Every time her middle school classmates streamed outside for monthly fire drills, Kira Tiller had to stay behind, worrying about what would happen to her in a real emergency.
Flashing bright lights can trigger seizures for Ms. Tiller, who has epilepsy. So her teachers in Gainesville, Va., would send her to a windowless office during drills to avoid the alarm strobes. When her family requested a real emergency plan, administrators just said they would figure it out. She remembers thinking, “I could literally be left behind to die.”
Other students with disabilities have faced similar difficulties in recent years. A student in Maryland was left in a stairwell during a fire to wait for rescuers because she uses a wheelchair. And a high school student with a cane had trouble evacuating when a gunman killed two people at her St. Louis school. Police officers ended up pointing guns at her.
Only a handful of states require public schools to develop individual plans for evacuating students with disabilities in an emergency, even as schools across the country face increasing risks from climate-related disasters and school shootings. More than seven million public school students have disabilities, a population that is growing steadily.
Virginia adopted a law this year, after Ms. Tiller started researching the issue and meeting with some of the state’s 180,000 other students with disabilities. She talked to wheelchair users who couldn’t fit in closets to hide from active shooters. She met students with autism or sensory issues who needed extra support to keep calm during a lockdown.
“I just couldn’t believe that this was something that wasn’t being taken seriously,” she said.
A Prince William County Public Schools spokeswoman, Diana Gulotta, said in a statement that the district couldn’t comment on Ms. Tiller’s situation. But she added that the district supports legislation enhancing student safety. “We continue to monitor and evaluate our processes and procedures to make improvements in this area,” she said.
