CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A Coastal Bend Elementary School is grabbing the attention of disability rights advocates for not being ADA compliant.
Schanen Estates Elementary School near Schanen Boulevard and Flynn Parkway in the city's southside is not exactly wheelchair accessible, according to officials.
A City of Corpus Christi committee focused on disability issues recently pointed out that those people who use a wheelchair were having to traverse the street in order to get onto the sidewalk and get into Schanen Estates Elementary School. 3NEWS asked City officials what, if anything, is going to be done to ensure those children and their parents can safely get to the campus.
3NEWS circled the block of the school and only one intersection had a curb cut to allow wheelchairs access to the sidewalk. That was at Flynn Parkway and Galway Drive. The other curbs were all impassable, meaning someone in a wheelchair would have to travel down the street before finding the driveway entrance to the school, which would then allow them onto the sidewalk.
"You ask anybody who uses a wheelchair and needs to go to school there and can’t get in, and a parent who pushes them and asked to do that on an unsafe street," said Judy Telge, Director of Development for the Coastal Bend Center for Independent Living. "It’s very important. Unfortunately this is something that is slow in coming."
Telge is an advocate for the disabled and hopes that situations like this one can be addressed more quickly in the future.
Gabriel Hinojosa is the Interim Director for the City's Public Works Department. He told 3NEWS that the City is actually doing the curb cuts to the surrounding area of three schools each year, and now that this has been brought to their attention there’s a possibility that curb cuts to the Schanen Estates Elementary campus could be on the way soon.
"So, we’re right now in the discussion to add the three new schools to that program, so Schanen can be in that discussion with the safe routes to school program," Hinojosa said.
Each curb cut project costs approximately $250,000. The decision on whether Schanen Estates will be added to the curb cut program will be made in October.
The Corpus Christi Independent School District begins school on Tuesday, Aug. 9.
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