Campus changes promote equality

Photo Credit: Maggie McWay

.

Last 5 stories in Featured

• Test - May 9, 2010

Other stories that might interest you...

None Found

May 17, 2010 • written by Claire Salzman  
Filed under Featured

When Sarah Schwegel, junior, goes to school, her biggest concern is not whether her favorite smoothie flavor will be left in the cafeteria. She is more worried about the masses of students in her way, and how she will manage to weave through them in time for class.

Schwegel has Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a disease that affects her voluntary muscles, leaving her arms and legs very weak and Schwegel in a power chair. While she faces many challenges in a school day, her biggest complaint about the KHS campus is the doors.

“People are usually very good about holding doors, but when they don’t, my chair gets stuck, and it’s very awkward,” Schwegel said.

Rachel Cosic, counselor, confirmed the doors are a huge problem at school. She has heard from students the buttons to open powered doors are hard to reach for students in wheelchairs and the bumps at the bottom of doorways can be difficult to cross.

Mike Gavin, freshman principal, has heard “no complaints” about the school campus, but believes there is room for improvement.

According to Julie Tadros, school nurse, the bathrooms in the nurse’s office had to be refurbished a few years ago. The doors were widened so wheelchairs cannot get stuck in the doorways and automatic toilets and sinks were installed.

As said by Gavin, even more changes are coming to the campus to make the school accessible to everyone.

For example, the synthetic grass to prevent rainouts on the football field is not the only improvement coming to the stadium. This new field will contain upgrades, like ramp entrances, to ensure that a wheelchair will not prevent a student from cheering on the Pioneers.

Bumps at the base of wheelchair ramps prove difficult for students in wheelchairs to cross.

Also, the covered walkway at the Dougherty Ferry lot, which was taken down earlier this year, is being remade to ensure fairness for all. According to Gavin, the stairs were covered but the ramp was not. The new covering will extend to prevent any student from being left out in the rain.

Schwegel wishes the entire campus could be enclosed so powered doors would not be a problem any longer. While her dream is not presently at KHS, the ongoing renovations will help to make the school more accessible for all who attend.

“The district is committed to the needs of our students,” Gavin said, “As a school, we want this to be a place that allows all students to be here.”

A different point of view

For a story like this, a little perspective is required. So during my third period, Eli Cost, a freshman journalism student, helped me track down a spare wheelchair at the school and do some research.

Let me tell you, research is tough.

My goal was to find out how difficult it really is for a student in a wheelchair to maneuver around the school, jot down a few thoughts, then return to SJ in time for lunch.

However, what I found irritated and upset me. The journalism building appears to be designed to keep anyone with a physical disability out. The main entrance boasts a large step that a student in a wheelchair would require help to cross, and like the back entrance, before entering the actual classrooms, there are claustrophobic cubes where the doors swing inward, blocking one’s path, especially when the tiny room is packed with two people and a wheelchair.

When I finally burst through the door into SJ, I prepared to complain about all I had been put through that day.

Then I thought.

I thought about how I was whining about being in a chair for less than a period when there are people who have never been able to stand. I thought about how I had moaned about losing control in an empty hallway when others have to avoid senseless walkers when the commons are full of people. I thought about how I yelled at Eli for messing up while assisting me when I know people with physical disabilities who have no help whatsoever from anyone.

Perspective is a powerful thing.