It's crazy [that] we paid for something that doesn't work," said Laura Brown, a member of the Na-than Hale High School Sports Booster group. "We never got our money's worth."
Other Nathan Hale parents and Booster Club members are echoing this sentiment.
A 'lemon' of a lift
In 1998, a levy was passed that earmarked $40 million to build state-of-the-art sports complexes at Nathan Hale, Ingraham, Chief Sealth and Rainier Beach high schools. The lifts cost an average of $50,000 for each school.
To comply with standards set forth by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), these complexes featured wheelchair lifts for people who use wheelchairs to gain access to the grandstands. However, the lifts never worked.
According to school officials, the company that installed the lifts has since gone out of business. The vendor is in Canada and is unresponsive to contact attempts made by the district, they say.
In an e-mail, district maintenance manager Ed Heller wrote, "The supplier is difficult to contact and does not provide spare parts or technical advice that gets these machines repaired.
"It is a lemon," Heller added. "Every site we had these units installed [at] has been a disaster."
As a result of the lifts not working, parents and students in wheelchairs have been relegated to sitting down on the field, isolated from other parents and students.
"The view from the perspective of a wheelchaired person is 30 yards of the field and 50 varsity players' behinds," said Ric Wraspir, chair of the booster club. "It's unsafe for players and spectators, and you can't be around your friends."
As a result, wheelchair users don't show up.
School district's responsibility?
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, under the ADA, "Wheelchair seating locations must provide lines of sight comparable to those provided to other spectators."
In addition, "Accessible seating must be an integral part of the seating plan so that people using wheelchairs are not isolated from other spectators or their friends and family."
Lisa Hechtman, principal at Na-than Hale, said she would "love to see the problem resolved, but I feel like it's beyond my control."
Hechtman has been at Hale's helm for three years. She reported the problem to Seattle Public Schools' custodial and maintenance departments and feels she has taken all the steps she can.
The response from the district has not changed.
"I got the same answers this year as last year," said Wraspir, who has been working to resolve the situation since he was elected chairperson of the sports booster club two years ago.
Wraspir said the school district has yet to repair the lifts because of "cost and embarrassment." His next step is to file a complaint with the Department of Justice.
Monica McDaniel, a local ADA representative, said the responsibility falls upon the school district regardless of whether it can contact the builder.
"They are responsible to make their programs and services accessible," she said, adding that this is an ADA requirement, as well as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which states that educational programs receiving federal funds may not discriminate against students with disabilities based on their disability status.
According to booster club members, they were told that outside pressure would be needed for the district to act. One parent noted that pressure may come sooner than people thought. A KING-TV news team reported on the issue recently.
"This issue has come up at every meeting for the past two years," Brown said. "We're glad it's finally getting some attention."
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