Escalating Concerns:Broken Elevator Raises Safety Questions

By: Eli Fillio

The day before fall break, the 16th of October, the elevator in the ELA wing broke down and wasn’t fixed until the 22nd. This left the only elevator available to students unusable. This poses questions about safety and accessibility for people who use the elevator on a regular basis, or those who need access to the elevator, causing an inconvenience to those who can’t get from class to class without the elevator.

Junior Eva Denny relies on the elevator daily. Denny said, “It mostly…take[s] a lot of time away from me… cause I never really know when the elevator breaks until I walk over there and find out myself that it is broken so it wastes a whole bunch of time causing me… to walk faster than I usually do which then results in…physical issues …” And there are other people who need to use the elevator, even temporarily. MHS Special Education teacher, Jennifer Grimm elaborated, “For example, it’s not just students…who use it on a regular basis, we have a lot of students too who are on crutches right now due to injuries.” MHS principal, Chad Brugh explained, “Unfortunately we’re at the will of who’s fixing the elevators and when they get out here to fix them, and our operations department don’t have the skill set to do that.” Grimm added, “and I totally understand we have an old elevator, we have an old school... I personally could not fix it ever. I know it’s really hard to find people who are certified to…come out and fix it but it happens a lot. But it is a concern that it seems to be happening more frequently, and maybe the duration is a little bit longer where it is broken.” Denny mentioned some of the problems with the elevator last year, “and it was like days on end so like it wasn’t like it was broken one day, fixed the next, it’s like, it broke this day, isn’t gonna get fixed till like a week later. That was really bad, so far this year it’s only happened once, and it was like right before break so it wasn’t that bad. But I’m sure it’s gonna happen again.”

School City of Mishawaka Human Resources Director Kory LaBonne said, “While it’s an unfortunate and unforeseen mechanical failure, I am acutely aware of the inconvenience and empathize with the added stress these situations place on our students and staff, particularly those who rely on the elevator. Grimm added, “ it is a concern that it seems to be happening more frequently, and maybe the duration is a little bit longer where it is broken. So overall it’s just, it is a huge concern.” Grimm continued, “Because we have had some students who have passed out lately and the school nurse is trying to get there quickly with the wheelchair, and I haven’t seen it first hand, but I can only imagine. It’s a huge impediment, it’s terrifying.”

Brugh explained protocols the administration has in place for emergency situations and the training given to people in the school, “Yeah, well it’s a big deal and we have teachers- we talk to teachers daily about those situations. Where if we have a fire drill or something like that where kids have to get from the second floor to the third floor down, we do have those life sliders that we can use that are posted at the top of the stairs that we can put students in if we need to get them down the stairs. And we also instruct teachers that if they can help students as they’re going down if the elevator is broken, but they’re supposed to do that as well.” Grimm confirmed, “I know that I have been trained in the past and typically schools will come up with a team of people, like here’s four people, like Mr. Sergeant, like other people, that their rooms are kinda close to a stairwell.… In case there is an emergency they’re trained. But yeah, some of our hall monitors tend to be firemen as well, so sometimes they’ve been tried or trained as well. The school did put out a video that was about the life slider too.” LaBonne acknowledged,”We understand that ‘temporary’ is still too long for those affected, and the disruption to daily school life and the potential safety risk are unacceptable.”

This event also shines some light on ADA laws that could affect the school in situations like this. LaBonne acknowledged, “A temporarily inoperable elevator poses two primary risks: a daily accessibility barrier and a critical safety risk during emergencies.” LaBonne explained, “Federally, we are governed by Title II (for public schools) of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to ensure program accessibility. At the state level, the physical requirements for the repair and safe operation of the elevator are governed by the Indiana Elevator Safety Code (675 IAC 21), and our commitment to educational access is reinforced by the Indiana Building Code (IBC) and Indiana Code § 20-19-2-12.” Schools (especially public schools which fall under Title II of the ADA, and any school receiving federal funds) have a legal obligation to ensure their facilities are accessible to all individuals with disabilities, including students, staff, and visitors.

Generally, the school is not required to provide the specific accommodation preferred by the individual but must provide an effective alternative that ensures equal opportunity to participate in school life. Brugh explained work-arounds the school uses during elevator outages, ”what we typically do is if we have a student that can’t get to the second floor, or the third floor for that matter, we always try to make accommodations where they can go to the resource room and then work with the teacher to figure out what assignment they have and they can work on that assignment when they’re in the resource room. Other than that we always try to partner the kid up with another student that can help them up the stairs if they need to.”