Justice Department Webinar on Designing Accessible Public Schools is a Key Resource for School Safety Planning

An important area for school safety planning that is often overlooked is school accessibility for students with disabilities. Accessibility barriers in public schools remain pervasive even decades after passage of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which bars disability discrimination by recipients of federal financial assistance, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). Some of these barriers pose significant problems for ensuring school safety for students with disabilities. For example, students who use wheelchairs or mobility scooters must have an effective means of evacuating during a safety threat situation, such as a fire emergency, when elevators may not be used.

A new resource is available that provides valuable information on public school accessibility. We recommend that schools review and consider including information from this resource in their school safety planning. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report 20-448, K-12 Education: Justice Should Provide Information to Help School Districts Improve Access for People with Disabilities, found two-thirds of the nation’s school districts have facilities with physical barriers that may limit access for people with disabilities. In response to this GAO report, the Justice Department, in consultation with the Department of Education, recently developed a virtual training on designing accessible public school buildings. This new resource fills a gap; few resources currently exist focusing specifically on accessibility in the context of public schools. The GAO report noted that public schools lack access to information about accessibility requirements and called on the Justice Department to make additional resources on this topic available.

Presented by an architect for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the training video describes accessibility features schools should consider to ensure they are accessible to students with disabilities as required by the ADA. The training explains key accessibility features needed by students with disabilities to get to school, to participate in classes and get around school buildings and facilities, to use playground equipment and to participate in school activities. The training is user friendly, with diagrams and photographs showing examples of accessibility barriers and required accessibility features.

Providing accessible public schools requires accessible routes and entrances. Schools must reserve accessible parking spaces, make sure curb ramps and walkways are not too steep or uneven, have adequate entrance signage and have accessible doors and security check-ins. Corridors, classrooms and toilet rooms must be easy to navigate and not present obstacles or other protruding objects. And common-use areas such as libraries and media centers, cafeterias, auditoriums, play areas and stadiums and athletic fields much be accessible such that no student is unable to participate in activities occurring in these spaces. For additional information regarding federal accessibility requirements, visit www.ADA.gov. Links to relevant laws, regulations and standards, including the ADA’s accessibility requirements for state and local government entities, are available on this website.

As noted above, school accessibility is critical not just to ensuring equal educational opportunity but also to making sure students with disabilities can remain safe in educational settings. Families and communities entrust public schools to keep their children safe and secure from a variety of emergency events, like accidents, crime and natural disasters. Effective emergency planning is an essential component of school safety, and it includes actions schools should take to prevent these incidents from occurring and to mitigate their impact when they do occur.

To ensure students with disabilities remain safe, schools should take an inclusive and equitable approach to emergency management planning by ensuring that the needs of these students are reflected in such planning. Planners should consider a variety of disabilities and the range of vulnerabilities student may have — including those that are visual, communication, mobility, cognitive, attentional and emotional-related — to adequately protect them during emergency situations. Once these needs have been identified, schools can acquire the appropriate personnel, equipment and supplies to support them.

SchoolSafety.gov suggests strategies and resources for inclusive emergency planning here. Further the Department of Education’s Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technical Assistance Center fact sheet describes how schools can integrate K-12 students with disabilities before, during and after an emergency in accordance with these laws. It provides that schools districts should make the same proactive decisions for students with and without disabilities, considering how best to address each student’s needs to keep them safe and secure.

The new Justice Department webinar complements these existing resources by offering a comprehensive overview of specific requirements that are necessary to ensure physical accessibility under the ADA. It provides online training, training materials and links to technical assistance specific to accessibility for public school facilities. It addresses accessibility issues that also impact safety and security in public school facilities and includes information in plain language, such as information about accessibility requirements for classrooms, recreational equipment and school grounds, that should be factored into school safety and security planning. Accessibility is necessary to ensure that students with disabilities are fully included in school safety efforts and that they can be safely evacuated during emergencies. We highly recommend that public schools review this resource and incorporate it into their school safety planning.