Abstract
By the time athletics facilities and activities reopen on your campus, your institution has no doubt taken steps to reduce the risk of COVID‐19 transmission. But now is also the time to work with facilities staff and disability services providers to ensure mitigation efforts don't restrict access for individuals with disabilities, according to J Garofalo, Associate at KMA Architecture + Accessibility.
And don't assume the optional nature of athletics removes the need to comply with accessibility requirements. “You have to maintain equitable use and not discriminate against anyone. Make sure you're allowing everybody to participate if they choose to,” Garofalo said.
To help ensure accessibility during the pandemic, consider Garofalo's tips:
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Provide access to exercise facilities. Consider having students call ahead to use exercise equipment so staff can ensure clear floor space for a wheelchair transfer or other accommodations. If locker rooms aren't available to anyone, it's not discriminatory that individuals with disabilities can't use them either. But if you open facilities, they must be accessible. If the pool is open, the lift must be available. If closing some bathrooms, ensure you open an accessible bathroom.
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Provide access to athletics activities. If moving indoor sports to alternative spaces or outdoors, ensure route accessibility. Remember, accessibility applies not only to student‐athletes, but also coaches and spectators. To qualify as an accessible walkway, the route must have less than a 5% slope. (If greater than that, it qualifies as a ramp, which has additional requirements.) Accessible routes must be stable, firm, and slip‐resistant, which means gravel paths could cause problems for those using accessibility devices (e.g., wheelchairs, canes, walkers, scooters). The obvious solution would be to pave the route, but if that's not feasible due to time constraints, consider other accommodations, such as providing parking closer to the facility or a shuttle service. Bleachers must include accessible seating that provides shoulder alignment with the rest of the seats, with adjacent companion seating — for an interpreter, personal aide, or guest — even though it's not maintaining social distancing.
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Keep transactions, concessions accessible. Remember when arranging concessions and transactions (for food, drinks, tickets, etc.) that individuals in wheelchairs will need knee clearance under tables and counters, which must be 36 inches above the ground and 36 inches wide. If providing individual condiment packets or other pre‐packaging during the pandemic, individuals with some disabilities might find those difficult to open, so consider keeping push dispensers available for those who need them and be ready to provide other assistance.
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Remind staff to sanitize accessible features. Those include tactile/Braille signage, automatic door openers, and plastic coverings on buttons. If adding plastic coverings to buttons on elevators and elsewhere to improve ease of sanitation, ensure users can push buttons with relative ease, not having to try multiple times.
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Make floor markings high‐contrast. For example, if you're putting one‐way arrows in hallways to facilitate social distancing, ensure high‐enough contrast so low‐vision individuals can see them.
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Use tactile markers to indicate routes. Consider marking routes with tactile stickers that can be detected by foot or cane.
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Ensure floor markings are clear, intuitive. You might want to use different colors for one‐way arrows and floor markers. Markings for where to stand in lines should be clear and easily understood. For example, boxes are clearer than lines or Xs marking six feet apart.
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Eliminate protruding objects, trip hazards. Wall‐mounted hand sanitizers can be a hazard for blind or low‐vision individuals because they extend more than four inches from the wall. Trifold easels used for communicating information can be flimsy. Consider something heavier so individuals with disabilities and others aren't hurt or embarrassed if they fall. Freestanding sneeze barriers can be hard to detect if they aren't on tables. Add black tape, decals, or other markings to make their presence explicitly clear. If you add foot‐operated door openers, those should be available in addition to door levers to ensure accessibility. Doors must still open a full 90 degrees, and there should be room for those using accessibility devices to pass through.
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Communicate in multiple ways. Overlap all information (e.g., health and safety measures, concession menus, ticket prices) in multiple platforms. Remember that blind and low‐vision students might not be able to access information on posters. So also provide information via texts, phone calls, emails, apps, and websites — and ensure apps and websites are accessible.