Dear editor,
My husband Keith and I were born and raised in Greene County. We chose to move back to this small-town community to live, work, and raise our children.
Our daughters Delaney (5) and Sam (3) do not require special accommodations that many physically disabled children may need. However, as a school nurse, I have worked with families that have physically disabled members and our current middle school does not meet their needs.
The Greene County middle school is a three-story building with two stairwells that provide the only access to classrooms, the nurse’s office, computer lab, main office, and library. A student, parent, or grandparent with disabilities needing access any of these places has only one option: a lift that takes 10-15 minutes and can only accommodate one person at a time while completely shutting down the stairwell for all other patrons.
Current students needing to use the lift have to miss 15 minutes of educational time purely to get to their next class. This happens up to eight times a day. Not only does the student miss up to two hours of class-time a day, an emergency situation would result in disaster.
Imagine your son/daughter/grandchild is confined to a wheelchair on the third floor when the fire alarm goes off. They will have to wait for all other students to evacuate because the stairwell cannot be shut down. The lift then takes 10-15 minutes to get the child down to the ground floor. Would that be enough time? What if there are multiple children who need to use the lift?
I recently gave a tour of our elementary school to a young couple wanting to move back to Greene County to raise their growing family. They have a physically disabled son who uses a wheelchair at all times. This family voiced concerns about our middle school building, going as far to say “When someone in a wheelchair tries to access a building that is not wheelchair accessible, it makes the student and family feel as though they are not important or valuable to society.”
Is this the message that we want to send to potential students and families or those who currently reside in our community and attend our schools?
The proposed bond ensures that all students have access to facilities in our district, regardless of their physical needs. We will be voting YES for the proposed school bond on April 3rd and we ask that you do the same to give ALL of our future generations the education they deserve.
Mary Pedersen, Jefferson
