By Charlie Backus

Four years ago a disability awareness law was passed, but Lawrence USD 497 hasn’t fully embraced the opportunity to spread awareness.

The law designates the third week of October as Disabilities Awareness Week but no mention is made of it in our classes and few people beyond district administrators are aware of it. With a few weeks still to go, the district still has the opportunity to follow the spirit of the law and create a baseline curriculum for classrooms.

The law states that each school district will include disability history and awareness within the district’s curriculum “as deemed appropriate by the district” — giving schools wiggle room. USD 497 has apparently not deemed a disability awareness week appropriate for our school curriculum.

When asked the law, superintendent Rick Doll and communications director Julie Boyle have supplied information regarding their attempts to better the education experience for students with disabilities. They failed to address disabilities awareness week.

This law, however, is not directed at disabled students. It’s for everyone else. All students need to be aware of students with disabilities and learn about disability history in order to improve how they treat students with disabilities.

The district has done the bare minimum. Nothing the district has done actually works toward the guidelines of the law.

During the past five years, graduation rates among students with disabilities have risen and the district has worked toward anti-bullying campaigns, but that is not a part of the law. Our curriculum still lacks the disability awareness week called for by the law.

Tracy Murray, head of the social studies department, supports the law although she sees challenges in implementing it into the school day.

“There could not be a dedication of full days given to that content, based on the schedule we follow,” Murray said. “[Having it integrated into a history class] is the better way to approach it so it has context in history.”

Lawrence High’s autism specialist, Brandon Lytle, spends his entire day among students with disabilities. He said disability awareness week could serve two purposes.

“One negative would be making a special week to acknowledge a group of people that some would consider different may also make more people aware that they are different, but on a positive purpose that it does show the students that are in the schools, with disabilities that are doing lots of good for the school,” Lytle said. “It really emphasizes the importance of these students in our school and community.”

As is, one way the district said it plans to comply is through the guidance counselor curriculum. But how many kids visit their counselor on a regular basis, and how would that even work integrating it into a non classroom part of the school?

Overall, LHS as a school has worked well without knowledge of the law to improve the school experience for students with disabilities. But when it comes to this law, the district has seemingly made no strides forward to institute a disability week, which only seeks the betterment for all students.

Although our district still does not comply to the spirit of the law and although we are not breaking the law, our district has no reason not to follow a law that would educate us all about students with disabilities among us.