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City slowly updating schools to comply with disabilities act Education 2000: Reforming Schools for a New Century Friday, September 01, 2000 By Eleanor Chute, Post-Gazette Education Writer
More than 60 years after it was built, Schiller Classical Academy on the North Side will get an elevator.
It's not easy to find a spot for an elevator in a 1939 brick building that the city has designated as historic. So during the school year, an addition will be built for an elevator with a design aimed at making the two-story building look as if the elevator were always there.
Complicating the national problem of crumbling school buildings is federal legislation that school districts must make reasonable efforts to make at least some buildings -- no matter how old and decrepit -- accessible to the disabled.
Gradually, the city school district is trying to make all of its school buildings accessible to those in wheelchairs. More than $3 million in accessibility projects are under contract, mostly for elevators and some for other improvements, such as lowering the counters in main offices.
Only 12 of the city's 59 public elementary schools are considered to be "generally accessible."
The district is expected to begin work on elevators in nine elementary schools -- Clayton, East Hills, Greenfield, Homewood Montessori, Liberty, Manchester, Morningside, Vann and Weil elementary schools; and two middle schools -- Sterrett and Schiller classical academies.
The changes are coming 10 years after Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, which details construction standards, such as how wide doorways must be or what type of fire alarm systems are required. That applies to all public facilities.
The city's renovations also come 17 years after the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, of which Section 504 requires reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, known as IDEA, initially was approved in 1975 and also protects the educational rights of the disabled.
It's hard to tell how well schools overall have complied with these laws because the federal government collects complaints rather than compliance reports.
Rodger Murphy, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education, said that last year there were 3,517 complaints against schools related to the ADA and Section 504. The complaints under those laws includes physical barriers as well as program issues.
Joan Kost, senior education advocate for ARC Allegheny, an advocacy group for the retarded and others with special needs, wishes progress were quicker.
"People seem to consider ADA in its shakedown cruise because it's only been 10 years. For those who are living with it, I think it's a rather long time for a shakedown cruise."
She said she thinks the city schools are "making a good attempt to try to come into compliance" although she thinks the district should already have made Conroy Education Center, a school for children with special needs, handicapped accessible. That's not on the list for a couple of years.
Students at Conroy in Manchester are not in wheelchairs but some have crutches and braces. To navigate the four floors, said Kost, "They go hand over hand, pulling themselves up."
But school districts are not required to make every existing building accessible.
They are required to make reasonable accommodations so they have accessibility at each level of programming, such as at least one elementary, one middle and one high school.
However, new construction and significant rehabilitation must follow the ADA standards.
In some cases, changes are made as needs arise.
At Morrow Elementary School in Brighton Heights this fall, a student needs to be in a climate-controlled environment, so the district has installed central air conditioning in her classroom for about $20,000, according to Kaye Cupples, a district coordinator. The youngster will wear a cooling vest in the lunchroom.
The district considers Brashear High School in Beechview to be wheelchair-accessible, but when a student in a wheelchair wanted to take Advanced Placement chemistry, he found his chair couldn't wheel up to the high chemistry tables. An accessible table was ordered for about $1,000, said Cupples.
In Woodland Hills School District, a building program also includes adding a second elevator to the high school so that the weight and wrestling rooms are accessible.
"Last year, we had a handicapped student who used our weight room, and we had to carry him up those stairs for the entire year," said Len Nowicki, supervisor of buildings and grounds. "I don't know how they did it. They all loved this kid," he said.
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