do so.

Catherine: Yeah.

Scarlett: So that is really something that is amazing that there are some individual teachers who really make it work. And there was a program, right Cosmo, what was the best school time ever? Was it BCL?

Cosmo: Yeah, BCL.

Catherine: Could you Cosmo — because there might be some listeners that are not sure what that is — could you tell us what BCL is?

Scarlett: What does it mean?

Cosmo: Oh, I can tell. What it stands for is Burlington City and Lake Semester and I did it. I was the first one with a disability to finish it.

Scarlett: So what did you do?

Catherine: Yeah, what did you do there?

Scarlett: Where was it at the time?

Cosmo: It was on Arling Street.

Scarlett: In which building?

Cosmo: The Community Center.

Scarlett: And what did you mainly do? Where did you go with BCL?

Cosmo: Out in the community. We went to places in Burlington, Vermont.

Catherine: And what were some things you did there?

Scarlett: You talked to the mayor.

Cosmo: I talked to the mayor.

Scarlett: And you build.

Cosmo: I build.

Scarlett: Gardens.

Cosmo: Gardens.

Scarlett: What else did you do?

Cosmo: And we had field trips. We went to Kesey Park in the New North End, Vermont.

Scarlett: And you talk to native leadership, right? To Abenaki leadership?

Cosmo: Yes.

Scarlett: So it was something where you learned about the native, you went out with the research folk.

Cosmo: I did.

Catherine: So it sounds like you got to do a lot of different things in the community and meet a lot of different people.

Cosmo: Yes.

Scarlett: And they had very long and very difficult research work to do by themselves as homework. But they picked the topic within the unit they were doing at the moment, what they wanted to research could be anything loosely connected and you should have seen that. It was just amazing how all the students that are supposed to be no learners or dropouts and they suddenly thrived in that classroom. So did Cosmo. He wrote things that I didn’t think he could and he worked whole weekends just to get it done. So it was hard work. It was not a fun thing only, but it was purposeful. It had a purpose and they understood what they were learning, because they picked it themselves. So it was amazing. And I can only recommend more projects like this. In Europe that’s very common, project-based learning here is still not, but it can make a huge difference.

Catherine: Yeah. So Cosmo, do you think doing those...