A wheelchair-using student and his family have been calling on education officials to update the front doors at Vale High School to make them accessible for students with disabilities, but the family said district officials don’t seem to prioritize the needs of those students.
Since he was a freshman in 2022, Dayten Cunha, 16, and his family have been calling on Vale administrators to install a door at the high school that’s wheelchair accessible.
Tom Cunha, Dayten’s father, said the heavy doors at the high school had been hitting Dayten in the foot when he maneuvers his chair through the doorway.
Cunha said he emailed then-principal Lucas Tackman in 2022. Cunha said Tackman responded and let him know the issue would be addressed. But Cunha said that later, instead of letting him know the school’s plan, administrators told Dayten that officials had slowed down the closing mechanism on the doors. Cunha said that didn’t resolve the issue.
“That was not an appropriate solution to a potentially harmful situation,” he said.
Tackman, now an assistant principal at Alameda Elementary School in Ontario, said Friday, Sept. 21, that he contacted the school’s maintenance supervisor after Cunha contacted him. He said the maintenance supervisor then slowed down the closing mechanism on the doors.
Tackman said the maintenance supervisor and Alisha McBride, superintendent of the Vale School District, spoke about the adjustment to slow down the closing mechanism on the doors.
He said he was pretty sure the maintenance department followed up with Dayten’s mother, Kirsten, to explain what the school could do at that time to address the accessibility issues and the plan moving forward.
In a Monday, Sept. 23 email, McBride said that last month, the Vale School Board approved a contract to complete a front entrance upgrade at the high school, which will feature an ADA-accessible entry.
She said the work begins this fall.
She listed several projects the district has undertaken since 2019 to upgrade schools and meet requirements under the ADA. Among the projects, she noted that in 2020, the high school’s kitchen remodel included the lunch counter being made ADA accessible. McBride also said the 2022 upgrades of the football and baseball stadiums included accessible seating and routes.
Cunha said there are other students at Vale with special needs and disabilities similar to Dayten’s.
Tackman said he and McBride talked about upgrading the front doors at Vale High School not long after he was hired in 2022. Tackman left the high school in 2023.
Tackman said like most districts, it takes time to get projects moving.
“Nothing in education moves fast,” Tackman said. “Especially when you are talking about spending a good amount of money.”
Cunha said Dayten also cannot maneuver his chair in the school’s bathrooms. Luckily, Cunha said, the family lives near the high school, so Dayten can go home when he needs to use the restroom. Cunha said that’s likely not the case for other students with similar disabilities.
At the heart of Cunha’s frustration is that it doesn’t seem that district leaders prioritize the needs of students with special needs and disabilities. He said the district has put in a new football stadium at the high school and a tennis court at another school. While he said he agrees the district needed those facilities, he wants his son and other students with special needs and disabilities to have access to the school’s programs.
“I want those facilities to be equally accessible,” he said.
For instance, he said while he and his family have been asking the district to look at this issue for years, district officials met with his family last month for the first time.
Melissa Roy-Hart, communications director with Disability Rights Oregon, a nonprofit that helps people with disabilities and legal issues related to disability-related issues, said the Americans with Disabilities Act, requires that schools built after 1977 must make 60% of its doorways and exits wheelchair accessible.
Vale High School was constructed in 1955. There is no requirement in the law that automatic doors should be installed at the school. However, Roy-Hart said that if someone is self-propelling a wheelchair, the organization is unsure how someone is supposed to hold a door simultaneously.
Cunha said he understands the district has a budget and there could be other challenges with making the school accessible for those with special needs or disabilities. He said Dayten understands there will be limitations to what he can do given his condition.
He was born with cerebral palsy. Cunha said he and his wife want him to have access to what other students have access to.
“We’re not asking for more,” Cunha said. “We’re asking for equal.”
Cunha said it would be different if his son was moving his wheelchair through a restaurant entrance that did not have an automatic door. He said it would not be on the restaurant to provide an automatic door, but it is on the school to provide an automatic door because Dayten does not have a choice.
“He’s got to go to school,” he said. “That’s where we go to school.”
Dayten said it has been a struggle his entire high school career because the school, in his opinion, doesn’t comply with the disabilities act.
“I’m to the point of tears at this point,” Dayten said.
Dayten said Vale Middle School, a newer building that was constructed in 2019, is far more accessible than the high school. The school had automatic doors, the doors to classrooms were under five pounds, and the bathrooms were bigger, with wheelchair-accessible stalls.
While McBride said the district plans to install an ADA-accessible entry, Cunha said Chad Hartley, Vale principal, told him that automatic doors would be installed at the high school in December, over the holiday break. Cunha said Hartley emailed him a few months ago, letting him know the district was waiting to sign a contract with a company to install the doors.
Hartley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cunha said he would not be speaking out if this was something Dayten told him was not a problem. But, since Dayten has been the one self-advocating for himself and others with similar struggles, this is how he is supporting him.
“We’re just following his lead and we’re trying to help him,” Cunha said.
News tip? Send your information to Steven Mitchell at [email protected].
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