Student Lead Tour of TDHS reveals ‘Heartbreaking’ Struggle for ADA Compliance
Larkin Hampton patiently waits for her mom, Amy Hampton to carry her knee scooter up the middle staircase on the ground floor of the school. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
Editor’s Note - In this report about ADA accessibility in The Dalles High School, CCCNews followed 16-year-old Larkin Hampton as they attempted to access the entire school. Hampton is not disabled, but rather had a temporary ankle injury; however, Larkin’s temporary condition made it possible for CCCNews to get a clearer understanding of the challenges a person with disabilities might encounter while attempting to attend TDHS. This article was originally published on February 4, 2023 and has been republished to provide voters information about the state of facilities in light of the upcoming vote on a school bond in The Dalles.
By Cole Goodwin
The Dalles, Ore., February 4, 2023 — Sixteen-year-old Larkin Hampton remembers the day she had to face navigating the crowded halls of The Dalles High School on crutches.
She remembers it like it was yesterday.
On April 27, of 2022, she suffered an ankle injury in her P.E. class that brought her a heightened awareness of the “heartbreaking” difficulties facing students with disabilities at The Dalles High School.
The main problem?
The Dalles High School was built long before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, meaning it’s practically impossible to navigate the 82-year old building without encountering stairs.
Lots of stairs.
Her first personal encounter with this issue came minutes after her injury.
Larkin recalls that she had to hop, unassisted, up the stairs and out of Kurt’s Gym, across the pavement and down another flight of stairs to the Nurse’s office.
Larkin Hampton speaks with CCCNews at TDHS. Photo Credit Cole Goodwin
“The nurse wasn’t there,” Larkin said. “I had to go back up the stairs and then down another flight of stairs to the main office.”
By the time she arrived at the office, she was in excruciating pain. She was then diagnosed with a sprained ankle. She was told she’d be ‘back to normal’ within a week.
The following school day she returned to her high school on crutches and wearing a supportive sock for her injured ankle.
Larkin’s mom recalled that day. It was a “disaster.”
“When we picked her up she was in tears. She said, ‘I can’t do that again, Mom,’” said Larkin’s mom Amy Hampton. She is also the Director of Student Services for North Wasco County School District 21.
Heart hurting for her child, Hampton took immediate action to find solutions.
“My whole job is dealing with students with disabilities,” said Hampton. “That’s what my whole career has been focused on. So it’s something I’ve been very aware of, but this was the first time that this was brought home to me at this level.”
They considered Larkin’s options. She could attend her classes online. But doing so would mean returning to the social isolation that many students have only recently returned from following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Luckily, Larkin was able to borrow a knee scooter from a D21 staff member. The loan came with a warning. The staff member said they had recently purchased an “off-road” knee scooter to navigate uneven pavement at another D21 school, a task that the original scooter had been unable to accomplish.
When Larkin returned to school, she began experiencing the limitations of the efforts to make her school ADA accessible firsthand.
And she discovered that her knee scooter had a tendency to “flip” whenever it encountered even the slightest obstacle, leading to several bruises.
Meanwhile Amy Hampton was struggling to get her daughter the healthcare she needed.
“A week came and went. And then two weeks came and went. And because of our doctor shortage here she wasn't able to get in to see somebody,” said Hampton.
Four weeks passed.
“And then finally we got her in–and they said, ‘how long have you been keeping your toe pointed like that?’ Because the way her toe was pointed, they had concerns that her Achilles tendon was going to be shortened. And so, they put her in the boot at that point.”
An MRI revealed that she had torn a tendon in her ankle and she’d be spending the rest of Spring term in a boot with a scooter.
The diagnosis? She’d torn a tendon and would need to wear a boot and continue using the knee scooter for the rest of spring term to heal her injury.
But while scooter brought Larkin some relief, her injury still limited her independence, both in school and out.
“Independence is something that is paramount for her,” her mom said. “It’s been important to her since she was an infant. Some of her first words were ‘I do it myself.’” Hamptom laughed a little as she remembered.
Larkin Hampton and her mom Amy Hampton. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
Larkin said it takes a supportive community to help you navigate life when you have a disability or mobility difficulties.
“Nothing is just you,” Larkin said. “Even something as simple as rolling over in bed, I couldn’t do, or going to the bathroom. Getting from a bedroom to a bathroom, getting from a stall in the public bathroom to a sink - I couldn’t do that. Not without help. Just take everything you’ve ever done by yourself and throw another couple people in with you and make yourself mobilized. Try it.”
Larkin’s mom said the whole experience had been “heartbreaking.”
“It was heartbreaking to watch her and be so sad,” Amy said. “I mean the limitations that it put on her-” she breaks off at a loss for words.
“It was just heartbreaking every day,” she said.
“She would talk about things she’d like to do and then she’d be like ‘oh, never mind, I can’t do that.’ Or ‘that’s not going to work, I can’t make it there on my scooter, I can’t do that either because I won't have the time to make it there. Or I won’t be able to access that.’ It was a common conversation that we had, and it was really sad to have to deal with a 15- year-old who felt like she couldn’t be included in things because of this one limitation.”
Amy said that she has a lot of empathy for families that are impacted by lack of accessibility at school and in the community.
“It also made me very frustrated because I knew that this was a short-term challenge for us, but for a lot of people it’s a long-term challenge, and right now we don’t have a better solution for them,” Amy said. “Unfortunately, I do not see a way that this building could ever be able to meet the needs of the upcoming students. As Larkin discovered it’s almost impossible to enter this building without having to navigate stairs.”
“We’re facilities challenged, that’s no secret. We are just doing the absolute best that we can to make accommodations and provide opportunities for all our students to achieve success in the buildings that we have. Equity and access are always at the forefront of my mind,” said Carolyn Bernal, D21 Superintendent.
These sentiments are echoed by other D21 staff members who feel that it would be nearly impossible to provide the kind of accessibility that students deserve in the current facilities.
Tackling the issue of aging facilities.
A school bond planning meeting in session. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
Renovations to the current facilities would cost upwards of $53 million dollars and would still not be likely to adequately address ADA improvements, according to D21 research. In addition, other issues include lack of space, no cafeteria, a spread campus, classrooms that don’t match up with modern teaching and safety and security concerns.
D21 School Board chair Jose Aparicio points out that this is partly due to the fact that renovations would have to occur within the footprint of the current existing structures, which simply aren’t big enough to make space for wider doors, wider bathroom stalls, or ADA compliant ramps, without compounding already existing issues of lack of space for a growing student population.
Stephanie Bowen, Communications Director for D21, said this is part of why D21 is currently in the process of proposing a $120-$140 million bond to build a new school. She said building a new school could address existing issues of accessibility, safety, education, capacity and more.
Estimated cost to taxpayers
In The Dalles, a 30-year, $120 million high school bond would increase the North Wasco tax rate by $2.67 per $1,000 of assessed value. The current established rate for operations of North Wasco Schools is $5.24.
So, if a $120-million bond passed the rate would increase to $7.91 per $1000 of assessed property value.
Larkin Hampton in the library of The Dalles High School. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
A Tour of The Dalles High School from an ADA Perspective
With the school’s permission, Larkin (who is now mostly healed from her injury) brought out her boot and knee scooter to give CCCNews a tour of The Dalles High School from the perspective of someone experiencing a temporary disability.
CCCNews suggested that she start off by showing us what an average day in her spring schedule would have looked like.
The first class of the day is Physics in room 214 on the second floor of the building.
“Every morning I’d have to start by just getting across the pavement and to the lift,” Larkin said as she scoots in front of us.
“My friend would walk in front of me and kind of act as brakes for me when I would be coming down this hill,” she said, pointing out the steep grade of the ramp between the parking area and the lift.
The lift was added to the exterior of the school in the 1980’s to give disabled students access to the top floor of the school. It is made possible by an ad-on to the building that some students describe as a “garden shed.” And while that description is not entirely accurate, some of the space in there is used to store maintenance supplies.
The lift sits inside this external structure to the school. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
Amy Hampton, Stephanie Bowen and I watch as Larkin struggled to open the heavy door to the lift, scooting backwards on her scooter and pulling, and then scooting back and pulling some more.
Larkin refuses help, saying it’s important we really see what the struggle is like.
“The space inside is too small for the scooter so I would have to balance on the scooter, push the button for the lift and hold the door open at the same time,” said Larkin.
Larkin demonstrates the lift at TDHS. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
Unfortunately the lift is in the process of being repaired so we don’t get to see it in action.
“It has a weight limit, it moves really slowly and it shakes a lot,” said Larkin. “So, you can’t have anyone go on it with you.”
Not that they want to anyway.
“My friends think the lift is scary,” Larkin said, adding that she secretly agrees with them.
Larkin’s friend would instead go around, up the stairs and wait for the lift to arrive.
“It’s really slow,” said Larkin “So she would usually beat me to the top.”
Taking the stairs back down, Larkin’s mom carries her scooter while Larkin hops on one foot up two flights of stairs.
She shows us the lift exit on the 2nd floor.
Larkin demonstrating how her knee scooter could not manage the lip of the lift which is uneven with the floor. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
“The floor and the lift don’t meet up,” she points out. “So I’d have to lift the scooter over the lip.”
From there she would head down a student packed hallway to her Physics class.
Scooting in to room 214. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
“We had assigned Chromebooks for each class,” Larkin said, showing us the room. It looks almost exactly the same as it did when I was in High School.
“They (Chromebooks) were plugged in at the far end of the class. I couldn’t turn my scooter around in that space, so I would sort-of hold on to the counter and hop over to mine and then hop back with the chromebook.”
She demonstrates, and I can’t help it – I wince at the sight of it.
As she hops back towards us, I can’t help but think to myself that there is no way any orthopedist would approve hopping on one leg and jarring an injured ankle in such a violent way - even with the support of the counter that lines the left side of the room.
She said she felt her ability to participate was impeded as a result.
“I couldn’t participate in labs because the scooter couldn’t move around the room,” she said.*
*D21 has said that additional accommodations would have been offered to Larkin if she had asked for them.
”We always encourage our students to advocate for themselves and their needs,” said Stephanie Bowen, Director of D21 Communications and Community Engagement
However, Larkin not asking for some of those additional accommodations highlights an issue that faces many people who experience mobility issues or disabilities: Having to constantly ask for accommodations can be exhausting. “Access fatigue” is caused by the constant need to ask for accommodations or jump through hoops in order to achieve access.
Other reasons people with disabilities might not seek accommodations include: not knowing what accommodations may exist, shyness, feelings of unworthiness, not wanting to feel like a burden, and/or ambitious feelings, such as feeling like they can do something themselves without accommodation.
Larkin explains that almost all her classrooms were too small for the scooter to maneuver without causing massive classroom disruptions in which other students would be required to physically move themselves, their desks, and their chairs out of the way just so she could grab a pencil or paper or ingredients.
Due to its cumbersome nature, Larkin would often opt to forgo the scooter, “The number of times that I’d have to abandon my scooter and just hop places was ridiculous,” she said.
It was not a healthy situation. All the one-legged hopping combined with the knee scootering caused her to develop a secondary injury.
“My kneecap doesn’t stay in place now, I have to tape it,” she said.
Larkin says she needed a 5-minute lead time to make it between classes.
The headstart gave her enough time to beat some of the student rush in the hallways, avoid impeding the flow of traffic with her scooter and avoid becoming a classroom disturbance by being late.
“She lost five to ten minutes of every class for seven weeks,” Amy said.
Five minutes doesn’t not sound like too much, I think…but then I do the math.
Missing 5 minutes from one class adds up to 25 minutes a week. Over the course of a normal school year that’s 625 minutes. Multiple 625 minutes by the number of classes being taken (in this case 5) and that adds up to over 52 hours of missed class time a year.
Larkin explains that her friends also often ended up missing class in order to help her get between classes.
Next up we are headed to P.E. which means we have to go back down the hall and to the lift and return to the ground floor.
As we walk down the hall I turn to Amy and ask her about the missed class time.
Amy points out that her daughter experiences many advantages that other students with compounding issues such as learning disabilities, other mobility issues, or lack of support may not have.
Despite her recent hardships, Larkin tries to keep a positive and independent attitude towards life. She also expressed gratitude for the support that she did from her family and friends while she navigated this difficult time of her life. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
“She’s not an average kid,” Amy said. “The thing to realize is that she’s a highly functional, gifted child that has a family that’s able to support her …If she’d had any limitations beyond this what would life have been like?”
Amy pauses and locks eyes with me, and in her eyes I see the heavy weight of that imagined future, and the stories she carries. Stories about countless others she’s served–many of whom haven’t been lucky enough to have Larkin’s advantages.
I can’t think of anything to say.
We keep walking.
We get to the lift- except the lift is still in process of being repaired, so once again Larkin has to hop down the stairs while Amy carries her scooter.
As we cross the pavement to the gym Larkin is pushing hard and fast, fighting the pavement and the scooter as she works hard to be able to make it up the hill to the gym. As she pushes she describes how dangerous this particular bit of pavement has proven to be for her.
“My scooter flipped here,” she said, pointing out the steep grade and the uneven pavement. “Even with my friend helping me.”
Larkin and her school supplies, including her textbooks, had flown across the pavement as a result. Luckily her friend helped her gather her books, and she was eventually able to scoot away from the incident, albeit with a large and painful new bruise on her knee.
Larkin then described numerous other similar occasions where a single bark chip, piece of grave, or an uneven patch of pavement at the school had caused her scooter to flip resulting in odd strains, small abrasions, and other injuries as well as damage to school supplies.
That’s another thing, because her assigned locker was in the basement or “dungeon” as it’s more commonly known at the school, she was completely unable to access her locker. As a result she’d had to carry the entirety of her school supplies on her person everyday. The additional weight put its strain on both her and her scooter.*
*See above note about accommodations and access fatigue.
We get to the gym and take a breather.
Larkin recalls having to spend much of her P.E. time sitting on the bleachers following her injury. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
By this time Larkin is getting tired, which makes sense because she’s had to hop four flights of stairs already.
But we’re not done yet.
Next up we head to Culinary class, which is located on the ground floor of the far west side of the school. Which is about as far away from the gym in the school as you can get.
Larkin’s scooter can’t handle the uneven pavement between the schools without flipping, so we have to take the route through the school, which means she has to navigate a steep section of pavement once more just to reenter the school.
She then has to hop down the middle staircase by the main office.
She says she would usually have to ask a friend or random student to help her carry her scooter down those stairs, but today it’s her mom who is helping her.
Amy Hampton brining Larkin’s scooter down the stairs. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
Larkin explains that the only way she could have avoided having to hop down those stairs everyday was if a staff member had been assigned to unlock the auditorium and then relock it behind her between classes.
We head down senior hall and as we near the end of the hall, Larkin gets a running start to make it up the steep ramp that leads into the west wing of the school.
I make a mental note that not a single ramp we’ve used so far seems to be readily accessible, nor does there appear to be any space within the small footprint of the space to make it so.
“I have to use the back door to the classroom,” Larkin said as we approach Culinary class. Why? Because the door space is too narrow at the front of the room to accommodate the scooter.
“My teacher moved my seat over here because the other door is like a hallway and there’s tables on each side and the tables have barstools. So I was knocking them over trying to go between tables.”
Larkin sits down on her scooter across from the back entrance and catches her breath.
“This is where I would wait for the other classes to finish emptying out so I could get across the hall,” she said.
Larkin demonstrates how she would wait outside the classroom for the halls to empty between class periods so she could cross the hall to enter the Culinary classroom. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
She motions to the Student Services Learning Center (SLC). It serves students with autism, higher sensory needs, seizures, and other medical needs.
“I felt really bad because I was assisting with a student from the SLC room, and I was helping her, and we were working together (in Culinary class).
Larkin has assisted students experiencing disabilities for the past two years. “I did this last year and then again this year, and I really liked helping her. She’s very fun to be around.”
But when she was injured, it was one of the students and her learning assistant that ended up supporting her.
“As we were doing stuff I was trying to help give her instructions and she would have to come help me get ingredients and stuff at the front of the classroom because I couldn’t maneuver my scooter in there or carry anything,” Larkin said.
“Her and the learning assistant helped me probably just as much as I helped them. So I was very grateful,” said Larkin.
Next up, lunch.
Larkin didn’t have time, or energy, to make it to the 80-100 capacity cafeteria called the Chat ‘N Chew on her scooter. So she’d eat in the hallway on the floor. She demonstrated how she’d get her lunch out of her scooter and then brace her back against the wall with her one good leg and then slide down onto the floor. Meanwhile - her friend would move the scooter into an out-of-the way location so it would not impede foot traffic.
“I had to get other friends to warm up my food in microwaves because I was honestly too embarrassed to have to move around these classrooms on this scooter and be so disruptive to other people,” Larkin said.
After lunch it’s back down the steep ramp at the end of Senior hall to the far east end of the ground floor of the school for Human Geography. Larkin’s scooter squeals against the ground as she slows her roll at the end of the steep ramp by grabbing the corner like she’s pulling the e-brake in a drift car.
I ask what Human Geography is.
“It’s like social studies, but I’m in an advanced class,” Larkin said. “It’s about how people impact the world.”
Next up we have to navigate the middle stairs by the main office again. Larkin hops up them, noting how she has to carefully plan each hop - all seven of them - so that she doesn’t catch the lip of the stairs and end up on the ground.
“I have to be careful to land on the tread of each step,” she said.
When we get to the Human Geography room I see that there is another set of stairs, but this one has a chair lift.
“A staff member has to operate this lift,” Larkin said, “So I would hop all the way up.”
She asks if she should demonstrate.
Larkin stands at the bottom of the steps which lead to two classrooms on the groundfloor of TDHS. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
Amy and I tell her that’s not necessary, guessing that her knee is probably tired of hopping by now.
“I saw you walking earlier. Are you recovered now?” I ask
“Mostly,” she said, “I still have pain in my foot if I walk through too long. I can't sleep with my toes pointed anymore because it makes my foot go numb.”
Amy tells me the time.
I realize that it’s taken us more than 40 minutes to make it between all of Larkin’s classes.
And we’re in a completely empty school.
I try to imagine Larkin knee-scootering through the packed hallways and hopping up and down the stairs and am overwhelmed by the enormous difficulty of just getting from one class to another.
And she’s still got two classes to go.
The remaining journey requires us to navigate two flights of stairs and a steep ramp both ways.
Wheeeee! Scootering the halls when they are empty is much more fun then when they are packed with students! Photo credit: Cole Goodwin
After that it’s time to go home.
At the end of her day, Larkin would have to navigate the student-filled hallways back down the ramp, down senior hall, up the middle stairs, up another steep ramp to the bus pick-up and drop-off area, across the street, and into the Methodist Church Parking lot where her father would be waiting to pick her up.
As we head outside to the pick up spot we all brace against the cold night air.
I think about the tour I’ve just been on. Needless to say, the whole process of entering and exiting the school, and getting to class had been both exhausting and frustrating not only for Larkin, but for everyone around her too.
What if she’d been in a wheelchair? Pretty much everything described above would have been a miracle to manage.
My thoughts drift to my brother Jordan who passed in April of 2022. He had been wheelchair bound for most of his life. I realize he would have required at least two staff members to be assigned to him everyday in order to ensure his access to education at this school. Anger, sadness, and complicated grief bubbles up inside of me. I take a deep breath and remind myself that Jordan is at peace. He will never have to struggle with a non-ADA compliant ramp, sidewalk, or building ever again.
I take a deep breath. And when I turn to Larkin’s mom, something on her face tells me that on some intuitive level she knows exactly how I feel. But while my brother’s struggle is over. Her’s is not.
I feel a deep swell of gratitude for her.
Every day, she along with other D21 staff work hard to mitigate the lack of accessibility of TDHS.
And every day, she has to knowingly balance this in her mind: that this is the best accessibility the school can provide right now with the facilities and resources that they have and it’s not nearly good enough for our students, our staff or our community.
But she’s not alone in doing the work.
The community is rallying, and are planning a bond for a new school that will embrace all students equitably by providing basic physical access to education for students in The Dalles. Click here to read our most recent coverage of their efforts to plan the upcoming school bond.
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