DC students unable to go on school trip because bus could not accommodate their wheelchairs

Laraven Gaymon and Derrick Simms have cerebral palsy. On Thursday, they were left out of a school trip to Kings Dominion because they are in wheelchairs.

They are disappointed and also worry that this same thing could happen to someone else.

"I go through an everyday struggle," said Gaymon. "All I wanted was to go on a field trip. This is the last time I'll see many of my classmates."

The 18-year-old should have been celebrating the end of her high school career, but is instead upset.

"This morning, I wanted to cry," she told us.

Gaymon and Simms graduated Tuesday from D.C.'s Woodson High school. These two friends were anxiously awaiting their school trip to the theme park.

"I was saying to my mother how I was going to get a funnel cake, how I was going to play the games that they got, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that," Gaymon said.

They were supposed to leave from the school Thursday morning. But instead of a bus ride, these two students got a phone call.

"She said, ‘Oh, we don't have any wheelchair accessible anything,'" said Gaymon.

She felt it wasn't right at all.

"But you guys got something for everybody else though, right?" said Gaymon. "It's not equal."

"They ‘tried' to accommodate us, but it couldn't happen," said Simms.

A spokeswoman for D.C. Public Schools sent FOX 5 this

Statement saying:

"The bus company that was contracted for this field trip informed the school the evening prior to the trip that they could not accommodate the students with wheelchairs. The school was unable to find an alternate company to transport the students within the limited timeframe prior to the trip. We take this matter very seriously, and the school is working with the families to provide another opportunity for the students to participate in an upcoming field trip."

What bothers Gaymon and Simms even more is that they are both honor students.

"I am a National Honor Society student with a 4.25 GPA and I think it's unfair that we don't get to go," said Gaymon.

"We deserve as much fun as anybody else," said Simms.

While this is just one trip, they say the feeling it gives them is repeated over and over.

"When many people meet people with disabilities, they tend to underestimate our educational abilities and I want to raise the bar for people with disabilities all around," Gaymon told us. "We are not just some kids who don't know anything. We know a lot in our own way."