Reflections from the 2026 COPAA Conference
At a special education law conference, you expect to hear about statutes, burdens of proof, and the ever-evolving interpretation of FAPE. You expect citations. You expect arguments. What you don’t expect is to be reminded-so powerfully-that this work is about human potential. This year’s COPAA Conference offered something deeper and more lasting.
The keynote speakers at this years’ COPAA Conference were a father and son: John and Mark Cronin, the founders of John’s Crazy Socks. John Cronin is an entrepreneur with Down syndrome. Like so many of the students we advocate for, his story could have been written differently- limited expectations, closed doors, a life shaped by what others believed he could not do. Instead, he asked his dad a simple question: “Dad, I want to go into business with you.”
That question became a company. That company became a movement. Today, John’s Crazy Socks is more than a business; it’s a social enterprise built on a mission of spreading happiness, employing people with differing abilities, and proving, every single day, that inclusion is not charity, it’s strength.
But what made their keynote unforgettable wasn’t the success. It was the truth behind it. Mark spoke like a father who has walked the same road as so many of our clients – navigating systems, confronting assumptions, fighting quietly (and sometimes loudly) for his child to be seen as he should be seen.
John spoke with a clarity that cut through everything else. “Follow your heart. Follow your dreams. Work hard. Show what you can do.” Simple words. But in that room, they carried weight because every attorney there knew: the cases we litigate are filled with children who are still waiting for someone to believe that about them.
In special education law, we spend so much time proving what a child needs. We document deficits. We outline challenges. We build cases around what is not working. But John and Mark reminded us of something equally important: We must also fight for what is possible.
Their company employs a workforce where more than half of the employees have differing abilities. Not as a favor. Not as an exception, but as a business model.
Sitting in that audience, it was impossible not to think about the students behind our cases: the child who is underestimated because of a label; The teenager whose IEP is written around limitations instead of potential; the parent who is told, gently but persistently, to lower expectations. And then, on that stage, was John. Not a hypothetical. Not a projection. But an answer.
This is why the work matters. Because every time we push for the right placement, the right supports, the right services; we are not just arguing about a program; we are arguing about trajectory and whether a child will be given the chance to become something more than what the system expects.
At the end of their talk, Mark said something that lingered long after the applause: “Look at the possibilities in each person you meet.”
This resonated loudly in the room as every child has real possibility.
