Petition for Installation of an Elevator at IS34

We are a group of parent's who formed the Barrier Free Committee at IS 34 in Tottenville, Staten Island in an attempt to make IS 34 Barrier Free for the school year 2013 / 2014.

Presently, in order to accommodate students and teachers with permanent and temporary mobility issues, handicap transportation operations are employed to relocate them from their neighborhood or assigned school, I.S.34, to another school with an elevator. This is both disruptive to the student or teacher and expensive.

One case-in-point is the September 2013 enrollment of John Hudson Dilgen at I.S.34. Young John is afflicted with Epidermolysis Bullosa, a genetic malady that prevents him from being able to climb steps. Like other children with mobility impairments, John has to restrict a lot of his childhood activities that others take for granted. School is one of the things our handicap children can lean on as normal childhood activity. That includes friendships developed along the way and the continuity of those friendships from elementary school to Intermediate School and beyond.