08/20/2022
So I’m going to tell you all a personal story and disclose some of my own adverse childhood expereinces trying to make a difference and to illustrate how deeply rooted the preferential treatment of athletes is in Jamestown Public Schools and how this issue is in fact 90% of the reason my child is now homeschooled.
I was a student with disabilities. I attended Jamestown Public Schools my entire life. There were MANY instances of discrimination based on my abilities but here is one glaring example.
Once upon a time, Taylor Smith (one of Mr. Stillwell’s hockey players and at the time of the incident, a football player) broke his leg. Not in a hockey or football game/practice, but as a DRUNK 8th grader car surfing down the back college hill (you know, the one with the giant brick wall). I’m sure you can do the math from here on what happened that fateful night.
Anyway. I have a connective tissue disorder that causes my body to just *not work* at seemingly random times. I can usually walk up and down the stairs fine. But randomly my knees just *won’t* do what they are supposed to and I fall. This happened *a lot* when I was going from the first floor of the school to the third floor so my orthopedic doctor wrote a script for me to ride the elevator to avoid overuse injury and to prevent traumatic injury from falling.
My using the elevator caused Taylor to be late for classes and since he was a football/hockey player one of the football coaches decided to confront me and tell me that since I didn’t have a broken leg that I needed to use the steps like the rest of the “normal kids”
Of course I went home and talked to my mom. One of her friend’s (a mastered special ed teacher) was there and told me the next time that particular teacher said anything negative about me, a disabled child, using the elevator due to an access need I should tell him to “go lay by his dish”
I DID NOT KNOW WHAT THIS INSINUATED. But I did follow her instructions and to my amazement it worked.
Anyway, this was in approximately 1995. And nothing has changed except who is in charge.
Mark Stillwell is the principal now. Mr. Hockey himself. Of course the sports kids should get preferential treatment - how else would they get their sense of entitlement?
When Mark came up to our house the other day he was visibly agitated and shaking. Mostly he explained due to the fact that he didn’t like us saying “he wasn’t doing anything”
But as the last post explained. The ONLY problem last week was sports and that he 10000% said he doesn’t have a problem with….even though he himself said our concerns about the household medical needs were legitimate (not that we need his approval).
And yes, the special ed teacher that gave me the highly effective advice still works with the Jamestown’s disabled community members and constantly works ensure equal access for us. In doing so she’s learned that the special ed students get picked up on the east side of the school, to avoid the mess of parents on the south & west sides.
Parents and service providers of these children STRUGGLE with the same issues that impact our house and the bus drivers.
So, in summation, Mark Stillwell has NO PROBLEM with prioritizing a shorter walk for athletes after practice than access disabled students and community members as well as bus drivers and the students they transport. (If a bus driver hit a child it would be traumatic for EVERYONE involved, including any other students to witness it.)
Because lets be honest here, if Mark gives athletes and their parents permission to violate policy *during sports pickup* they will take that inch and turn it into a mile, parking there whenever no matter how it impacts other ppl.
The fact that school is not in session yet unobscured the problem. It made the REAL problem easier to focus on. The real problem here is the sense of entitlement CERTAIN parents have and the people with power who reinforce that with policy (violations) and special treatment.
