<<< CONTENTS >>>

1. YOU ARE ALL INVITED TO THE GRAND OPENING
2. ACCESS TO INSTITUTIONAL ONLINE PRESENCE - "The Hurrieder I go, the Behinder I Get!"
3. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE Q & A - Tutoring as an Accommodation
4. IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN - Writing Recommendation Letters for Students with Disabilities
5. IT'S NOT QUANTITY, BUT QUALITY, THAT MATTERS - Standardized Admissions Tests for Students with Disabilities

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<<< YOU ARE ALL INVITED TO THE GRAND OPENING >>>

You are all invited to the Grand Opening of the Home of DAIS -- not the office, the webpage!!! Within the next two weeks the website should be ready to receive visitors. Subscribers to the Newsletter will receive a separate post giving the internet address of our new home (page). You don't get the address now because we aren't through "decorating" and it would be TOO tempting to say, "here's the address -- but please don't stop by for another two weeks!" When the time comes, here are some of the things you will find...

The website opens, figuratively and literally, on our home page. There are a number of links tied to different rooms within that home. Visit the Kitchen, to find out what's cooking at DAIS -- what's new since your last visit? Visit the Library to review publications from DAIS and to get ordering information for resource materials. Visit the Garden to find out about new projects taking root, and new resource materials in production. Visit the TV room to view a "window on our (narrow) world" and review some issues of national importance from the Boston University lawsuit to the current controversy over payment for sign language interpreters, and more.

Two rooms in our new home are being designed to serve as resources to the disability services community -- the Dining Room and the Study/Workroom. The table in the Dining Room will be serving up some interesting "food for thought." The Administrator's Corner will feature a different article each month from the DAIS Newsletter archives designed to be of interest to administrators with responsibility for disability services issues (the first article is about how to be/feel prepared for a visit from OCR). Similarly, the Faculty Corner will feature different articles of interest to faculty in higher education surrounding issues of academic integrity, accommodation, and responsibility. The first article is one entitled "When Faculty are TOO Accommodating." Each month the DAIS Newsletter will announce the title/content of the new posting to the webpage. You are invited to check out the articles, familiarize yourself with the tone and information, then send out messages to members of your own faculty and administration (as appropriate) suggesting that they visit the site and take a look. (NOTE: In my past life, as a Speech Pathologist, I learned about doing "bibliotherapy" with parents and family of clients. The idea was that people generally will believe what they read before they will believe what you tell them, so if you can find something in print that says what you want them to hear, you are ahead of the game. Enter the world wide web and ALL its potential!) There is also a separate place set aside for a discussion of the issues that are unique to small, private institutions; not quite a listserv but involving exchange among parties as well as technical assistance in a Q&A format. Come visit the ICU (Independent Colleges and Universities) if it is pertinent to/for you and share you successes and frustrations with colleagues working in a similar setting.

While it is hoped that the entire site will be in a constant process of renovation, and that you will find something new and interesting every time you visit, nowhere will that be more important or more evident than in the Study/Workroom. The plan is that this area will become a primary source of information for disability services personnel in higher education, The focus will be on developing logically grouped resources (with direct links whenever possible) to organizations, vendors, other service providers, and so on. Can't remember the address for the HEATH webpage? Visit the DAIS Study and we'll take you there. Looking for some sample policy statements regarding provision of taped texts? Visit the DAIS Study and find a half dozen links to the pages -- and policies -- of other institutions. Can't find the address for the vendor you met at the last conference who had some software that you didn't need then, but are desperate to have now? Maybe you can find the name (and the link!) in the DAIS Study/Workroom. This is the one room that will be "under construction" indefinitely. If you have an idea for a topic/focus to explore, please send it along.

There will be some other things to see at the website, including (we hope!) an example of how to make your website fully accessible from the start. Watch for the posting, visit the website, and tell us what you think...

(NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: As I re-read the piece above, I realized that I had used the plural "we" throughout. I just wanted you to know that this isn't the "royal 'we'" but rather an acknowledgment that the DAIS website would not be opening its doors to you without the gentle prodding and encouragement, excellent suggestions, and diligent efforts and expertise of a number of friends and colleagues, each of whom have my heartfelt "thanks.")

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Alright, Class, is your homework finished? In the March newsletter, readers were challenged to make a list of all the webpages posted through and about your institution, along with a notation as to whether those pages were accessible to someone with a disability using adaptive equipment to access the internet. It is likely that for those few readers who actively attempted to meet that challenge, any list you made a month ago is already outdated -- both in terms of what pages are available and in terms of pages with accessibility problems. My best guess is that most readers have more of a problem with access to their online presence than they had 30 days ago. That's how fast the landscape (and the webpages) are changing.

I actually have visited with folks from two campuses in the last month who may NOT be in such dire straits... one that is far ahead of its counterparts in getting a handle on the problem and one that is so far behind that they don't yet have a problem. The first institution has people with both the understanding of the problem and the authority to order compliance who have placed some rigid guidelines on access and accessibility features; faculty cannot get a webpage posted on the institution's server without demonstrating that they have met those requirements. I am looking into the most expedient way of sharing their guidelines/requirements with others. The second institution is a small, private liberal arts institution that has not allowed faculty to establish any web-based coursework until their server is operating capably/efficiently on more primitive functions (such as email). As a result, they can honestly say that their situation is managed/manageable because they can do it right from the beginning. I have put Institution #2 in touch with Institution #1. The rest of you (I must presume) have problems!

In upcoming issues of the DAIS Newsletter, there will be specific direction provided as to how to assess web page accessibility, and some simple rules to promulgate and circulate that would go a long way toward minimizing the problems of internet access. While you are waiting, why not try choosing a page or two of your institution's internet presence and listening to it through a screen reader. Several years ago there was a popular book, and then movie, about a young blind man (Tom Sullivan?) entitled "If You Could See What I Hear..." There's no time like the present!

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QUESTION: (A service provider writes...) "I know tutoring is not a required accommodation under Section 504/ADA. Why not? My Dean wants to know what to tell the irate parents of a student with a learning disability who insist that their son HAD tutoring all through high school (provided by the school), is ENTITLED to tutoring under the law because he has a disability, and NEEDS tutoring now in order to be successful.

ANSWER: You are right -- tutoring is not a required accommodation under the law. While we often discuss what accommodations are specifically mentioned in the law, we less frequently explore the things that are specifically excluded under the law. The institution is not required to provide "services or equipment of a personal nature." It is from this statement that the existing case precedents have been drawn which all seem to say the same thing -- tutoring is a personal service and therefore not required.

But there may be a better way to answer the question being asked by the Dean (and the parents!) above. Let's re-examine the three prongs of their case for tutoring:

(1) "He had tutoring all through high school, provided by the school." That's really not relevant to this question or this setting. The law under which tutoring was provided in high school (IDEA) is a different law with a different intent than 504/ADA. And let's not confuse a **service** the student was provided in high school with an **accommodation** he is requesting in college.

(2) "He is entitled to tutoring under the law BECAUSE HE HAS A DISABILITY (emphasis added)." Being a person with a disability, as defined by the law, entitles one not-to-be-discriminated-against -- it does NOT entitle you to accommodations. The provision of accommodations is determined by your established need for such accommodation in order to assure equal access, not by recognition of your status as a member of the protected class.

(3) "He needs tutoring now in order to be successful." Aha! This is the real key. The parents may be very right and the student may not be successful without tutoring, BUT... the purpose of accommodation is not to provide or assure success. It is to provide or assure equal access. The student may have a legitimate educational need for tutoring (as do many other students in higher education), but the right to such educational assistance is determined by institutional policy and status as a student. Disability doesn't enter into the equation.

Having said that, there are some addendums to the discussion that should be noted:

(a) The law does not require the institution to provide tutoring as an accommodation, but neither does it prohibit the institution from choosing to provide tutoring as a service, and many institutions choose to do that because they regularly provide services to all students that are aimed at enhancing the likelihood of success. There is no problem in providing tutoring because of a philosophic or educational commitment to such assistance, just so long as everyone understands that this is a SERVICE being provided along the same lines as study skills workshops and time management seminars, not an ACCOMMODATION (such as adaptive testing or materials in alternate media.

(b) If the institution DOES provide tutoring to all students, it may be appropriate/necessary to provide accommodations to students with disabilities in accessing that tutoring. You are not required to provide individual tutoring to disabled students if you provide only group tutoring to nondisabled students, but you should be prepared to accommodate students with disabilities within the parameters of your tutoring program. For instance, if other students are limited in the amount of tutoring they can receive, it may be necessary to consider increasing the amount of access to the tutoring service (e.g., if everyone else gets two hours of tutoring per subject a week, the student with a disability MAY be in a position to ask for 3 hours instead). Be prepared to provide interpreters for deaf students or tutoring materials in alternate media for blind students. Tutoring is not a required accommodation under the law, but access to institutional tutoring services IS required in order to assure equal access to the (potential) benefits of this institutionally sponsored program.

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As the end of the school year approaches, faculty regularly are asked to provide letters of recommendation for students -- for employment, for graduate school, and so on. And faculty regularly ask if it is allowed/appropriate for them to speak to a student's disability and the accommodations received when writing such a letter for a student with a disability. The answer is "no." Why not, you ask...

For those faculty members who are concerned about "truth in advertising" and purport that the student would not have been able to perform as he/she did without the accommodations, there is a question and a answer. Is it your belief that the accommodation gives an unfair (inflated) view of the student's capability to perform in your area? If so, you need to have a long talk with the disability services coordinator about the purpose of and assignment of such accommodations. On the other hand, if your concern is simply that this student didn't achieve the grade in the same way as did other students, that's not pertinent to what you are being asked to comment on in such a letter. If the grade was earned, and that grade represents a level of mastery/skill/achievement, then the student should be credited with having reached that level of mastery/skill/achievement.

Remember, too, that if you do write a letter of recommendation in which you speak to the student's disability you have not only violated principles of confidentiality, you haven't done that prospective employer or graduate admissions committee any favors. It is illegal to make employment or admissions decisions based on someone's status as a person with a disability. That is why the law forbids pre-employment or pre-admission inquiries into disability. If you reveal such information in a letter of recommendation and the student is ultimately turned down for employment or admission, the employer/committee can't prove that their knowledge of the disability didn't influence the decision.

If you still are not comfortable with providing a letter of recommendation unless it can be qualified, then DON'T AGREE TO WRITE THE LETTER! Just say, "no."

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During the past month there has been another interesting discussion on the DSSHE-L listserv regarding the use of standardized tests (SAT, ACT, GRE, and so on). This particular discussion focused on the predictability (or lack thereof!) of such scores in assessing the likelihood of success in the first year of college for students with disabilities. We discussed the highly verbal nature of the tests and how this may impact on students with language-based disabilities (especially LD and Deaf students), and we discussed the lack of current and pertinent research regarding the performance of students with disabilities on such tests. I had an additional series of exchanges with several colleagues off-line regarding these issues. One asked:

"Why is it so unacceptable to some people in our profession that disabilities that take a big bite out of general verbal skills/aptitude/abilities are going to have an impact when the person takes tests that measure verbal skills (SAT, ACT, GRE, etc.)?"

Clearly, scores from such tests are going to be effected for students whose disabilities are specifically in this realm. And, no, I don't think we can eliminate the impact on performance of LD, deafness, or any other disability through legislative relief or by throwing enough accommodations at the problem. My objection is to the use of such tests as a primary element in decision-making regarding the potential (and therefore governing the opportunities presented), when the tests ARE highly verbal in nature but purport to measure other things -- general knowledge, math computational skills, specialized knowledge in particular areas, and so on. In the end, the scores DO, in fact, measure verbal skills but the colleges use them as a representation of these other abilities. In some cases, the severity of the impact of the disability on the student will mean that he/she simply will never be able to function effectively in certain areas of endeavor -- just as no amount of wishful thinking or accommodation will ever make it possible for a paraplegic student to walk, thus shutting off certain possibilities. But we acknowledge that students in wheelchairs can do lots of other things that don't involve walking, and we give them a chance to try. Yet these tests are often used to screen out students with language-based disabilities from having the opportunity to explore their potential in areas not impacted by their disability.

But don't these tests screen out LOTS of students from having a chance to try? If the institution believes that one must perform at a certain level on such tests in order to be competitive at that institution, then aren't students whose disabilities prohibit performance at those levels being treated in the same way as their low-scoring counterparts without disabilities? I would submit that the answer is "no." If the reason for the low scores are different -- verbal skills vs. general information or cognitive ability -- then acting in the same manner based on the same score is NOT equitable. Are we interested in the number, or in the potential for success?

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(End of Newsletter)