A year and a half ago I posted this to facebook: “Hi, my name is Petra Petty I’m a jr. at KHS and I have Cerebral Palsy.  I have grown up in Kewanee all my life.  More specifically I’ve grown up in the Kewanee school district.  I’ve met friends here, I found my love of math here. Kewanee has some of the best teachers I have known.  I love the Kewanee school district. That’s why it especially hurts when the same place you love also reminds you that you don’t fit in or you are a burden every day of your life.  Especially in your most impressionable years.  I remember when I was 6 and the school wanted me to go to Neponset.  The reason being it would be better for me. Irving wasn’t and still isn’t handicap accessible. So the reality is the school didn’t want to go through the trouble to make Irving accessible.  Obviously, I got to stay.  The one they did to make Irving accessible was build a ramp so I could access the building.  Second grade was fine because the classrooms were located downstairs but the third-grade ones weren’t.  The school brought one classroom downstairs. And honestly, that sucked not being able to be with my grade.  It only got worse when I went to central. They brought 2 5th and 6th-grade classrooms down to the first level.  And I had to walk around the building to get to the cafeteria.  If the weather was bad I would pick a couple of friends to eat upstairs with me.  Which made me feel excluded. It wasn’t until the end of 6th grade that they got two lifts.  One going upstairs and one going to the cafeteria.  I was so excited until I had to use them.  We figured I missed 4 hours of class time every week.  Which I find ridiculous.  Not to mention the lift always broke. And I would have to do class downstairs.  One time it broke when I was upstairs and I had to be assisted down the stairs by two different aides to make sure I got down safely. After this incident, Miss Angie, my aide suggested to the school that a stair chair be purchased in case of any future incidents where I couldn't get back down to the first floor. This request wasn't taken seriously, the stair chair was never purchased.  One day the fire alarm went off and it wasn’t a drill and the lift didn’t work. The firemen were going to carry me down but it finally started working. Thank the universe it wasn’t a fire but what if it had been. During jr. high I had thoughts like “what if I’m upstairs or on the lift if there’s an intruder or a fire?”  I felt hurt when I saw they built a new entrance and didn’t put an elevator in.  you may be asking yourself why do you care you don’t even go there. I care because I don’t want anyone else to go through the struggles I did.  I believe Irving and central school should be handicap accessible. And I don’t want to hear some lame excuse that you can’t afford it.  You need to figure it out.  Cerebral palsy doesn’t come with an instruction manual but I figure it out.”

The superintendent had me write a list of what was needed. That was a year ago and I haven’t heard anything or seen anything be done. In that year they built a new football field, ag building, put up a new sign, and many more things. 

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