By Dane Anderson, Staff Writer

In a recent look at bond item possibilites, the Eanes school district proposed $14 million for potential use in Americans with Disabilities Act modifications to campus facilities. The district allocated $1 million last year for that purpose, and last month board members approved an additional $1 million for use in correcting more noncompliant areas in school facilities.

Superintendent Nola Wellman said she is pleased with the way the district is progressing through its ADA compliance plan. She said a team of workers has been going campus to campus, addressing items that do not require architectural, or design work. She said approximately 1,200 items had been corrected in the district as of the end of March, less than a year into the new district ADA initiative. An additional 1,000 items remain on a list of identified corrections needed, including 300 projects that will require architectural design or engineering work. 

“Sometimes we find new items that weren’t on the list once we get to a campus,” said Dale Whitaker, district communications officer. “We try and take care of those at the same time rather than wait to reschedule.”

Some of the projects that Whitaker said are scheduled for the summer are playgrounds at Forest Trail Elementary School; renovations at Hill Country Middle School, including an accessible ramp to the eighth grade wing; an accessible route to the play fields at West Ridge Middle School and an accessible ramp to the cafeteria stage at Valley View Elementary School. The district also plans to redo ramps and entrances to the new Performing Arts Center soon. 

One key member of a task force appointed by district Superintendent Nola Wellman in 2007 to help identify and prioritize ADA needs wants to see a more detailed plan. 

“We all need to see a plan for ADA compliance, “said Cheryl Fries, parent and former task force member.  “Show me the to-do list and a timeline on how we are going to fix the violations to a law that was passed 20 years ago.”

In 2007, the district-appointed ADA task force took previous assessment reports and visited campuses, identifying and prioritizing problems. Members issued a report to the district in November 2007 that listed 25 specific violations the task force considered most hazardous and segregating. Fries said that after the report, the task force was disbanded and the work on ADA issues went into an “administrative underground.”

In March 2008, the district brought forth a general ADA plan in the form of a matrix crossing priority with cost and degree of difficulty to establish categories. No specific items were identified for modification. The report estimated $3.5 million in “easy” ADA projects. District administrators hoped to cover the majority of the cost of ADA modifications through a new bond election in 2011.

Fries said the community should have the chance for input on the district’s ADA plan.

It has been 18 months since the Eanes ADA task force issued its report to the school district. Fries, who has a daughter with special needs, said she has seen no real progress in access improvement.

“I’m not seeing anything being done that increases my daughter’s ability to participate,” she said. “There are still dangerous ramps with no side guards, slopes dangerously out of compliance. There are still playgrounds with no access. Why don’t they address problems at campuses with disabled students first? It’s not that hard to build a sidewalk to a football field.”

Fries and other parents want the district to put a detailed ADA plan on file, name an ADA coordinator, show specifically how the newly allocated $1 million funding will be spent and let the community have input in the draft stage of the ADA plan.

“Without all these things, how can we have any faith in how new bond money will be spent in this area?” she asked.

Wellman said more detail on individual ADA items, including when they will be addressed, will be hammered out in the budget process. 

“We have a bond definition team working right now,” she said. “We want a good cost analysis before we prepare for a bond election.”