Ashley, 18

my name is audrey mayoros, i'm 18 years old, a sophomore in college but i spent 12 years at a charter school. my freshman year of high school i was diagnosed with ehlers danlos syndrome and spent most of high school using various mobility aids. due to my disability and accompanying problems i missed about 9 months of high school, some teachers were accommodating and understanding but most were not and expected me to do the same as other students when it wasn't physically possible for me.

i had a 504 put in place so i could receive accommodations but i still had to fight very hard for them. my high school campus was for the most part accessible, where it had to be in order to comply with ADA requirements (ramps, elevators) but the hallways were extremely narrow and classrooms were almost never accessible even when i was in those classes and asked for them to be made accessible. after having major surgery my sophomore year where i was supposed to be in a wheelchair for three months i only spent a week in it because my campus and classrooms were too inaccessible for me with a wheelchair and opted to use crutches instead.

instead of making changes to the campus and classrooms to make them accessible for disabled students my school just relied on the compassion of abled students to aid the disabled students. even though i could not physically participate in PE and had several doctors notes i was kept in the class a full year despite my injuries and was only allowed to be exempted from PE and the requirements after having three doctors sign off on it and having those documents sent and approved by my county.

had my school been more accommodating and accessible i wouldn't have had to retake several core classes and fight tooth and nail just to be able to graduate on time. i wish my school would've believed me and other disabled students when we would complain and say that certain assignments were too much and we couldn't do them or certain accommodations needed to be made rather than just brushing them off and ignoring the complaints.