I can’t imagine working at a school these days…
I also can’t imagine being a teenager these days…
It just seems like there’s so much more scandal, drama, and intrigue than when I was growing up.
But still, right is right and a teenager took to Reddit to share her story about how her school bit the big one when it came to handling her medical requirements.
And there were repercussions…take a look…
School expelled me for Mom’s anger. We sued the county and caused a reform.
“So I have a really bad leg, (I’ve had 13 surgeries, long story) and had just started at a new school. After the first 3 weeks, I had to go in for another procedure on my leg.
Not that big a deal to me, I’ve been here before. Upon my return I had documentation of my restrictions, as well as special amenities that were required. The big three were that I needed extra time to get from class to class, must have someone to escort me, and needed unrestricted access to the elevator.
All of these got me recurring problems such as constant harassment by teachers and security about my being in the halls during class time, and why was my cousin out too (he was filling the role as my escort, as I have anxiety problems and we had the same classes). These first two were annoying, but easy enough to deal with.
The real issue was the elevator, as I was told multiple times that for security issues I couldn’t have a personal key due to it sharing the same functionality with the interior door keys. I would never have had any issues with this, as I was told there would always be someone on the same floor as my classes to open the elevator for me.
This of course, was untrue about 75% of the time. The lack of elevator access meant that I was always stuck in the halls when other students were going class to class, and was consistently late due to having to wait for someone to come by and open the door for the elevator. This also meant that I would sometimes be stuck waiting through the entire lunch period, and due to my absences couldn’t afford to simply go to lunch after the fact.
After about 3 weeks of this, I was tired of not getting to eat lunch. So I did one of the stupidest things I could have attempted and tried to use the stairs.
For context, I was not on crutches, I was on a full blown walker. About halfway down to the landing, I fell. Hard. As lunch was letting out one of my friends found me, got someone to help pick me up, and carried me to the office.
Another of my friends went to find my other cousin (the one who normally escorted me wasn’t there due to being sick, so I was without escort because I couldn’t bare the though of, gasp a stranger escorting me), who when getting to the office managed to get me to calm down enough to give them my mother’s number.
Now, my mother is quite hot tempered, but can keep a level head normally. When she heard I fell, she was there in record time. When she got there, she immediately asked what happened. I told her I didn’t want to miss lunch again, so I tried to use the stairs. Big mistake, as that set off a Tsar Bomba sized explosive.
She immediately turned around, and DEMANDED for the Principal and VP to get their a**es in here ASAP. As soon as the principal and VP walked in, she started berating them in a fashion not suitable for most adults to hear, let alone kids. When the VP made an off hand remark about my condition, my mother was swarmed by local sheriffs that provided security for the school’s entrances and office as she physically went after the VP.
We were escorted out, and after looking at the file and realizing my cousin and I had the same address they figured out that I didn’t actually live there.
Now, my grandmother’s address was listed as she looked after me after I left school up until around 8pm. She also was raising my cousin after an issue between her and my aunt. They used this as grounds to expel me, and told her “I can be some other school’s problem now.”
I was then enrolled at the school near my house, and had to have yet another surgery to repair the damage that was done as a result of my fall, and redo the work of the previous procedure. I had gotten multiple statements from teachers as well as my doctors, and my parents were moving forward with a lawsuit naming the VP, Principal, and the county school boar.
We were contacted by a lawyer who had won multiple cases against our school board, some of which went to the State Supreme Court, and he told us he would take our case Pro-bono. He was getting tired of going against the Board, and though a case like this would be what it took to try and fix their s*t.
Fast forward 9 months, and I was walking out of court with a settlement to cover all my procedures, as well as a written confirmation that the school would be going through a complete administrative overhaul, and that the Principal and VP would be let go, and have their administrative credentials revoked in our state.
My new school was let know day 1 my medical requirements and my need for a personal elevator key by the Superintendent and the head of the State Board of education.
Long Story Short; School majorly f**ked up with handling my medical requirements, resulting in a lawsuit that cost the head administrators their jobs, as well as a full blown county wide investigation of Disability procedures.”
Now let’s see what Reddit users thought about this.
This reader said this whole mess could have been easily avoided…go figure…
Another person said that she had a friend with a disability and the staff did their best to accommodate her despite the school being very old.
Another individual said that incompetence just seems to be the norm in some schools among the people in charge.
And finally, this person made a GREAT point. Read on to see what they said.
Have you ever had any experiences like this?
If so, tell us all about them in the comments.
We’d love to hear from you!