Following the mass shooting in Uvalde, I have struggled to comprehend the inhumanity. I have thought about friends and family who are teachers or parents of school-age children. Every time this happens, I am left shaking for days, unnerved, and concerned for their safety. I thought about the children whose lives were lost, and I thought back to my time in school. A time before school shootings were pervasive and active shooter drills were normalized.
And I thought about disabled students.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), disabled students account for 14% of students attending public schools.
In the event of an emergency, many disabled students are left without a plan and left to wonder, “Is this how I am going to die?”
That kid was me.
I remember a simple evacuation drill in the days following the 9/11 attacks. Students were told to file out calmly and proceed to a designated area. As a wheelchair user, I saw a room filled with desks and little space to move safely and quickly. When I raised the concern with my teacher, he declared, “Ryan, ‘he’ is your escape plan,” and pointed to a classmate who was a football player.
As my education continued, I would routinely raise the question of how I was to safely evacuate. When there stopped being student athletes to carry me, I was told to sit and wait for evacuation personnel to get me. Teachers? Faculty? Police? Firefighters? Nobody ever discussed it with me. There would be an emergency, and as I watched classmates file out to safety, there I would be, waiting. But it was just a drill, they said. So, nobody came. Nobody could be bothered to even pretend to care about disabled lives. I became convinced that in the event of a real emergency, I would certainly die.
With active shooter simulations and lockdown drills, the stakes are higher. Students learn to hide under desks and barricade doors. They learn to block windows to avoid being seen. What is a student supposed to do if a wheelchair or other mobility device prevents them from participating in this drill? What do we do for students with auditory triggers? Students with visual impairments? Present day drills are not accounting for disabled students.
Inaccessibility abounds more than 30 years after the ADA. Lack of universal design in schools could mean the difference between life and death. Making matters worse, Republicans are advocating for a “one door policy” according to MSNBC. This is a step backward for accessibility.
According to Reuters, the shooter had well over an hour alone inside the school prior to police engaging with him.
After I read that, the only thing I could think was, where are the disabled students? While everyone is terrified and looking for safety, disabled students were likely told, “Sit tight and wait here. Someone is coming to help you.” That should terrify us all.