I am 35 years old and a mother of 2 daughters, 6 and 4, I have Lou Gehrig's disease. I have been fighting for a school bus with the Durham District School Board and Durham Student Transportation Services for the better part of one and a half years.

I live 1.3 km away from my kids' school. The boundary to qualify for a school bus is 1.6 km... I know it seems like 1.3 km is not that far, but when you have two young children, and you're paralyzed, getting your kids to school is an immense obstacle. I don't always know my caregivers to just send my kids alone with them, and they don't always have a car. If they do have a car, I'm trusting a stranger who may not even have kids to put their car seats in accurately and take them out sometimes twice a day if I have a different worker for drop off and pick up.

My autistic daughter also has support needs that I as her mother understand and have the resource for that strange caregivers may not. That means everyday twice a day I have to transfer out of my house into a car or transfer to a wheelchair and make the trip there and back, sometimes in the rain, heat and snow.

No person in my shoes with a diagnosis such as mine should have to go through this. It is extremely exhausting and unsafe. Not to mention I am immunocompromised. I have asked the Durham District School Board for accommodations and I have also provided them with medical documentation for myself and from my child's doctor expressing her medical need for a school bus.

The Durham District School Board has ignored all of my messages, letters from my friends and family, and most importantly my human rights.

A bus for their school drives past our street!

My children's principal even offered to pick them up and drop them off and the school board vetoed it. It is not within their policy to create accommodations for all disabled children to be transported to school or children with disabled parents regardless of severity. In my experience they're not committed in any way to creating a safe, equitable, inclusive, accessible, respectful, and welcoming learning and working environments.

Not all disabled people have the privilege of having the energy and resources to advocate for themselves. This policy needs to change. It is a degrading and dehumanizing experience. My human rights are being violated.

Please help me bring attention to this issue.