On July 10, 1978, parents of handicapped students in Norwood voiced serious concerns regarding the lack of physical accessibility at the local high school.
Mrs. Charlotte Haskell, president of the Norwood Special Needs Parents Group, recently sent a formal letter to School Superintendent Philip O. Coakley. In the communication, she urged the district to take immediate steps toward compliance with federal regulations that mandate all recipients of federal funds must ensure their facilities are accessible to handicapped persons.
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While Norwood’s elementary and junior high schools have been made accessible to students in wheelchairs or on crutches, the high school remains physically inaccessible. The town is under a mandate to complete the necessary construction changes by June 3, 1980. Furthermore, federal guidelines stipulated that a plan for this reconstruction should have been presented to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) by December 3, 1977. While Roderick Smith, director of pupil personnel services, noted that there are currently no handicapped students enrolled at the high school, he acknowledged that several students currently in the junior high system will be transitioning to the high school within the next few years.
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Smith expressed concern that the school system had not yet formulated a plan to revamp the high school to provide educational programs for handicapped students that are equivalent to those offered to other students. An HEW spokesperson indicated that the department had been in contact with the company for several years, though Smith expressed uncertainty regarding whether the town had actually submitted the required plan to federal authorities. According to Barbara Wilson, an equal opportunities specialist for the HEW Office of Civil Rights, the mandate does not require that the entire school be made accessible. Instead, the district must ensure that essential areas—including the library, gym, cafeteria, and science labs or workshops—are accessible via ramps or elevators. If a school building contains multiple floors of classrooms, federal regulations require that at least one floor be made accessible, provided that classes are scheduled so all subjects are offered to handicapped students on that level.
Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger
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