The cartoon below shows a school with children waiting at the bottom of the stairs for a school custodian to shovel the snow so that they can get into the building.
A student in a wheelchair asks the custodian, “Could you please shovel the ramp?”
The custodian replies, “All these other kids are waiting to use the stairs. When I get through shoveling them off then I will clear the ramp for you.”
The student in the wheelchair replies back, “But if you shovel the ramp we can all get in!”
The tag line reads, “Clearing a path for people with special needs clears the path for everyone!”
This is literally, verbatim, the exchange that a student had. The student wished to remain anonymous, but the cartoon was inspired by a real situation in Vermont.
Everybody can get in if you shovel the ramp; where if you shovel the stairs, only some people can get in and then the others have to wait. So what do you do first? Make it accessible.