PELL CITY – Schools Superintendent Dr. Bobby Hathcock said no further monitoring is required by the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, related to a 2002 agreement to make the high school accessible to mobility-impaired people.“We’re extremely pleased,” Hathcock said. “I’m glad to meet the requirements for all of our people.”
Hathcock said this was an eight-year process.
“We needed to make all our facilities accessible to all our people,” he said. “This has been a long process.”
A complaint was filed with the OCR in 2000.
“The complainant specifically alleged that the (school) district discriminated against individuals with disabilities by failing to make Pell City High accessible to mobility-impaired persons,” OCR’s letter dated June 13, 2008, states. In 2002, an administrative resolution was reached between OCR and the School System.
Hathcock, who was not superintendent at the time the OCR complaint was filed, commended Michael Barber, assistant superintendent, and Gary Mozingo, facilities supervisor for the School System, for their work in bringing the system into compliance.
Mozingo said he was hired in 1999, and he was meeting with officials from OCR six months later.
He said there were 23 items listed on OCR’s corrective action list.
“It was a pretty big ordeal,” Mozingo said. “And it was a learning process.”
He said the two biggest hurdles the School System had to clear were making the old gymnasium and football stadium handicapped accessible.
“OCR’s investigation identified accessibility problems in the gym with respect to inaccessible parking spaces, entrance doors, classrooms, restrooms and water fountains,” OCR’s letter states. “In order to resolve the identified issues, the district voluntarily agreed to take corrective measures.”
Mozingo said concrete was poured to allow better access to Pete Rich Stadium, as well as new seating and a concession stand that are handicapped accessible.
“You’ve got to remember many of our facilities were built in the ‘50s,” he said.
The new Pell City Center now provides handicapped accessibility to its state-of-the-art theater and arena style gymnasium.
Hathcock and Mozingo said the School System actually benefited from OCR’s involvement, but they said they are glad to put the OCR violations behind the School System.
“We all started looking at things more from the eyes of someone who is in a wheelchair,” Mozingo said, adding that the new Williams Intermediate School is fully handicapped accessible.
“Believe it or not, this really did help us,” he said.
