District takes steps to open Lanphier for disabled
Faced with a federal lawsuit, Springfield School District 186 is making the Lanphier High School basketball gymnasium more accessible to people with disabilities.
John McQuillan, the father of a Lanphier student, sued the district last year, alleging that the school is not accessible to the disabled. McQuillan, who has cerebral palsy, uses a wheelchair.
At the plaintiff’s request, an architect for the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice visited Lanphier last year and documented dozens of places where the school is not accessible to the disabled. The school lacks wheelchair ramps, handrails, accessible restrooms, drinking fountains that can be used by the disabled and dozens of other things that make it difficult or impossible for disabled people to travel through the building, according to the architect’s report. Renovations to make the building accessible would cost more than $2.8 million, the architect reported.
Noting that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires that public bodies take reasonable steps to make buildings accessible to the disabled, Lorilea Buerkett, an attorney for the school district, said that spending $2.8 million isn’t reasonable.
“The district does not have those kinds of funds,” Buerkett said. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, and it doesn’t have to be the (solution) that the person wants. It has to be reasonable.”
Dan Noll, McQuillan’s lawyer, declined to discuss the case in detail, but said that his client’s goal is to improve accessibility to Lanphier for the disabled. While McQuillan isn’t seeking monetary damages, Noll acknowledged that federal law allows for plaintiffs to collect attorney fees.
“All we are asking is for the district to follow the law and have their building accessible,” Noll said. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the factual matters of the case.”
Buerkett acknowledged that Lanphier, built before the Americans With Disabilities Act took effect in 1992, doesn’t meet current codes designed to ensure that buildings are accessible to everyone.
“I think that anybody who lives in Springfield knows what that building’s like,” Buerkett said. “It’s hard to go 100 feet without going up steps.”
Buerkett said that the district offered to transfer McQuillan’s son, who is not named in the lawsuit, to a school accessible to the disabled at no cost to the family. Buerkett, however, said that the district is under no obligation to make all parts of a school building accessible to parents with disabilities because parents do not typically go into classrooms and other areas normally used only by students and school district employees.
The Lanphier basketball gymnasium, however, is different because it is open to the public for basketball games. In a motion filed last month in federal court, McQuillan’s lawyers asked that the district be required to make the gym accessible to the disabled, particularly when it comes to restroom facilities.
A person who uses a wheelchair would have to leave the gym and travel down a street to the school’s common area to find a restroom that is accessible to the disabled, according to the lawsuit.
“To make matters even worse, there is no signage that would direct someone in a wheelchair to the bathroom,” the plaintiff says in the motion filed Aug. 31. “If someone were to go through this difficult endeavor, it would all be for naught because they would find – after they traveled down the ramp – that the doors to the common area were locked.”
Buerkett said the district has already taken steps to make the gym accessible and has plans to make more improvements for the disabled. The gym already has accessible entrances, Buerkett said, and parking for the disabled has been added. Signage for the disabled has also been added, she said, and the district is preparing bids for work to add accessible drinking fountains and restrooms.
“They’ve done what needs to be done to make the parts of the building accessible that are open to the public,” Buerkett said.
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com.
