Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, all schools (and most buildings in general)
must be wheelchair accessible. The regulations for accessibility include outdoor and indoor ramps, wheelchair accommodating tables, desks, and doorways. Bathrooms must have lowered sinks and at least one larger stall. Coronado High School meets these regulations by the minimum. Coronado has only one elevator in the main building, only one outdoor ramp, and only one indoor ramp at the back entrance of the gym. There are classrooms in the school that also do not have a setup in which it is easy to maneuver a wheelchair in.

It is clear that lack of easy wheelchair accessibility is an issue for students at the school, but the problem has not gone unnoticed.

“This school is not up to code. There’s no buttons on the doors, it is so inaccessible to our students. We were hoping to get more money for the district to improve these issues, but that didn’t work out. It’s all very difficult, our kids struggle just to open these doors. It’s hard to have someone around all the time to help them with stuff like that,” said Mr. Peterson, Special Education teacher.

There are also safety and efficiency issues that come with the inadequacy of wheelchair accessibility. There is only one ramp in the back of the gym which is an inconvenience when there is an assembly, or need for an evacuation from the gym.

“It’s really a hassle to only have a ramp in the back of the gym, and no buttons on the doors. In case of an emergency, it takes longer to get out of the back of the gym to a safe place. I think that should be added to the list of improvements the school needs. The main issue with that is the expense,” said Gary Griego, Coronado security guard.

In the main building there is one elevator, but it cannot be in use during an emergency so the school has 5 emergency/evacuation wheelchairs. Coronado has many improvements that need to be made around the school, and unfortunately Wheelchair Accessibility is not on the list. The total expense of the current list of renovations is $27,176,156.

There are also other precautions that need to be take whether a wheelchair is going to be in use long term of short term. For instance, friends are not allowed to push wheelchairs for the user, and to get to the next class on time there will an early release from the current class and there will be a late excuse for the next class.