Reply to ADA Compliance with Fire Drills

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Reply to "ADA Compliance with Fire Drills"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's a bit of a gray area. They have to provide "reasonable accomodations," which can vary by situation.  Do they have a problem carrying her down the stairs?  If so what is the problem and is there a "reasonable" method to overcome the problem.  Maybe they can train staff to do a rescue carry?  There are also specialized transport devices that can take adults down stairs, there are probably child versions.  Can they afford to get one?

On the other hand, they can argue that keeping your kid in the infant room is in fact a reasonable accommodation, [b]since they still would be providing appropriate care,[/b] even if not in the best location.[/quote]

But keeping a 2 year old in an infant room is not appropriate care. It's a programmatic difference, not just a location difference.

OP, I would push back. Like another poster said, the reasonable accommodation can be putting a 2 year old classroom on the 1st floor or designating someone to carry her out. For the poster who thought the concern might be that all the teachers could get injured and so no one would be able to carry her out -- if that happened, it would be a problem for all the 2 year olds, since even 2 year olds without disabilities cannot safely evacuate a building by themselves.[/quote]

One person could manage to get a group of fully mobile 2 year olds down at flight of stairs, but it might involve some handholding or other physical work, especially if they’re scared. If that one teacher is already carrying one child because she cannot walk down the stairs, what does she do when there’s a logjam or kids who suddenly feel the need for a handhold to keep going? Does she leave a few kids behind and just carry OP’s child out, hoping the others will eventually start walking? Abandon OP’s child because that allows her to save the greatest number of children? These are the kinds of scenarios a daycare needs to consider. I agree that keeping her in the infant room is not appropriate, but it’s also helpful to keep in mind all of the relevant considerations as OP works toward an appropriate resolution. [/quote]

+1.  I don't think the daycare's position is unreasonable. If there are only a limited number of staff guaranteed to be in that 2 year old room at one time and they do not feel they can get OP's child out and the other child out safely with those ratios they should try to figure out another solution. In the worst case, a staff member might be so occupied by your child that she might lose another child, or the staff member might be busy with several screaming children in in the chaos not be able to carry out your child. I would not push this, for everyone's sake.

[b]One idea is for you to pay for a 1:1 shadow if you feel strongly about her being in that room.[/b] You could also wait it out a bit and work on the scooting idea which, again, is a reasonable suggestion. If there's another classroom that's more accessible and they can just switch the two classes, I think that would be reasonable, too, and you could suggest that to the daycare

What's not reasonable is for them to hire an extra person just to be able to help your DD manage the stairs in case of an emergency. [/quote]

I'm sorry, but this is exactly NOT what the ADA means -- yes, in some circumstances a 1-1 aide is required because the accommodation that is necessary is so complex that it requires 1 person's attention all the time, but that is NOT the case here.  Your response is classic stigmatic one that places an extreme financial burden on a the special needs parent and as a result has the result of excluding the disabled person from full and equal participation in public amenities.  The ADA was designed to shift that burden where reasonable accommodations could be made.

We are talking about 1 kid, out of 8, maximum, who can walk but needs their hand held on the stairs in the unlikely event of a fire drill or real fire.  If your daycare cannot handle that minor accommodation, because they are so busy with other 2 year olds, then I would seriously question whether they have a good evacuation plan.  The teachers must accompany the kids out of the room and if they cannot hold even 1 child's hands, then there is a problem. [/quote]

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