SUMMARY: Pharmacists across Alabama staged walkouts today to support legislation aimed at helping small pharmacies survive amid financial struggles. Over 100 pharmacists participated, closing their doors for two hours to highlight the threat of permanent closures. They expressed concerns about inadequate reimbursements from Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), which dictate insurance coverage and pricing for medications. For instance, a pharmacist reported receiving just 15 cents for filling a life-saving prescription, far below the cost of the medication. Supporters are urging the public to contact elected officials for reforms in Senate Bills 93 and 99 to ensure fair reimbursement and pricing for local pharmacies.

Pharmacists across Alabama locked their doors and turned out the lights Tuesday afternoon to mourn the loss of what it would look like to lose local pharmacies forever.
FULL STORY: https://trib.al/W5FtN1I

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Bill to create nontraditional high school diploma program passes House

by Anna Barrett, Alabama Reflector
February 25, 2025

A bill that would create a nontraditional high school diploma program for people who have dropped out passed the Alabama House unanimously on Tuesday.

HB 266, sponsored by Rep. Matt Woods, R-Jasper, allows former students to enroll in a program to earn the equivalent of a high school diploma at 18 years old. Woods said the Restoring Educational Advancement of Completing High School Act expands the options for people who’ve dropped out to get back on track with their education.

“This bill addresses a segment of our population that’s falling between the cracks,” Woods said. “We believe that we can help them pursue their educational pathway.”

There is a nontraditional diploma option for adult education, but Woods said the minimum age is 19. He said his bill lowers the age to 18.

“The idea behind that is that a student who drops out of high school won’t have to wait as long before they can finish their high school diploma,” Woods said.

Although supportive of the bill, Rep. Laura Hall, D-Huntsville, said she wants to look into preventing high school withdrawals. 

“At some point we’ve got to challenge those things that cause these young people to be at the point where they are dropping out of school,” Hall said.

Rep. Van Smith, R-Clanton, offered an amendment to allow students to enroll in the REACH program before they withdraw to expand their options.

“It will put in an opportunity for students to enroll in this program that Rep. Woods is presenting to us,” Smith said. “Then that individual will not be counted as a dropout.”

The amendment passed 103-0. The bill goes to the Alabama Senate.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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Alabama disability advocate loses federal job amid Trump firings

by Anna Barrett, Alabama Reflector
February 25, 2025

Advocating for children with disabilities was Victoria DeLano’s dream. And after 15 years of advocacy work, she got her dream job at the U.S. Department of Education in December. 

Three months later, she was fired.

The first sign that she had been fired came on Feb. 12, when she could no longer log into her computer at the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). She had no idea why, and neither did her boss. She later got a phone call from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management notifying her of her termination.

“I did get a phone call from someone at the Department of Ed saying ‘We don’t have a letter of termination for you, because we didn’t terminate you,’” DeLano said in a phone interview Thursday. “‘OPM did this.’”

DeLano said she had no proof of her termination in a LinkedIn post written on Feb. 18. In the Thursday interview, she said she only received a termination notice six days after being locked out of her computer because she asked for it. The letter did not cite a reason for her termination, even though she was a probationary employee. 

Under federal employment law, a probationary employee is someone who has been employed for less than two years. Those employees can only be fired if they have low performance or any conduct issues. DeLano said she did not fall under either category.

“I have protections as a probationary employee … you can only be fired if there is documented low performance – and they actually have to document it and come to you and do a performance plan,” she said. “That was not the case with me, like I was a high performer. I tracked everything.”

DeLano is one of thousands of workers fired by the Trump administration and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) since Trump entered the White House on Jan. 20. According to USA Today, the total number of layoffs may have exceeded 100,000.

At the OCR, DeLano’s served as an equal opportunity specialist and investigated cases of discrimination at public schools, museums, libraries and any other entity using federal funds in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. She specialized in cases involving discrimination of people with disabilities. 

DeLano said she looked at who, what, when, where, how and if a complaint was discrimination. In her three months of employment, DeLano said she investigated seven cases across her four states.

“Sometimes it’s just a matter of bringing both sides to the table and communicating,” she said. “Sometimes there are kids (with) super rare disease situations. Maybe it’s something a school has never seen, so they don’t know how to handle it.”

The most common cases DeLano saw included students with Individualized Education Programs or Section 504 plans and making sure those students got the education they are entitled to. But she said the word disabled included “a pretty large gamut” of cases.  

“The definition of disability could be a child with asthma who needs an inhaler at school, and where’s that inhaler going to be stored? Who’s going to administer it?” DeLano said. “It can also be a student who’s on a ventilator and a feeding tube and in a wheelchair, like maybe the other extreme, who needs a one-on-one nurse to provide their medical care.”

DeLano said she was the only OCR employee in Alabama that she knew of, but others still advocate for disabled Alabamians.

The Alabama Disability Advocacy Program works with people with disabilities and aids parents in the OCR complaint filing process, said ADAP senior attorney and children’s team leader Jenny Ryan. 

“So if the parent has contacted us, it is typically to work with the parent to make sure that the IEP we’re basically there to support the parent in trying to get an IEP that works for the child and parent, and protects the rights to education for the child,” Ryan said.

There were 285 open discrimination cases in Alabama at elementary-secondary and post-secondary schools as of Jan. 14, according to the OCR website. DeLano said the Department of Education stopped outside communication of the inner workings of the department after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

According to ProPublica, OCR opened about 20 cases in the first three weeks of Trump’s administration, only relating to disability discrimination and not racial or sex-based discrimination. In the first three weeks of former President Joe Biden’s administration, ProPublica reported OCR opened 110 cases relating to all discrimination. 

DeLano said OCR was still opening cases when she was there and students and families should still file complaints. However, she said there was not a way to know what cases were being investigated due to the external communication pause. 

“I don’t know what’s happening right now,” she said.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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