The COVID-19 crisis has forced school systems and colleges around the world to switch to distance learning. Distance learning has been wonderful for me. I am able to do my assignments and meet with my classes from my room/closet with volume control. I no longer experience pain during the school day from the noise, or suffer lingering migraines everyday. Prior to COVID-19, I had requested distance-learning for medical reasons as an accommodation for many years from my school, and had always been denied. "Howard County and Maryland aren't set up for that,” people always told me.
Now that there is a global pandemic and no one is able to attend school without putting their health at risk, suddenly we are able to magically do distance learning! COVID-19 only proves that our state does have the capability to provide students for whom the school environment exacerbates their medical conditions with distance-learning. No student should have to put themselves in pain or exacerbate a medical condition just to learn and be educated.
IDEA law (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) guarantees FAPE (free appropriate public education), so allowing students to endure physical pain is NOT and should never be considered appropriate. There are many students with different types of chronic medical conditions including but not limited to: hyperacusis, cystic fibrosis, complex regional pain syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, cancer, lupus, multiple sclerosis, trigeminal neuralgia, etc. who have benefited from distance-learning.
Unfortunately, we cannot simply trust that after this pandemic access to distance learning will continue to be available for students who will benefit from it due to disability reasons. This is something that we as students with chronic medical conditions must work together to fight for and demand from the higher-ups. We must show that we will not allow things to return to how they were before, with our needs not getting meet, now that we have proof that something better is possible.
I am petitioning the state to demand that students continue to have access to an education that meets their medical needs after COVID-19. If you would like to help me fight for this, or you have personally benefited from distance learning medically, please sign my petition. Also, please email the Maryland State Department of Education at karen.salmon@maryland.gov and let them know why we need to continue to have access to distance-learning after COVID-19. You can also email me at hyperacusis.awareness@gmail.com.
Together let's make our voices heard. (Quietly, of course.)