Help Teach

Help Teach: Episode 16 - Things Gone Right
Mihai Covaser: [00:00:00] Welcome, learners and learned alike, to Help Teach.

Mihai Covaser: [00:00:09] Hello and welcome to our community audio project. I am your host, editor, producer, and project co-lead: Mihai Covaser. I am also a youth living with a physical disability. My most formative experiences living with a disability have come in the Canadian public education system. Many students like me, with physical, emotional, or mental challenges, go through their years of schooling lacking the support and accommodations they need to partake of the same opportunities offered to their peers. The vision of this project is to provide educators in Canadian classrooms, students with disabilities, and members of the general public, with the tools and knowledge that they need to make our institutions more accessible and inclusive for all. Join me and a diverse cast of guests as we explore perspectives on disabilities and education in this podcast series. One last message for you teachers tuning in: Listen in each episode for our key takeaway that you can implement in your classroom today to help us further this vision.

Mihai Covaser: [00:01:13] Hello and welcome back to Help Teach! Today, I am joined by a guest who is a local to the town in which I grew up, and they have a fantastic project going on that I would love to tell you all about. Just before we get into all of that, though, today, and into a discussion about the parts of the advocacy process that can help make everything run as smoothly as possible, I’d love to turn it to my guest to introduce themselves. Hello and welcome to the show: Melissa Grassmick.

Melissa Grassmick: [00:01:41] Hi, Mihai. Thanks for having me.

Mihai Covaser: [00:01:43] It’s great to have you here. So why don’t you just start by telling us a little bit about yourself, and maybe about your daughter, who I’m sure will come up in conversation here, but just to introduce yourself to our guests and whatever you’d like to let them know about.

Melissa Grassmick: [00:01:59] Great! So my name’s Melissa Grassmick. I have lived in West Kelowna for just over six years now with my family, my husband, Ryan, daughter, Julia, and son, Tanner. Julia just turned nine and she is living with a physical disability. She has a spinal cord injury that happened at the age of seventeen months, so she was just a little toddler when it happened, and she is a manual wheelchair user, and she’s a great kid.

Mihai Covaser: [00:02:27] Awesome. Yeah, she definitely is. Uh, I had the pleasure of going on a little walk here in town with Melissa and with Julia, and you know, I have to say Julia reminds me a lot of myself when I was young, in a lot of ways. Definitely has the advocacy gene, hey?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:02:43] She is a spunky and, let’s say, charismatic little girl, that’s for sure.

Mihai Covaser: [00:02:50] Yeah, absolutely. You know, we have a number of experiences and projects to tackle here, but of course, this show is dedicated to education and to experiences in education, so briefly: how has your experience been with Julia in school, seeing as she has, you know, had her condition for as long as she has, she started school that way–How has that experience been for you?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:03:16] Overall, I think we have been very fortunate to have a really great set of schools, like both her private preschool that she attended for two years, along with her current elementary school, Mar Jok Elementary. We really have been fortunate over the years, because I have heard horror stories from other parents, you know, throughout the province, not having that good experience, so I am, you know, aware of the fact that it could be much, much worse. Um, and so– You know, and she’s thriving in school, and I think it’s a combination of some great teachers, great leadership at the schools, and also some advocacy work by me to make sure that everything is running smoothly. So it really has been a team effort.

Mihai Covaser: [00:04:02] Yeah, for sure. So the elementary school, for those guests listening–I guess I haven’t spoken about this on the show before, so it’s a good place to start–the elementary school that I went to is very close to the site of a current project that you’re working on, which we’ll get to in just a moment. So I went to a school called George Pringle Elementary, here in West Kelowna, and as a couple of schools, I think, in the region, it used to be a high school, before it was converted into an elementary school, and that, in a sense, nowadays shouldn’t be saying much, but you know, what it meant for the time in which it was built is that it’s a school on two levels. Two levels, but unfortunately, has actually two sets of staircases that you need to take to get up to the second floor; there’s almost like a mezzanine level, and so as a student with a fairly mild mobility impairment, not a wheelchair user, that was okay for me, though tiring, even on my good days. Oh, and it has no elevators. So I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a student in a wheelchair trying to attend that school. I mean, obviously you would be stuck, basically, on the first floor, but yeah. Definitely not all schools are created equal, so to speak. I’m glad to hear that, at least in your experience, it was more pleasant.

Melissa Grassmick: [00:05:18] Mmhm. Yeah, absolutely. Mar Jok also has two levels, but there is an elevator, and Julia’s classroom is on the second floor this year, so fortunately, besides the days when the elevator breaks down, she is able to get to her classroom on the second floor.

Mihai Covaser: [00:05:35] Yeah. So, as I mentioned, part of your advocacy work–probably the biggest name in the game right now–is a project that you’re building fairly close to George Pringle Elementary, here in West Kelowna, and it’s called Julia’s Junction. I would love for you to tell our guests about what that is, what inspired it, and what you plan to do.

Melissa Grassmick: [00:05:57] Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, Julia’s Junction is a very special project. It is soon to be West Kelowna’s very first fully inclusive and fully accessible community playground. At present, there are no playgrounds that are accessible to a wheelchair user. Not a single one, which is totally unacceptable, in my opinion, which is why I set out to spearhead this development in Julia’s Junction. And so one of the key points that I just want to make is that it’s not just for wheelchair users. This playground is an inclusive playground, which means it’s for everybody, those with or without a disability, but we wanted to make sure that we created a really special space that was for everybody that does have a disability, whether it’s physical, emotional, social, cognitive. Really, there’s quite a wide variety of different challenges that kids and adults alike live with, and so we just wanted to create a space where there wasn’t any family out there that said, “Oh, well, we can’t go to Julia’s Junction, because it doesn’t have this.” For example, a fully fenced space. So, you know, that’s what we’re set out to do.

Mihai Covaser: [00:07:12] That’s outstanding. You know, for me, one of the things that reminded me most of myself in what I saw in Julia was–As we were walking together a couple of days ago, we stopped by a park, and it’s that conversation, right, of, “I wanna go up there.” “Well, you know, you can’t really get up there.” “But I can, I know I can. I just need, you know, some kind of–maybe a hand, or maybe, you know–I just need a little bit of help and I’m sure I can.” And that’s a very familiar conversation to me. It very much reminded me of when I was a kid; I did that all the time, like, “Hey, I wanna go do that.” “Well, you can’t do that.” “Well, let me tell you–”

Melissa Grassmick: [00:07:49] “Watch me!”

Mihai Covaser: [00:07:50] Yeah, exactly. Whether it’s a CA or a teacher or my parents, it’s like, “Let me show you.” So this is pretty exciting, that there’s, you know, a playground that you don’t have to have that conversation about, “Just let me try.” It’s just like, “I can just go in and have some fun there,” right?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:08:09] Absolutely.

Mihai Covaser: [00:08:10] Yeah. So this kind of a project doesn’t come from nothing, it’s not an easy undertaking, so first of all, I would love if you would tell us what the park does include to make it inclusive, because I’d love for our guests to hear a little bit about the gamut of equipment or experiences that a student might want to have at such a playground, and then maybe a little bit about what it took to get it off the ground in the first place.

Melissa Grassmick: [00:08:39] Mmhm. So Julia’s Junction, it’s about a 13,000-square-foot playground footprint, and like a lot of other playgrounds that you see, there are a combination of swings and spinning equipment, rocking equipment, climbing… We have a custom structure right in the center of the playground with a giant slide that’s–It’s from six feet off the ground, it’s probably six feet wide, it’s this huge, big slide, very inclusive; you can slide down with your friends together. So it has all of the components of a typical playground, and then some. So one of the most important things that makes it fully inclusive and accessible is the surfacing. Many typical playgrounds have either the wood chips or the pea gravel, and obviously, those don’t work well for anybody with any kind of physical mobility issue; also kids or adults with various cognitive disabilities, those sort of loose fill type of surfaces aren’t good for them, because they might try to put it in their mouth, they might trip over it, you know, if somebody has a vision impairment. So there’s just so many reasons why a unitary surface, such as what we are using, which is a combination of poured-in-place rubber, artificial turf, and concrete.

Mihai Covaser: [00:10:00] Interesting. All right, so it’s meant to be inclusive, first of all, in obviously physical access, but then also in a tactile way and a visual way, it’s meant to be, I presume, sort of cohesive, easy to navigate, right? Without having to be tripped up by all kinds of different signals?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:10:17] Yeah. Yes, exactly. You know, we wanna make it easy for people to find where they need to go once they’re inside the park. We have different colours of the poured-in-place rubber for sort of different areas of the playground, so, you know, for example, people know, “Okay, I’m in the purple rubber, so I’m in the swing section.”

Mihai Covaser: [00:10:36] Okay.

Melissa Grassmick: [00:10:37] So, you know, we tried to make it look aesthetically, you know, appealing, as well as functional. We just want people to be able to feel really comfortable when they’re there, and not be at all nervous or apprehensive about, you know, “How do I get to the next section?” or “Am I gonna trip over this?” or, you know, things like that.

Mihai Covaser: [00:10:57] Yeah, absolutely. Well, that’s awesome, you know. As I mentioned, my experience as a kid, there were a lot of these kinds of play places or events put on in the community at parks and that kind of thing, where it’s very much that talk of, “Friends of mine are doing this, which is why I want to do it, obviously, because I want to be involved, but you know…” It’s not even that it may be completely inaccessible to me, so much as it becomes a matter of concern, right, for supervisors having to watch kids that are trying to get involved in a space that may not be entirely safe for them; it’s a matter of liability, a lot of times, which–I don’t know if that put me on the path to law or not, maybe that’s my, like, subconscious motivation, but, you know, liability was a word I heard thrown around a lot in elementary school, when I was like, “Oh, I wanna go do this.” “Well, that would be–that would be a liability.” Like, you know, “we don’t wanna be responsible”. So anyways, it’s just great–It gives peace of mind, hey, to parents and students alike.

Melissa Grassmick: [00:11:58] Mmhm! Well, absolutely! I mean, just knowing, as a parent, that it’s a safe space for Julia, but also for Julia, knowing that she won’t have any barriers, you know, that she’s gonna have to get frustrated about while she’s there, so it’s just a win-win all around.

Mihai Covaser: [00:12:13] Yeah, absolutely.

Melissa Grassmick: [00:12:14] Mmhm.

Mihai Covaser: [00:12:15] I want to get, next, to the process of how this came about, the steps that it took to make the plan happen, to get the funding, everything that might be involved in a project like this, A) because I want people in the community to realize, you know, how much work goes into it, but also if they want to do something similar, some places that they might want to start, as well as just to talk a bit about how to make these processes go as smoothly as possible and really have success with them. Just before we get there, I’d like to mention to our audience that you are listening to Help Teach. We’re going to take a short break here, and when we return, we’ll be getting right to that topic of conversation on things gone right. So don’t go anywhere; we’ll be right back.

Mihai Covaser: [00:13:09] Welcome back to Help Teach! I’m having a conversation today with a community member from the city in which I also live. Her name is Melissa Grassmick, and we’re just getting into this conversation about things gone right. And we were just talking about Julia’s Junction, a fantastic project, an accessible playground initiative that is coming to West Kelowna very shortly. I realize in the first half, we didn’t actually mention that–when does the playground open up?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:13:35] Mmhm! So it’s actually under construction right now, which is very exciting, to see things progressing up at the site. We will have it open sometime this summer. I don’t necessarily want to commit to a certain date, because we all know how construction goes and how delays happen, as much as you try your very best to prevent them, but definitely sometime this summer, we will have it open and ready for the kids.

Mihai Covaser: [00:13:59] Awesome.

Melissa Grassmick: [00:14:00] Mmhm.

Mihai Covaser: [00:14:01] So then! Let’s get into the nitty-gritty a little bit, shall we? What does it take to get an accessible playground for a municipality? I mean, we don’t have time for all the details, but I would love to just talk a little bit about–How do you start about making that plan? How did the presentation process go? Just all these aspects that, in a sense–not to be a negative Nancy, but–could go wrong at any step, right, and I think that’s what happens to a lot of people that are new to advocacy, especially, is, you know, it’s–You don’t realize just how many steps there are to a process like this, and what might happen at any given phase, but obviously, it went very well for you, so I’d love to hear a bit about that. How did this all get started?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:14:41] So I was actually at our little local neighbourhood playground with my son, while Julia was at school, and I was just noticing a few little tripping hazards around the playground, and anyway, got to talking with a city staff from the parks department, and anyway, the conversation sort of morphed into the fact that there aren’t any accessible playgrounds in West Kelowna, and she said, “Yeah, you’re right. There aren’t.” And I said, “Well, I wonder how I would go about changing that!” And so basically she gave me the name and number of the parks manager for the city of West Kelowna, and I contacted him, you know, set up a meeting, just sort of wanted to get his take on my idea. But in the meantime, I had contacted the playground supplier and I was working with an inclusive playspace designer from that playground supplier, just to sort of come up with a little bit of a–not a full-on design at that early stage, but just a few little ideas about what it would take to create such a space and a ballpark budget. And let me tell you: any playground, but I think an inclusive playground, especially, they’re very expensive, and so I did not know what I was in for with this fundraising campaign, let me tell you. Anyway, so when I met with the parks manager, it was a conversation around basically that I would need to present to city council as a delegation, and so I had about two-and-a-half months from that point to sort of prepare for that presentation, and in that time, we kind of fine-tuned the design. We also sourced out a lot of funding opportunities, so that I could, again, approach city council and share the problem, the inspiration–which, of course, is my Julia–but then also the solution. “Here’s what we plan to do, here’s how we’re going to fundraise, here’s how we’re going to design and plan this project. We need you as a city to partner with us, and, you know, endorse the project, not only financially, but also just as a partnership. We want to use your land, we want your partnership, and we wouldn’t be able to do it without this part of the city.” And they’ve been incredible.

Mihai Covaser: [00:16:52] Yeah, fantastic. And, you know, I want to take this time to sort of flaunt the project a little bit, because a lot of work did go into it. You know, if you–The website will be linked in the episode notes, of course, so any guests that want to go and check out what this park looks like, what went into it–if you scroll to the bottom of that page, of that home page, you’ll see a list of sponsors and donors, right, and that goes on for a country mile. And there are two things that really strike me about that, the first that it’s just heartwarming to see so many people pulling through to support a project like this and to see the kind of community involvement that you can really generate with a project like this. But secondly, I mean, that takes a lot of work to reach out to all those people and I want to turn it to that. We talked about this a little bit before, but would you say that that planning, that bringing a solution, along with the problem you’ve identified, would you say that that was the biggest contributing factor to the success of the project?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:17:56] I think that was definitely a big part of it. I think what happens a lot of times with these city council meetings, when people come to the city with a problem, they don’t have a solution. They’re just coming with a problem and expecting the city to, you know, provide a solution and the funding, and, and, and. The fact that we came up with a solution and that we were willing to put in the work ourselves, in partnership with the city, but not just putting it on the city, I think that made it an easy decision to support the project.

Mihai Covaser: [00:18:28] Yeah, you were saying–I found this quite funny, but we were walking and you mentioned to me, you know, “Once you come with the problem and the solution, who’s gonna say no? What council member’s gonna stand up and say, ‘I don’t want inclusive playgrounds for the kids in West Kelowna’, right?” So yeah.

Melissa Grassmick: [00:18:44] Exactly, exactly.

Mihai Covaser: [00:18:46] So I just want to turn that, then, to the subject of education, because on the one hand, you know, I wanted to bring this project to the public, because I think it’s amazing. On the other hand, I think there’s a lot of parallels that we can draw here. You mentioned at the beginning that your experience in school with Julia has been quite good, and we talked about the fact that part of that has to do with this mentality of advocating in partnership, you know, really trying to forge partnerships with whoever you’re trying to get to include you, and also coming with solutions to problems when you do bring them up, so do you have an example, maybe, from your time in school of a similar situation that, you know, that there was a problem that you identified and then brought a solution and got that through?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:19:29] Yeah, it was actually early on in Julia’s education. It was her first year of preschool, actually, so she was only three, she was just little. But the preschool every year did a Christmas concert, and of course, I was still fairly new in the advocacy role that I have now come to be a rockstar at, but in those early days, you know, you kind of just don’t even know what you’re going to come up against, because it was still fairly new with her diagnosis and everything like that. But anyway, they are planning for the Christmas concert and are telling me that, “Well, every year, this is how we’ve done it. The first row of kids at the front stands, and then the second row behind them stands on a bench, so that they have that tiered look.” And I said, “Okay, but then what’s going to happen is that Julia will be the only one sitting, because she’ll be sitting in her wheelchair at the end, and I think that that would make her feel uncomfortable and just feel really excluded and segregated from the group.” And it was just really interesting, because it’s kind of that cliché of, “Well, that’s how we’ve always done it,” and I didn’t get the most positive response at first, but then I think once the preschool teacher sort of went away, came back, had some time to think about it, you know, and then again with me saying, “Well, what if we did it this way? What if we had the first row of kids all sitting on a bench, so that they could be sitting beside Julia, and then the second row of kids could just be standing on the floor behind them?” So it all worked out that way, and they agreed that that would be a suitable way to do it, and I think it’s just if they haven’t had to come up with those solutions in this particular instance before, I think, you know, people don’t know what they don’t know and it’s just sort of challenging them to expand their thought process a little bit, think outside the box.

Mihai Covaser: [00:21:22] Mmhm. Yeah, I mean, that does characterize the advocacy journey in a lot of ways, right, thinking outside the box, and I think that is an interesting and positive spin on how you see advocacy. I think it can get very confrontational sometimes, especially when you think of it as a series of roadblocks, right, that are put in your way, either intentionally or unintentionally, that you have to jump over or break through. But it sort inspires, I think, creativity to think about it as a series of boxes, you know, that people have constructed, because, you know, that’s what we do, we make our systems, you know, the way we think they will work best, and being the kind of person that can step outside that box and have a new idea, and then bring it back and change the shape, slowly, of the structure over time. I think anything that we can do to make the process less about fighting someone and more about working together, I think, just makes it a lot smoother, wouldn’t you say?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:22:23] Oh, for sure. It doesn’t have to be a negative experience. I think, too, we just need to always keep an open mind. I mean, it’s just like with any communication between any two people or two entities. You need to just try to appreciate and understand where that person is coming from, and I think that’s the key. And, you know, there’s always gonna be times where you’ll come up against someone or something that’s just not willing to think outside the box and not willing to work together, and I hope that we don’t encounter that with Julia’s education journey, but I think it’s inevitable at some point, and I just need to–I use the term “kill them with kindness”, and you know, just really try to initiate and then really nurture those relationships with all of Julia’s team members, whether at school or elsewhere. It’s so important.

Mihai Covaser: [00:23:14] Yeah, absolutely. As a sort of final point I wanted to touch on here before we get to wrapping up our episode, you also mentioned that the elementary school that Julia’s currently at, Mar Jok Elementary here in West Kelowna, is quite good in terms of inclusion and accessibility, and I wonder if you would be willing to just give a couple of points as to why that is, because a lot of the structure of this show and a lot of the structure of the conversation around accessibility takes the form of, “Here’s a series of problems, and as advocates who are trained to think creatively, here’s a series of solutions,” or maybe, “Here’s a bad example, here’s how it could be better.” But I’d really like to take this opportunity to say, “Here’s a good example: What’s working? What’s going well?” And I think that maybe that would give some good ideas to our audience members as to what really helps someone who has this kind of unique educational journey to feel included and accepted, so do you have a couple of things that jump out at you as to what works really well right now?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:24:21] I really am just so impressed with the team at the school; they really do have Julia’s best interests at heart, and I so appreciate that. You know, and again, we won’t always have those amazing people, but that is incredibly helpful. But the one thing that just jumps out is that I just try to be so proactive, and so for example, Julia started kindergarten in September of 2019. Back in November of 2018, that’s when I started having conversations with her school, with the school district, physiotherapists, with, you know, whoever I could think of that may be able to help make this a smooth transition for her and make sure that she had all of the resources that she needed, so I think just being as proactive, as organized, and as communicative as possible is really the key, because if you leave things to the last minute, I mean, that’s just a recipe for disaster in any context, but especially here. I mean, a lot of things take time, and so just being as proactive as possible, and again, just really keeping an open mind and, I think, not jumping to conclusions, sort of climbing that ladder of frustration if you do get a negative response at first and just, you know, “Okay, I understand you don’t want to do it that way; how can we be creative and work together?”

Mihai Covaser: [00:25:44] With that, I think that really takes us nicely into the key takeaway for the episode, which today is that, as much as we want to offer suggestions for teachers, things that you can put into action right away, I think there’s also some advice to be taken as to understanding the balance of effort between team members, because if you do think of it as a team, everyone has to pull their fair share, right? And so this is, in part, a suggestion for teachers and, in part, a suggestion for parents, too, that if you come with a specific request, as well as an action plan, things can go a lot more smoothly in the implementation process, as we’ve been talking about. Teachers that are listening: If you want to help facilitate this, I want to encourage you not to be afraid to establish the boundaries that work for you, as far as who takes what role in the inclusion process, because as we’ve talked about a lot on this show, this isn’t meant to be throwing the teachers under the bus and saying that you don’t do good work. You’re very busy, a lot of you have great intentions, and it’s just a matter of figuring out how to do this together in the time and with the resources that you have. So if you set those boundaries for yourself, if you say, “Okay, here’s what I can do, for example, here’s some tips I can implement, here’s what I have already done, but if you have a specific request as a parent, come with that action plan,” or as a teacher, encourage them to work either with you or to think for themselves, what would their ideal solution look like, so that when you come together and talk about it, you know, you all come with something to share, and I think that’ll really help to smooth the process out. Not to be a personal attack on our procrastinators in the audience, but if you want to fly a little bit ahead of time, it’ll help everyone. Did you have anything else to add to that, Melissa?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:27:40] Just, again, everybody working together and just for everybody to keep an open mind, because you haven’t necessarily come up against a certain obstacle or problem, whether as a parent or as a teacher, keeping that open mind, right? I mean, that’s what inclusion is all about; we just want to make every experience the best it can be for everyone, and that sometimes involves some creativity.

Mihai Covaser: [00:28:03] Mmhm, mmhm. Absolutely. We’re nothing if not creative, hey?

Melissa Grassmick: [00:28:08] That’s right.

Mihai Covaser: [00:28:10] Well, I wanna thank you very much for coming on the show today, Melissa. It was great to talk to you. Audience members, please do check out Julia’s Junction, linked in the episode description; you can check out the project, see what events they still have going on, and of course, support them in their endeavours, and…yeah. Thank you again for coming on and sharing your insights; it was really great to talk to you.

Melissa Grassmick: [00:28:29] Thank you for having me, and I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to share my experiences, and I hope that everyone else’s can be as successful as mine have been.

Mihai Covaser: [00:28:38] Absolutely.

Mihai Covaser: [00:28:42] You’ve just heard another episode of the community audio project, Help Teach. I’d love to give a huge thank you to my other co-leads on this project: Payton Given, Maggie Manning, Élise Doucet, and Alexis Holmgren, all youth leaders at the Rick Hansen Foundation, who I’d also like to thank for their continued support in this initiative and others. I’d like to give a huge shout-out to our community mentor for this project, Charl Coetzee. My name is Mihai Covaser. I am your host, editor, and producer for this podcast series. You can now find all our transcripts, episode notes, and links to other resources on Transistor.fm, or listen to us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. If you have any questions about the show, if you’d like to offer suggestions, or you would like to be connected as a guest, you can now get in touch at helpteachpodcast@gmail.com. That’s helpteachpodcast@gmail.com. Please send in any questions that you might have regarding our episodes, and we would love to address them in future ones. Tune in next time for more great conversations and key takeaways that you educators can implement in the classroom today, to make it a more accessible and inclusive place for all. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you next time.