February 9, 2020
Ayush Talukder/Srijani Chakraborty:
Hello, my name is Srijani (or Ayush), and I attend Julius West Middle School in Rockville (or Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring). I am joined by fellow MCPS middle schoolers. Together, we are a First Lego League Team, the Nuts and Bolts. FIRST LEGO League or FLL is the result of an alliance between FIRST and the LEGO Company to groom tomorrow’s thinkers, innovators and engineers. We design and program Lego Mindstorm robots, but we also work together on an Innovation Project. The Innovation Project challenges us to develop solutions to a problem currently facing the world.
We, Team Nuts and Bolts, have chosen to address the evacuation of disabled children in schools during an emergency. We have researched and spoken to experts, and have invented our own solution. But today,
we are here to ask this Board to provide funding to take steps now that will allow all children to be safely evacuated during an emergency.
Ayush Dave:
My name is Ayush Dave, and I attend Rocky Hill Middle School in Clarksburg, Maryland. About 2 months ago, there was a fire emergency in my school.
While evacuating, I noticed that one girl, who was in a wheelchair, waited in an Area of Refuge while everyone else left. My team and I spoke to and emailed the following experts: Mike Harting and Ed Clarke from the School Safety Office; Eastern Middle School’s principal, a local school architect, the Rockville Fire Department, and two mothers whose children had temporary or permanent disabilities.
We learned that MCPS requires disabled students on an upper floor to wait until the fire department arrives before being evacuated.
We also learned that people with disabilities are much more likely to die or be injured in a disaster, in part due to an inability to evacuate.
I know that I would be traumatized if I had to wait inside a burning building while my classmates evacuated. What would happen if your child broke their leg? How would you feel knowing that, in a fire, your child would be left upstairs to wait for the fire department?
Ellis Chung:
My name is Ellis, and I attend Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring.
We think that MCPS’s current practices also don’t comply with federal or state law. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires disabled students to be allowed to participate in evacuations and drills. Court cases have been filed by the Department of Justice against schools who failed to evacuate their disabled students. The ADA also protects employees with disabilities. In 2017, Maryland unanimously passed HB 1061, requiring school systems to update their emergency plans to evacuate students, staff, and visitors with disabilities.
Schools were required to comply by July 1, 2018, but as of today, Montgomery County’s school fire safety plan still prohibits the movement of disabled children down stairs except by firefighters and rescue squad personnel. In August 2020, all Maryland schools will be required to submit a report showing how they have complied with HB 1061. Will MCPS be ready?
