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Ames parent tells school board lack of transportation limits kindergarten access for medically fragile child

6439475 · September 23, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

A third‑year veterinary student described her son's complex medical needs and told the board that current transportation arrangements leave the family providing daily transport, risking the child's attendance and the parent's schooling. She asked the board to consider the effect on free appropriate public education under IDEA.

Shelby Root, a third‑year veterinary student at Iowa State University and parent of a kindergartner at Fellows Elementary, urged the Ames Community School District Board of Directors on Sept. 22 to address transportation for medically fragile students.

Root described her son’s medical history and needs in detail, saying he was born five weeks premature, spent a month in a neonatal intensive‑care unit and later was treated for infantile spasms. She said he has a cortical visual impairment and is legally blind, an in‑utero brain injury, global developmental regression, cerebral palsy and ongoing…

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