Through the lens of professional expertise and personal experience, four panelists will discuss best practices for access and inclusion to create K-12 educational environments that welcome all students, staff, and visitors. Perspectives represent accessibility consultants and K-12 educators as well as the disabled community as educators, former students, and parents of disabled students. Speakers will review most common barriers in schools, low cost solutions for barrier removal in existing environments, as well as considerations for early planning of new educational facilities. Attendees will come away with valuable insights and actionable ways to improve their projects.
Learning Objectives
- Develop awareness of the lived experience of disabled students, staff, and visitors and how these insights can be utilized to enable and empower users.
- Discover insights for embedding access and inclusion in the evaluation of existing facilities and from the onset of the planning process for new educational facilities.
- Give examples of ways to improve educational environments (both existing and new) for disabled students, staff, and visitors.
- Integrate accessibility and inclusive design principles into project workflows, stakeholder engagement, and early planning processes for K–12 facilities.