Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Documentation for students with disabilities

It has recently came to my attention through a vast amount of email messages that there are an increasing amount of students having problems with College Disability Services. I want to address this issue here to help decrease the amount of email I am getting on this issue.

Documentation of a disability varies from school and state and there is not a unified approach or requirements for this. There is however a list of disabilities that must be covered under both the A.D.A. and the Rehabilitation Act. Only online students are covered under the Telecommunications Act. Any reasonable disability that requires a doctors written diagnosis should always be attached when applying for an accomodation but this does not mean that the school will grant or enforce the accomodation. It is the students responsibility to request a list of authorized condition for the college they attend.

A student does have certain recourses under the law but only after they follow the formal complaint and appeals policy for the school they attend. Once they have exhausted these resources without recieving appropriate accomodation they can then file a formal complaint through the A.D.A. and appropriate commission for their school. Each state senators office has social workers that are available to help and advocate for a student with disabilities and it is advised to use their services which is free. Do not hesitate to question decisions that you are told are final by a school. If you need a list of Senators for your area please contact me, I will be posting an updated list soon.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The US. Dept of Ed (OCR) continues to ignored my letters and will not return my calls regarding complaints against a university for discrimination. The Department of State Rehab. Administrator was a witness to the discrimination I have encountered as a disbled student at this university and made complaints. He also stated in e-mails “I contacted the Chancellor's office and spoke to the Acting Associate Chancellor there and told her the story from our meeting. She was disturbed and asked if I would be willing to share this information with the person who supervises director of disability student services, and I told her that I would be happy to do that. & “ I am hoping that they will hear from me what happened and be able to separate this from any emotional response that you would have, rightly so I might add. I think they need to know this is not just a disgruntled student complaining, but is in fact an objective observation of a problem that exists”. However, this university ignored his complaint and the U.S. Dept. of Ed refuses to investigate these complaints.

Disabled Advocate Stewart said...

I understand your frustration and it is quite hard to be patient. It took me approximately 3 months to get a response from the OCR. You can also contact the commission that governs your university to file a complaint which will often speed up the process.

You can prepare a paper with any documentation you have to support your complaint and stick to the facts of dates ect. to the best of your ability to remember. Avoid any reference on emotional feeling and stick solely to the facts until the end of your document where you can express in sumary how this has affected you and the effect from these events that have impacted your life.

You may also want to contact one of the advocates and legal or civil organizations in your area that take on these cases pro-bono which can help you. If you need help locating them just click on the email icon and send me a private email and let me know where you are located and the state the school is in and I can send you a list that will help you.