Young children get on a school bus.
NEW ORLEANS – A Louisiana woman with a hereditary visual impairment alleges the Jefferson Parish School Board wrongly terminated her employment as a bus attendant for children with special needs.
Plaintiff Shawn Uylet Hickman, a Harvey resident, filed her lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
According to her 21-page complaint, Hickman worked as a bus attendant for Jefferson Parish Schools from August 2015 until August 2019.
Her job was to help children with special needs board, exit, and travel safely on JPSB school buses. The job did not involve driving.
“Over four school years, Mrs. Hickman performed it without incident, earning positive performance reviews,” her filing notes.
Hickman has Stargardt disease, a hereditary visual impairment she disclosed to JPSB and that JPSB documented in her file.
Stargardt disease is a rare inherited juvenile macular degeneration that causes progressive central vision loss in children and young adults. Usually, it is caused by a genetic mutation that causes fatty yellowish deposits to build up on the macula, damaging light-sensitive photoreceptors.
Hickman claims that with bioptic telescopic glasses prescribed by her treating optometrist, her visual acuity is corrected from 20/200 to 20/30 or better.
She noted that JPSB’s contract physician examined her annually for four years and cleared her for duty on every occasion.
However, in 2019, that physician retired. His replacement, after learning of Hickman’s diagnosis, declared her medically unqualified for the position without conducting any examination or other inquiry into her ability to do it.
JPSB then terminated Hickman’s employment in reliance on that determination, Hickman claims.
“At the time of her termination, Mrs. Hickman held, and still holds, a valid Louisiana driver’s license issued by the state agency responsible for road safety,” the complaint states. “Her driving record is clean.
“Her condition does not preclude her safe operation of a vehicle; it certainly does not preclude her safe performance of the duties of a bus aide.”
Hickman alleges the school board, in terminating her employment, violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
In her filing, she notes that following her diagnosis, she was fitted with bioptic telescopic glasses, which she has used since September 2015.
“In a typical day, Mrs. Hickman employs a combination of technology as appropriate to the situation: she wears ordinary corrective eyeglasses, with which as noted above her visual acuity is 20/200; she carries handheld devices that create magnification for close visual tasks; and she wears her bioptic telescopic glasses when driving and in other situations which call for seeing detail at distance,” the complaint states.
Hickman also notes in her lawsuit that the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, Office of Motor Vehicles, evaluated her corrected vision and determined she was qualified to operate a motor vehicle on Louisiana public roads.
The agency also issued her a driver’s license in 2016, she points out.
Hickman also claims that she recently drove from her home in Harvey to McComb, Mississippi – a roundtrip of about 230 miles – without incident.
Her complaint notes that a bus attendant does not require operation of any motor vehicle, sustained close visual work, or the reading of small print.
“The visual demands of the Bus Attendant position consist of recognizing students, observing their condition during transport, and visually verifying that safety harnesses and seat belts are properly secured,” the filing states.
“Operating a motor vehicle in traffic is a substantially more visually demanding task than any task required of a Bus Attendant employed by JPSB.”
She takes issue with the school board’s reliance on the replacement physician’s refusal to clear her, arguing it was not based on any “individualized assessment” of her present ability to perform the functions of the bus attendant job.
“Dr. Wheelis’s determination rested entirely on the name of Mrs. Hickman’s diagnosis,” the lawsuit states.
She seeks an order reinstating her employment or, in the alternative, front pay. She also seeks back pay, compensatory damages, and attorneys’ fees.
Hickman also wants the school board to be required to expunge from her personnel file any reference to her termination or to the medical determination on which it was based.
She also asks the federal court to require the school board to adopt and implement policies and training to ensure that future fitness-for-duty determinations are based on individualized assessments consistent with the ADA and not on a diagnosis alone.
The Tulane Law Clinic in New Orleans is representing Hickman in the lawsuit.
