Students with Disabilities-Postsecondary Education-Rights and Responsibilities

and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (TitleII), which prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability. Practically every school district and postsecondary school in the United States is subject to one or both of these laws, which have similar requirements.

Although both school districts and postsecondary schools must comply with these same laws, the responsibilities of postsecondary schools are significantly different from those of school districts.

Moreover, you will have responsibilities as a postsecondary student that you do not have as a high school student. OCR strongly encourages you to know your responsibilities and those of postsecondary schools under Section 504 and Title II. Doing so will improve your oppertunity to succeed as you enter postsecondary education.

As a student with a disability leaving high school and entering postsecondary education will I see differences in my rights and how they are addressed?

Yes. Section 504 and Title II protect elementary, secondary and post secondary students from discrimination. Neverless, several of the requirement that apply through high school are different from the requirements that apply beyond high school. For instance, Section 504 requires a school district to provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to each child with a disability in the district's jurisdiction. Whatever the disability, a school district must identify an individual's education needs and provide any regular or special education and related aids and services necessary to meet those needs as well as it is meeting the needs of students withiut disabilities.

Unlike your high school, your postsecondary school is not required to provide FAPE. Rather, your postsecondary school is required to provide appropriate academic adjustments as necessary to ensure that it does not discriminate on the basis of disability. In addition, if your postsecondary school provides housing to nondisabled students, it must provide comparable, convient and accessible housing to students with disabilities at the same cost.

Other important differences  you need to know, even before you arrive at your postsecondary school are addressed in the remaining questions.

May a postsecondary school deny my admission because I have a disability?

No. If you meet the essential requirements for admission, a postsecondary school may not deny your admission simply because you have a disability.

Do I have to inform a postsecondary school that I have a disability?

No. However, if you want the school to provide an academic adjustment, you must identify yourself as having a disability. Likewise you should let the school know about your disability if you want to ensure you are assigned to accessible facilities. In any event, your disclosureof a disability is always voluntary.

What academic adjustments must a postsecondary school provide?

The appropriate academic adjustment must be based on your disability and individual needs. Academic adjustments may include auxilliary aids and modifications to academic requirements as are necessary to ensure equal educational oppertunity.Examples of such adjustments are arranging for priority registration; reducing a course load; substituting one course for another; providing note takers, recording devices, sign language interperters, extended time for testing and, if telephones are provided in dorm rooms, a TTY in your dorm room; and equiping school computers with screen-reading, voice recognition or other adaptive software or hardware.

In providing an academic adjustment, your postsecondary school is not required to lower or effect substantial modifications to essential requirements. For example, although your school may be required to provide extended testing time, it is not required to change the substantive content of the test. In addition, your postsecondary school does not have to make modifications that would fundementally alter the nature of a service, program or activity or would result in undue financial or administrative burdens. Finally, your postsecondary school does not have to provide personal attendants, individually prescribed devices, readers for personal us or study, or other devices or services of a personal nature, such as tutoring and typing.

If I want an academic adjustment, what must I do?

You must inform the school that you have a disability and need an academic adjustment. Unlike your school district, your postsecondary school is not required to identify you as having a disability or access your needs.

Your postsecondary school may require you to follow reasonable procedures to request an academic adjustment. You are responsible for knowing and following these procedures. Postsecondary schools usually include, in their publications providing general information, information on the procedures and contacts for requesting an academic adjustment. Such publications include recruitment materials, catalogs, and and student handbooks, and are often available on school web sites. Many schools also have staff whose purpose is to assist students with disabilities. If you are unable to locate the procedures, ask a school official, such as an admissions officer or counselor.

When should I request an academic adjustment?

Although you may request an academic adjustment from your postsecondary school at any time, you should request it as early as possible. Some academic adjustments may take more time to provide than others. You should follow your school's procedures to ensure that your school has enough time to review your request and provide an appropriate academic adjustment.

Do I have to prove that I have a disability to obtain an academic adjustment?

Generally, yes. Your school will probably require you to provide documentation that shows you have a current disability and need an academic adjustment.

What documentation should I provide?

Schools may set reasonable standards for documentation. Some schools require more documentation than others. They may require you to provide documentation prepared by an appropriate professional, such as a medical doctor, psychologist or other qualified diagnostician. The required documentation may include one or more of the following: a diagnosis of your current disability; the date of the diagnosis; how the diagnosis was reached; the credentials of the professional; hyow your disability affects a major life activity; and how the disability affects your academic performance. The documentation should provide enough information for you and your school to decide what is an appropriate academic adjustment.

Although an individualized education program (IEP) or Section 504 plan, if you have one, may identify services that have been effective for you, it generally is not sufficent documentation. This is because postsecondary education presents different demands than high school education, and what you need to meet these new demands may be different. Also in some cases, the nature of a disability may change.

If the documentation that you have does not meet the postsecondary school's requirements, a school official should tell you in a timely manner what additional documentation you need to provide. You may need a new evaluation in order to provide the required documentation.

Who has to pay for a new evaluation?

Neither your high school nor your postsecondary school is required to conduct or pay for a new evaluation to document your disability and need for an academic adjustment. This may mean that you have to pay or find funding to pay an appropriate professional for an evaluation. If you are eligible for services through your state vocational rehabilitation agency, you may qualify for an evaluation at no cost to you. You may locate your state vocationial rehabilitation agency through the following Web page: http://www.jan.wvu.edu/SBSES/VOCREHAB.HTM.

Once the school has received the necessary documentation from me, what should I expect?

The school will review your request in light of the essential requirements for the relevant program to help determine an appropriate academic adjustment. It is important to remember that the school is not required to lower or waive essential requirements. If you have requested a specific academic adjustment, the school may offer that academic adjustment or an alternative one if the alternative would also be effective. The school may also conduct its own evaluation of your disability and needs at its own expense.

You should expect your school to work with you in an interactive process to identify an appropriate academic adjustment. Unlike the experience you may have had in high school, however do not expect your postsecondary school to invite your parents to participate in the process or to develop an IEP for you.

What if the academic adjustment we identified is not working?

Let the school know as soon as you become aware that the results are not what you expected. It may be too late to correct the problem if you wait until the course or activity is completed. You and your school should work together to resolve the problem.

May a postsecondary school charge me for providing an academic adjustment?

No. Furthermore, it may not charge students with disabilities more for participating in its programs or activities than it charges students who do not have disabilities.

What can I do if I believe the school is discriminating against me?

Practically every postsecondary school must have a person-frequently called the Section 504 Coordinator, ADA Coordinator, or Disability Services Coordinator--who coordinates the school's compliance with Section 504 or Title II or both laws. You may contact this person for information about how to address your concerns.

The school must also have grievance procedures. These procedures are not the same as the due process procedures with which you may be famillar from high school. However, the postsecondary school's grievance procedures must include steps to ensure that you may raise your concerns fully and fairly and must provide for the prompt and equitable resolution of complaints.

School publications, such as student handbooks and catalogues, usually describe the steps you must take to start the grievance process. Often, schools have both formal and informal processes. If you decide to use a grievance process, you should be prepared to present all the reasons that support your request.

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome from using the school's grievance procedures or you wish to pursue an alternative to using the grievance procedures you may file a complaint against the school with OCR or in a court. You may learn more about the OCR complaint process from the brochure How to File a Discrimination Complaint with the Office for Civil Rights, which you may obtain by contacting us at
       Customer Service Team
      Office for Civil Rights
     U.S. Department of Education
    Washington, D. C. 202-11
    Phone: 1-800-421-3481
   TDD: 1-877-521-2172
   Email:ocr@ed.gov

The item below is from an e-mail we received from the Washington Post

Bumps Abound When Students Become Their Own Advocates

After a decade of worrying about her son's attention-deficit disorder, meeting with teachers, calling around to get lost homework assignments and getting advice on SAT test accommondations, Lori Spinelli-Samara is facing this simple truth: Next year, in college, Nick is on his own.

The Olney mother knows he's plenty smart enough. But will her her son, a senior at Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, get to the assignments due in three weeks without his parents, teachers and cross- country coach keeping tabs on him? Keep his focus during lectures? Lose afternoons playing Guitar Hero instead of studying?

"If you have ADD,"she said, only half laughing, "how do you remember to take your medication?

A generation of students accustomed to receiving help for special learning needs is entering college. The percentage of students identified with learning disabilities who graduate from high school and go on to four-year colleges jumped from pne in 100 in 1987 to about nine last year. And those who go on to any kind of post-secondary education went from a third to almost three-quarters by 2003. But some are finding that the transition isn't easy.

Many students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia or memory troubles have had years of education shaped by intense parental support, involved teachers and legally mandated school safety nets. And many colleges,including American University and Montgomery College, have programs to assist students with the transition.

But what colleges must do is far less defined legally, and professors and administrators at some schools seem to remain skeptical about the needs students might have. Schools must provide assistance to students, but ONLY if the students DISCLOSE THEIR DISABILITIES.

Most students don't. Some are tired of being labeled. Some are unable to afford the extensive and recent cognitive testing that most colleges require as proof of disability. Some just don't get around to it untill they start failing classes, at which point it's often too late to salvage the semester.

For the parents of learning-disabled students, the typical concerns about their sons and daughters going away to college are magnified. Those make-or-break exams, for example, are even scarier for students who have never done well on tests. All that unstructured time between classes is far more daunting for those who tend to lose track of things. People with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, which is a neurobehavioral disorder, often have trouble organizing tasks, finishing homework and paying attention.

The students who are most successful, experts say, are the ones who adapt quickly to independence from their parents and become their own advocates.

"It'll be interesting to see, the first semester,how this goes," Spinelli-Samara said--whether Nick will seek out the learning centers or tutors or extra time he needs. "And we won't be with him."

Ever since Nick Samara's ADD was diagnosed when he was in second grade--a year he remembers he spent watching the cars zoom by on the road outside his classroom window while his classmates did projects-- he, his family and his teachers have been working to make sure he doesn't fall behind.

His parents have pushed to get him accommodations such as extra time on exams, tried organizational tricks such as color- coding notebooks, sought out therapists, experimented with medications, sought advice from teachers. At times, it seemed to swallow up everything else, his mother said.

In recent years, federal protections, better screening and critics say, some over-diagnosis have made learning disabilities and attention disorders common in mainstream classrooms. Schools have improvedand expanded the help available. Federal law requires primary and secondary schools to identify students having trouble, design individual education plans, set goals and offer accommondations including quiet rooms for test taking, additional time for homework and non-written evaluations.

In many cases, parents become fierce advocates, demanding services, meeting with teachers, threating lawsuits, spending countless hours helping with homework and paying for private tutors.

Then, when they get to college, many students and parents are suprised to find out that they need recent tests-- ideally, from the junior or senior year--to claim a disability.

Ann Deschamps, a transition resource teacher for Fairfax County public schools, helped create a series of lessons to ease the transition and try to increase the number of students who continue getting academic accommodations in college. "It's tough", she said. "Their parents have been driving the whole way, and now the students have to understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and what they need to be successful."

Still only about one-third of college students with disabilities get accommodation from their schools. The others don't, usually because the schools don't know they need them, according to a national study for the U.S. Department of Education; only 40 percent tell school officials that they need help. Half of them don't consider themselves disabled.

American University has a small group of first-year students who, among other things , meet with an adviser weekly and take the introductory writing class with a professor who has specialized knowledge about teaching students with learning disabilities.

Other schools, including the University of Virginia , provide accommodations such as tutoring, peer note-takers, reduced course loads and high- tech software that reads books aloud, makes studying more interactive and engaging,or helps students organize scattered thoughts.

Since the 1970s, Montgomery College has had an intensive college access program that offers small classes, tutors, academic counseling and other help for students with learning disabilities.

But there are still colleges that parents say aren't eager to help. Selene Almazan, a lawyer with the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education, lost faith in her son's top-choice university, the Rochester Institute of Technology, when school officials told her he wouldn't be allowed to use a calculator. They seemed more skeptical than helpful, said Almazan, who lives in Silver Spring. Here son chose another college instead.
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Nick Samara is taking tough classes, and he has a battery of standardized tests this year. He took the SAT with extra time this month, and he will have IB and AP exams before he graduates.

"It's frustrating,"he said. He takes good notes, asks the teacher for extra help, studies hard and goes home at night and talks to his parents about everything he learned in his history class. "Then I confuse it with other dates and facts and names. I know I learned stuff. It just doesn't get down in a test."

College is going to be a lot tougher, he said. His grades will rely much more heavily on just a few exams and papers each term. He won't have the routines, rigid schedules and smaller classes of high school.

He and his parents are looking at colleges that put less weight on test scores for admission. Nick wants a school with a Jesuit philophy, and one that is small enough that professors will be able to tell, from his discussions during and outside of class, how well he has learned the material even if his test scores aren't great.

"It's been a very long, long journey,"Spinelli-Samara said. "Just have faith that what you've done is enough, and they'll find their way."

Over the past couple of weeks, Samara has begun the intensive cognitive testing he will need to back up his request for accommodations such as extra time on exams in college. The tests focus on how his brain processes information, assessing language and memory. The testing process is a little weird, he said--hours in a tiny room with a one-way mirror and a security camera, answering questions such as what a horse and a giraffe have in common. "But I know I have to get it done,"he said. "I know it'll help in the long run."

This month, he and his parents visited John Carroll University near Cleveland. On tour of another college this fall he saw a history class with 25 or so students in it, a good size, he thought. When it ended, one stayed behind to get some extra help from the professor. "I thought, 'Oh , hey, that could definitly be me doing that, in less than a year',"In a good way.