New service helps LEAs meet facilities access needs
Published: November 8, 2010
Twenty years ago, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act to ensure that people with disabilities are not discriminated against. A key component of this civil rights legislation is to provide improved access throughout public buildings, including school facilities. Since then, by and large, local educational agencies have updated or built schools that allow students with a variety of physical abilities to access and utilize the campus.
Some LEAs, however, have faltered at the daunting task of surveying their facilities and making plans to complete the necessary improvements and barrier removals. Ever-shrinking budgets have also claimed funds that might otherwise be used to hire a consultant with the expertise to develop a compliance plan.
But new regulations issued this summer have tightened up ADA enforcement. The good news is that school districts and county offices of education with incomplete, out-of-date, or nonexistent plans can now get help with an easier, more efficient way of developing the required transition plan for compliance with the law. The regulations from the U.S. Department of Justice give schools until March 15, 2012, to come into full compliance with the 2010 standards for accessible design.
CSBA’s new ADA Compliance Program partners with Disability Access Consultants Inc. to provide LEAs with the planning assistance they need to make all their facilities accessible to persons with disabilities.
Schools don’t have to fix everything overnight, but they do need to develop a plan for addressing access issues, says Tim Mahoney with DAC, which helps LEAs survey, create and maintain their compliance plans.
DAC’s interactive, Web-based system provides easy access to information about needed modifications at each facility. Compared with a traditional hard-copy consultant’s report, keeping the plan online is a real benefit.
“The hidden benefit with this method is that you end up with a dynamic document that’s easy to manage and update,” Mahoney says. “You can mark off items as they’re done, print reports of what has been accomplished and things you still need to do. … It’s just a very dynamic method to manage all that data.”
Staff at some LEAs—especially the larger ones—can learn to perform the inspections and enter the data needed to develop a transition plan themselves. Others may prefer to have DAC do that for them. Many charter schools and small LEAs choose that option, Mahoney says.
Either way, having access to the plan online makes it easy to estimate costs and produce customized reports for internal use or to respond to inquiries from users with disabilities or government enforcement agencies.
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