Jaime Roman uses a wheelchair and attends Greenbriar Middle School, but he hasn't been able to get there since the elevator at the Valley York Apartments stopped working.
Jaime and his mother, Patty, have lived in the same second floor apartment for 10 years.
"I haven't been able to send him because I can't get him downstairs in his chair," Patty Roman tells WKYC. Jaime has now missed 17 straight days of school, and his mother says the situation is getting "pretty bad."
"He's stuck up here," she says. "Can't do anything, can't take him outside. So he's been stuck in this apartment for almost a month."
Roman says she has been in regular contact with the leasing office but they haven't been able to say when the elevator will be fixed.
"I just call them up every day to find out what the status is and they keep telling us the same thing," Patty explained. "You know, 'we've got to get the part ordered. It's going to take a while for the part to get here.'"
No one was available in the local leasing office on the grounds of Valley York Apartments, and a phone call seeking comment on the situation was not returned.
Later, a spokesman for Niederst Management, of Fairview Park, which manages the Valley York complex, said there have been unusual problems in trying to get the elevator fixed.
He told WKYC a needed part is expected to arrive Tuesday, with work scheduled to begin Wednesday, and a hoped-for completion on Friday.
School officials became concerned last week with Jaime's repeated absences, all of which were called in by his mother. They asked her if it really was a broken elevator keeping him away from school.
When they were assured that was the case, a school official called a local organization which advocates for people who have disabilities, asking what could be done.
Meanwhile Jaime, who cannot talk or walk, sits in his wheelchair by the living room window. His artwork from Greenbriar, including a picture which says "I Love School," is taped up with other classwork on the inside of his front door.
"It's getting bad the more his misses school," says Patty Roman. "He loves the kids there and he loves school."
WKYC-TV