Many students find long flights of stairs and crowded hallways annoying, but for some students with injuries or physical disabilities, such seemingly minor hassles can become strenuous obstacles throughout the day.

Freshman Jack Vermette was born with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy, which makes it difficult for him to walk and write. He uses a wheelchair to move around the school. He said that the most significant obstacles do not result from the design of the school itself but from the density of the hallways between classes.

“Trying to meander through this moving crowd,” he said, “It’s this massive block of people.”

Brookline Resilient Youth Team (BRYT) Clinical Coordinator Ray Feller said that the BRYT program works to help injured and physically disabled students avoid traveling during the standard time between classes, when the hallways are particularly congested.

“We do a lot of arranging with teachers,” she said, “so that students can go five minutes before the end of class or five minutes after the end of class so that they’re not dealing with the standard times.”

Junior Sam Geschickter broke three bones in his foot in late October while playing basketball. He spent a month on crutches. Geschickter said that some aspects of the school’s construction made the problem worse.

“With the narrow hallways,” he said, “it was sometimes really difficult to get around. Sometimes my foot would get stepped on, or I would have to wait for people to get out of the way.”

Senior Tarun Sathish broke both of his shins running over the summer and spent the first ten weeks of the school year on crutches. He agreed with Geschickter, expressing frustration at the placement of elevators.

“If you’re at certain parts of the school, you have to go all the way around to get to an elevator,” he said, “and then go all the way around to your class. That can take a pretty long time.”

On the first, second and third floors, there are two elevators, one of which goes to the fourth floor.

Feller also said that elevators are not as easily accessible as staircases. Moreover, in the event of an emergency or a fire drill, even students who have elevator passes are not allowed to use elevators.

While there are handicap-accessible exits on the first, second and third floors, they are not numerous. If there were a fire near one of those doors, students unable to use stairs would have no way out of the building. On the fourth floor, there are no ground exits leading directly outside.

There actually isn’t a way to get down if there were a fire or an emergency where you can’t use the elevator,” Feller said.

Geschickter said he noticed that students in wheelchairs sometimes had trouble operating them.

“It seemed very difficult for them to even be able to press the buttons,” he said.

However, Sathish said that the simple shape of the high school made it easier for him to manage without his normal walking ability.

“The school is pretty flat,” he said. “It’s a square and if you get to the elevators on time you can get around the school itself without that much trouble.”

Feller said that for an old building, the elevator situation at the high school is fairly effective, and the nurses readily provide elevator passes to students who need them.

Vermette, Geschickter and Sathish all said that they were generally pleased with their teachers’ responses to their conditions.

“There was a doctor’s note that I showed all my teachers asking that I have a couple extra minutes to get to class,” Geschickter said, “and my teachers were understanding and let me have that time.”

Sathish agreed, saying that although it could sometimes take more than the allotted five minutes to travel from one class to the next, his teachers recognized that issue and were considerate.

Vermette said that while he has an Individualized Education Program (IEP) and while members of the high school staff are understanding, he sometimes struggles to complete assignments when they are not uploaded digitally because of his writing difficulties.

“We have Canvas, but there are individuals who do not use it in the way that it is functional to me,” he said.

Vermette, Geschickter and Sathish all agreed that despite some imperfections, the high school’s system for accommodating injured and physically disabled students was sufficient.

“Overall,” Geschickter said, “I’d say the high school does a good job accommodating you if you’re injured or can’t get around easily.”

Ben Gladstone can be contacted at [email protected].