accessibility_fail | (no subject)

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I am not quite sure if this counts as "accessibility fail", but it does qualify as "ADA fail". I have an invisible illness; stairs are painful but doable for me. However, I am on a large number of medications, and my pain medication is on a unpredictable schedule. (I can take one, two or three tablets; it depends on the pain level at the time, etc., etc., I am sure you get the gist.)

There is exactly one good thing I can say about my former high school's policy on prescription drugs: it was extremely badly enforced. And by "badly enforced", I mean "not enforced at all".

The actual written policy was that all medications - prescription or not - had to be stored at the nurses' office, and you had to go down there, and she was the only one who could dispense medication. This works in theory, but in practice, the nurse's office was a five minute walk (at least) from most of my classes (so getting medication meant missing at least ten minutes of class), the nurse frequently wandered away and no one knew where she went, and even if you stored medication there, she required that you call your parents every. single. time. you needed medication. In practice, this took about a half an hour - 1/3 of a class period. I'm certainly going to do that every time I need medication (roughly every four hours, every day).

However, all of that is logical in comparison to the spectacular fail that was their policy in regards to leaving the school. If you were very sick, and needed to go home, you had two options: one, your parents could pick you up, or two, you could drive yourself.

I do not drive, because it is physically painful, and I start shaking within five minutes. It is simply not safe for me to drive. Since I live close to the school, I chose to walk instead - less painful, and less dangerous. However, I was explicitly not allowed to walk home if I was too sick to stay at school - but I was allowed to drive. Can someone explain why I was allowed to do something I can't physically do when in reasonable shape, but not the easier and less painful alternative?

And there's Project Graduation. Project Graduation is billed as as drug and alcohol free alternative to post-graduation parties. Over 80% of the seniors go. I mean - it has free food, free arcade games, free laser tag, and most importantly: free stuff. (I went home with a 400 GB external hard drive. A friend of mine went home with a very nice camera. There were a laptops, gift cards, XBoxes, Playstations... I could go on.)

I was told that I couldn't go in because it was a drug-free event. Why? I had a bottle of medication in my purse. Not just a bottle of medication, a bottle of legally prescribed medication in the original bottle. In the organizer's minds, my non-narcotic pain medication - the stuff that enables me to function, to act "normal", and not to be in extreme pain - is the same as ecstasy, marijuana or other illegal drugs. Right.

(After a fair amount of arguing, ADA-mentioning, and refusing to go in without my medication, the organizer kept my medication in an office, and I had to go ask for it when I needed it. She also acted like letting me have access to my (again, legally-prescribed) medication was a terrible imposition and that she was doing me a favor.)

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It certainly counts as accessibility-fail, in my view: access to events, access to medical care, access to education.

Definitely accessibility fail. The organizers of the event would probably say that while you had a valid prescription and need for your medication, you could share it (logic fail) or someone could steal it (thereby holding you responsible for someone else's failing) and therefore they were justified in treating it the same as any other medication. I would've been, given the billing of the event, inclined to just put a few pills inside of a kleenex in my pocket and not let anyone know about them, but that's because I generally lack the spoons to fight with able-bodied people about my need for my medication on my schedule.

Yep, the organizer told me that "someone could take it from my bag, and then you wouldn't be in control". Really, I'm supposed to be responsible for what a thief does? Really?

To be honest, I hadn't even thought about my medication re. a "drug-free event". I was so used to flouting the "no prescriptions" rule at my high school, and absolutely no one caring (except perhaps for the nurse), that I didn't even think about it. By the time I realized it was a problem, the organizer had my medication in her hand, and I had no choice to fight her.

(I did, luckily, have a few pills in a back pocket of my purse that I had forgotten about.)

It's a scary situation to be in to have someone trying to take your needed medication away from you. I'm sorry that you had to go through all that. Fortunately, now that you're out of school (I'm reading this as high school, forgive me if that's incorrect) you'll have fewer times when you'll be faced with that sort of nonsense.

Wow. That's such utter fail. *hug*

I may have told the people at Project Graduation that they were not obeying the ADA (they have followed the letter, although I think "reasonable accomodations" still apply) and that they might want to look into that. They didn't seem to care that I thought what they were doing was against the law.

They didn't seem to care that I thought what they were doing was against the law.

Small wonder -- because even if it was against the law, nothing was going to happen unless someone brought a court case against them. And given the hassle and expense involved, perhaps they figured enough people won't care that they could just get away with breaking the law.

As they say in German, "Recht haben und Recht bekommen sind zwei verschiedene Dinge" (to be right and to obtain justice are two separate things).

Where I am (Australia), the `safe' and `unaccessible' storage of medication at school is mandated by law. And I've been dealing with ever since I was put on dexamphetamine, at age 6. At high school, my mum just let me keep my tablets in my bag, and the tablets did grow in number and frequency when I developed CFS. Luckily, the first aid office never (and hasn't to this date) caught on, and I'm prepared to fight if they do.

If this isn't working for us invisible unicorns, what about the things that can kill you if you don't take your medication on time? *boggles*

(Edited to remove crip, after seeing your post on the same.)

Edited 2009-06-16 12:19 (UTC)

I'm reminded of the story where someone had forgotten their asthma inhaler and got an attack in class.

Another boy who also had asthma and who knew they used the same brand, lent him his, and got suspended for his pains, for sharing prescription medication with another student.

I guess the teacher would rather the other guy died or something.

Oh, god, that is the very worst kind of accessibility fail. (I am hoping that is an urban legend, although it sounds depressingly plausible.)

This story from 2003 (just the two paragraphs under "Zero-Tolerance Watch") sounds like what I was thinking of (and might be the story I had in mind).

Unfortunately, the Yahoo! News article it links to is gone, but that page is apparently hosted by the Wall Street Journal, so it seems pretty credible.

Edited 2009-06-16 18:20 (UTC)

Oh, jeez, inhalers? With a small percentage of a steroid to open up your airways? The same ones that have basically no affect on your mental function? Or anything else, apart from your bronchial tract?

Gah, I hate schools. They need to all contract some brains.

Well, you know that zero tolerance policies are so popular because they stop you having to think.

Just go down the handy checklist: "Prescription medicine? Yup. --> Go to suspension, do not collect $200."

No need to consider the circumstances, or even the active ingredient in question. Least of all whether what he did saved the girl's life or not.

And now I'm trying to imagine someone going into anaphylactic shock from something and being told to walk across campus to collect their epi-pen from the nurse (who's currently out on a smoke break, please wait, she'll be back in five minutes).

I don't think this is mandated by law, so it's just incredibly fail.

I carried my own medication (and still do), and I never got challenged for it. I am entirely sure half my teachers knew about it - I was hardly secretive - and I wouldn't be surprised if my principal did as well. Thankfully, my principal was perfectly willing to flout rules if he thought the rules weren't the best thing for the kids (see: the whole not at all enforced thing).

I know! Seriously, what if someone got so sick they couldn't walk to the nurse's office? (I actually got to that point once; I passed out in class.)

Thank you for removing crip, and I get the sense of solidarity you used it in - it's not a word I'm comfortable using, but it doesn't bother me when used by another disabled (and I hope that word doesn't bother you) person.

I am glad your principal was willing and considerate enough to flout that rule, in particular.

I have signs of hypoglycaemia, and definitely understand how quickly an attack can hit. I worry about the numbers of unreported hospital visits due to this inaccessibility.

I was a tiny bit worried that I had put my foot in there, and no, disabled as a label doesn't bother me. I do like the wit of `unicorns' though :).

There are schools all around the U.S. that require kids to leave asthma inhalers, epi-pens for severe allergies and insulin/glucose for diabetes management locked up in an office. Kids have gotten very sick, ended up hospitalized and worse because of the delays in treatment that this has caused.

And of course let's not forget that the case of a 13 year old girl who was strip-searched on the rumor that she had a 400 mg ibuprofen tablet has gone all the way to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the question of whether the strip search was constitutional.

Is it actual law, though, or just the uncecked and unquestioned pseudo-decrees of ableism that kills kids? Does the medication have to be locked up to not be liable for criminal proceedings, like here?

God, your court system blows. Horrified unicorn right here.

For comparison, first aid offices here are not allowed to distribute OTC medication---if a student requires it, it must be taken by themselves, and kept on themselves.

People are so stupid sometimes.

Edited 2009-06-17 13:19 (UTC)

What we have in the U.S. is that our schools (that is our public, or governmentally run, free to all residents schools) are run on a very local level called a school district. In some places, that district comprises all of the schools in a given county. In other places, a group of smaller municipalities within a county will join together to have a school district. In other places, a district is only schools in one municipality. For instance, I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. All of the schools within the legal city limits are one district, but in the entire county, Allegheny County, there are 42 districts in total.

Each of those districts is managed by an elected School Board, comprised of 9 - 12 members, residents of the district. No particular educational criteria are required, most people who run for school boards do so because they have kid(s) attending schools in the district and they want to have direct control over what their kid(s) & their peers are learning. In each district, the rules governing the district are made by this school board, often with horrible results.

Starting in the early 90s, schools districts across the US began adopting what's called "zero tolerance" policies concerning drugs, alcohol and weapons. The idea is that in order to have safe, drug-free schools, no instance when any kid brings anything onto the school that is on the "forbidden" list can be allowed, no matter the reason, and there are automatic penalties, ranging from lengthy suspensions to outright expulsion.

The problem is, zero tolerance has removed any discretion for administrators to use common sense. All drugs, whether OTC or prescription have to be kept under lock and key in the office because a student with drugs on their person, even drugs that have no value in being shared (like asthma inhalers or insulin) is in violation of the rules. Under these limitations, girls who are caught with ibuprofen to manage menstrual cramps are treated like a kid with a rock of crack cocaine, the kid who whipped out his inhaler to save the kid nearby who was having an asthma attack was treated like the crack dealer because he had drugs and delivered them to another student.

There are parents who give their kids inhalers (and epi-pens) anyway, on the grounds that they'd rather have a living kid and a lawsuit to fight when the school tries to expel the kid for appropriately treating his life-threatening medical condition than a kid who has to wait 10 minutes or more while someone goes to the office, waits for whomever to open the lockbox, figure out which one of the identical yellow and orange inhalers/sub-q pens is the right one, and brings it back.

Almost all school districts have gone the "zero tolerance" route, though the punishments and limitations vary from district to district. Some have learned and have exempted the "must have it now" things like inhalers, but there's no school I'm aware of that would, for instance, allow the OP to keep a painkiller in her own possession to take as needed, even if she were an 18 year old senior and therefore legally an adult.

I should note that the case that went to the Supreme Court is not a challenge to zero tolerance laws. It's a challenge as to how far a school can go in determining if a student has broken one of those laws. No matter what the court decides, it's not going to change whether or not a student can keep their own ibuprofen or even their own inhaler, just whether or not a school can strip search a kid who is alleged to have contraband on their person.

Can't believe I missed this on

accessibility_fail - the girl with the ibuprofen btw, her case came up and basically while they found it wrong to do that to her, they didn't find it wrong to do it at all (sometime in the future to another kid). They only found it wrong on her, because she didn't have anything.

Total BS.

And I think I graduated just before the zero tolerance bs got really bad. But I remember having to crawl to the nurse's office to use my own damn ibuprofen and in the end I just said screw it and kept it in my bag. I had too damn much going on in my life, to miss class over pain I could handle provided I had the painkiller administered quickly vs the times I burst out crying for no reason due to depression and was made to leave the classroom so I wouldn't distract other students from their studies.

Just catching up on my crucial reading.

Wanted to give amadi mad props for summarizing the mysteries of US public school governance so succinctly.

Also chance to use new icon.

Mad props from you, who I understand is the genius who put spearheaded Wiscon's awesome accessibility plan? I'm not worthy. *Wayne's World style bow-down*

(And, having worked briefly in a methadone clinic, your icon is giving me the giggles.)

I'm really, really glad zero-tolerance programs hadn't made it to my district when I was in high school (graduated in 1998).

My asthma was very poorly controlled when I was in high school, not because I didn't take my meds, but because the meds on the market just didn't cut it. I had several ER visits a year and one multi-day hospitalization.

I needed my inhaler several times a day at minimum and that was assuming I didn't inhale something wrong or have a coughing fit or anything else that might trigger it. There is no way I would have been able to manage if I'd had to keep my inhaler in the nurse's office (which was, of course, on the second floor). I missed a lot of school already in high school, if I'd been unable to even go in on bad asthma days, it would have been even worse.

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