Information is currency for democracy.
- Thomas Jefferson
A day without sunshine is like, you know,
night. -
Steve Martin
Education is unique among consumer products;
when it fails to work as advertised, it's the customer that gets labeled as
defective. - Kevin
Killion
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Courage is the most important of all
the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other
virtues consistently. You can't be consistently kind or fair or
humane or generous, not without courage, because if you don't have
it, sooner or later you will stop and say, "The threat is too much.
The difficulty is ...too high. The challenge is too great. ~ Maya
Angelou
Mr. Strickland, Ms. King, Mr.
Stone, Ms. Balthazar, Mr. Durkee, Mr. Monnig, and Mr.
Sayers:
Unfortunately, business prevented me from attending the 7:30
a.m. Monday board meeting regarding the Eanes ISD/Kidventure
Camp partnership. As you know, my daughter is one of the
Eanes students prevented from attending KidVenture Camp
based on her disability.As I'm sure you also know, I
have brought this issue to the attention of the US
Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. If you have
read my complaint, you know as well that before taking that
action, I first brought the issue to the attention of Dr.
Wellman, Mr. Bechtol, and Ms. Martin, all of whom ignored my
written complaint.
I was, quite frankly, shocked when the owner of KidVenture
informed me that his camp is "not set up for special needs"
and that in order for my daughter to attend, I would be
required to find, hire and provide a full-time aide for her,
as well as to provide her with transportation to any camp
outings. I was shocked because this is a blatant violation
by KidVenture Camp of Title III of the Americans With
Disabilities Act, which states in part: "A public
accommodation shall make reasonable modifications in
policies, practices, or procedures, when the modifications
are necessary to afford goods, services, facilities,
privileges, advantages, or accommodations to individuals
with disabilities, unless the public accommodation can
demonstrate that making the modifications would
fundamentally alter the nature of the goods, services,
facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations."
Because Claire's participation would not fundamentally alter
the nature of the camp program--and because in fact I
contacted Mr. McDonell specifically to query which session
would be a best fit for her, his policy of requiring a
full-time aide for a child who does not need a full-time
aide also violates the sections of the law which state that
"A public accommodation shall not impose or apply
eligibility criteria that screen out or tend to screen out
an individual with a disability" and that which states "A
public accommodation may not impose a surcharge on a
particular individual with a disability or any group of
individuals with disabilities to cover the costs of
measures, such as the provision of auxiliary aids, barrier
removal, alternatives to barrier removal, and reasonable
modifications in policies, practices, or procedures, that
are required to provide that individual or group with the
nondiscriminatory treatment required by the Act or this
part."
When Mr. McDonell first told me of his policy, my response
was: "You can't say this to me. This is against the law."
His answer was that he had had "extensive discussions with
the superintendent" about this very issue. This, combined
with the silence of the district-level administrators when I
brought it to their attention, left me believing that I had
no choice but to ask the federal government to intervene on
behalf of my daughter. To this day, in fact, only one Eanes
ISD staff member has contacted me regarding this issue, and
that was a call made to my home late in the summer by Cindy
Martin, who, in a very aggressive tone, took me to task for
sharing this information with other special education
parents in the school district. She was offended, she said.
As I told her, I don't believe she is the wronged party
here.
I find it absolutely appalling that Eanes ISD would contract
with a program whose owner stands before you and says, "If I
hired aides for children, I would have to raise camp fees
for every child." Let me remind you--my child does not need
a full-time aide at camp. She never had one at Summer Fun.
She never has one at other camps. It was Mr. McDonell who
insisted--without an evaluation--that Claire would have to
have an aide paid for by me. But even if she did, Mr.
McDonell could not require her family to pay for that
service. Mr. McDonell runs his private company in a nation
of laws, and that nation's Congress has protected the rights
of children with disabilities against the very
discriminatory policies he uses as a defense.
You have heard from him, and now you have heard from me. He
said. She said. But I ask you to ask yourself: who has
reason to lie here? Is it the mother whose child came
flying through the door one Thursday afternoon last February
waving a glossy KidVenture brochure handed out in her
fourth-grade class, asking excitedly, "can I go? can I go?"
Is it the mother who later told that child a fabricated
story in order to protect her, so she wouldn't have to think
that a program at her school didn't want her? Because that's
the bottom line here: in that child's mind, and in her
mother's, the fine line between KidVenture as a "private
program" and Eanes' summer recreation is a blur. If
KidVenture has replaced Summer Fun, and it is held at Eanes
elementary schools and it is advertised and promoted by the
school district, it really doesn't matter who runs it. What
matters is that one of your elementary school students is
not welcomed there, solely because she uses a walker to move
around.
This is all I have to say to you. I will not write to you
again about this issue. But I will leave you with this. My
husband and I were literally chosen to be this child's
parents when she was ten days old, long before anyone knew
she would never walk on her own. Patrick and I take the
sacred trust and promise of our role as her parents very,
very seriously. We expect her school district to be a
partner in this process, not a foe. I hope that you will ask
hard questions of our superintendent and our ADA compliance
officer. And I hope you will ask hard questions of private
contractors using our school district's facilities and
populations as the fundamentals for their business model.
Because you are Trustees not of them, but of us, and more
importantly, of our children.
