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Posted by Merle Levy In 1970, after my family's cross country move, I enrolled in Westchester High School. Due to disabilities since childhood, I had difficulty with balance; could not climb stairs, particularly when my hands were full; was very susceptible to upper-respiratory infections; wrote too slow to take notes; and had vision problems. In today's language, my reasonable accommodations would have included a second set of books, ramps or "stair-free" routes to classrooms, a slightly looser attendance policy, a note-taker, and first or second row seating. With the exception of the second set of books (after my mother managed to get doctors' notes from both coasts), there were no accommodations. Teachers ignored my seating requests and threatened to fail me if I had more than 10 absences in a year (including observance of religious holidays). Administrative faculty refused to get involved. The climactic moment came toward the end of my first semester. I bumped my left foot against a poorly located portable chalkboard in an art class. I was in unforgettable pain and asked the teacher for help. She ordered me to go to my next class without investigating my claims. I was unable to put any weight on the foot, but I obeyed my teacher. The path to my next class led across the campus and was punctuated with two staircases that molded to the school's hilly terrain. The humiliation of crawling up those stairs while teens stared and giggled still creeps into my dreams, and was only eclipsed by the moment when I finally made it to math class and fainted in the doorway. Later that evening, we discovered that my foot was broken. I couldn't balance on crutches, so I used a wheelchair. Because the school was inaccessible, my parents were advised to keep me out of school for the four weeks it took for the cast to do its work. Upon my return to school, my biology teacher assured me that taking the final would be a waste of time because I was guaranteed a failing grade. I came down with pneumonia that same day and ended up in "telephone school" for the rest of the year. I never experienced anything like this in New York City, where I was a student in both public and parochial schools -- one of my teachers still corresponds with me. It is now 37 years later, and I find that today's L.A. high school students with disabilities are no better off than I was. This is despite landmark federal and state legislation meant to give us all an even playing field! L.A. Schools get an "F" in disability etiquette, responsibility to all students, and "role model" for other public entities. If we cannot give our students an accessible environment, fit for learning, then what will become of us as a society?
on June 6, 2007, 1:28 am
71.143.25.40
Amazingly, L.A.'s schools are no more accessible now than they were when I attended them. My story is admittedly long but illustrates what life is like for teens with disabilities attending L.A. schools.
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