Special Testing Conditions: Expiration date?

[downer]

After seeing a 4 old "special testing conditions" form from a student, I wondered whether they ever expire. Apparently not.

Seems a bit odd to me.

[Liquidambar]

My students get new ones issued every semester.  Also, the information is communicated to faculty from the accommodations office, rather than from the student, so we know it's official.  Can  you verify with the appropriate office whether your student's accommodation is valid?

[Ruralguy]

At least in the US, its fairly standard, I believe,  that the student be able to show you some sort of official note that explains the accommodation (what it pertains to, whether or not its permanent (such as an ADHD accomo or decreased vision, hearing, whatever).  Many students have temporary accommodations due to injuries or illnesses. This should be explained, although they are under no obligation to explain an exact disease or injury--just that the accommodations office has signed off on the temporary accommodation and it is due to an "injury of right leg/left eye/blah blah" and so forth.

[the_geneticist]

I've worked at a SLAC where the student had to self-identify and give the official form from the accommodations office to each instructor.  At my current place, the accommodations office contacts each instructor directly & the student doesn't have to approach the instructor.  Seems a bit more streamlined & efficient (and protects the student privacy more).
But at both places the official documentation was handled by the accommodations office.  And was "renewed" for every class every term.  Some accommodations do not expire (e.g. exam in certain font on blue paper for dyslexia) and others are temporary (e.g. allowed to type exam & double time due to broken wrist of dominant hand).  Either way, it's the accommodation office's job to do the verification.

[downer]

I checked with the disability office and that's their standard policy. Once you get the special conditions, you have them for the rest of your time as a student at the college. Students have to show the form to the professors.

Obviously this is a result of people just doing the minimum possible to meet ADA regulations.

It may also result in some people being rather unimpressed by the standards by which these things are handed out.

[Hegemony]

I checked with the disability office and that's their standard policy. Once you get the special conditions, you have them for the rest of your time as a student at the college. Students have to show the form to the professors.

Obviously this is a result of people just doing the minimum possible to meet ADA regulations.

I'm not sure why this would mean "people" (students? accommodation officials?) are doing the minimum to meet regulations.

My son has several conditions for which he is entitled to accommodations. Those conditions don't go away. Believe me, we have tried everything we can try, for his entire school career, to make those things go away. They don't. They're permanently part of his makeup.

It's true that he was tested at age 10, and when he was 15, the unhelpful and obstructive school insisted those tests might be invalid by now, so we had to have him tested again. So I had to spend another $800 having him tested, which provided the same results as before. Sometimes public schools administer those tests free (don't get me started on why ours wouldn't). But universities never do. If you're implying that the student ought to be tested again to confirm that they still have their conditions, who's going to provide that $800 or so? And if you're implying that they don't need to be tested again, I'm not sure why a new piece of paper is needed, when the old one served perfectly well.

[fishbrains]

I checked with the disability office and that's their standard policy. Once you get the special conditions, you have them for the rest of your time as a student at the college. Students have to show the form to the professors.

Obviously this is a result of people just doing the minimum possible to meet ADA regulations.

I'm not sure why this would mean "people" (students? accommodation officials?) are doing the minimum to meet regulations.

My son has several conditions for which he is entitled to accommodations. Those conditions don't go away. Believe me, we have tried everything we can try, for his entire school career, to make those things go away. They don't. They're permanently part of his makeup.

It's true that he was tested at age 10, and when he was 15, the unhelpful and obstructive school insisted those tests might be invalid by now, so we had to have him tested again. So I had to spend another $800 having him tested, which provided the same results as before. Sometimes public schools administer those tests free (don't get me started on why ours wouldn't). But universities never do. If you're implying that the student ought to be tested again to confirm that they still have their conditions, who's going to provide that $800 or so? And if you're implying that they don't need to be tested again, I'm not sure why a new piece of paper is needed, when the old one served perfectly well.

+1. Should society ever fall into total chaos and lawlessness, I'm going to hunt down the educator-who-should-have-known-better who said my son should have "grown out of all that by now" while creating road-blocks for him and beat them with a baseball bat until my anger is gone. Naturally, this assumes that other people won't get to me with their baseball bats first, but a feller can dream.

[Caracal]

I checked with the disability office and that's their standard policy. Once you get the special conditions, you have them for the rest of your time as a student at the college. Students have to show the form to the professors.

Obviously this is a result of people just doing the minimum possible to meet ADA regulations.

I'm not sure why this would mean "people" (students? accommodation officials?) are doing the minimum to meet regulations.

My son has several conditions for which he is entitled to accommodations. Those conditions don't go away. Believe me, we have tried everything we can try, for his entire school career, to make those things go away. They don't. They're permanently part of his makeup.

It's true that he was tested at age 10, and when he was 15, the unhelpful and obstructive school insisted those tests might be invalid by now, so we had to have him tested again. So I had to spend another $800 having him tested, which provided the same results as before. Sometimes public schools administer those tests free (don't get me started on why ours wouldn't). But universities never do. If you're implying that the student ought to be tested again to confirm that they still have their conditions, who's going to provide that $800 or so? And if you're implying that they don't need to be tested again, I'm not sure why a new piece of paper is needed, when the old one served perfectly well.

There's this notion that all these students are gaming the system. I've never seen any evidence of it. I often have students who have an accommodation, but choose not to use it for my exams because they don't think it will be necessary based on the format. Even when the disability office runs well, testing accommodations are sort of a pain for students. You have to set the whole thing up and go to this different place. If you get extra time it means you have to sit there and take the exam longer. It isn't the sort of thing that appeals to lazy students.

[the_geneticist]

I checked with the disability office and that's their standard policy. Once you get the special conditions, you have them for the rest of your time as a student at the college. Students have to show the form to the professors.

Obviously this is a result of people just doing the minimum possible to meet ADA regulations.

I'm not sure why this would mean "people" (students? accommodation officials?) are doing the minimum to meet regulations.

My son has several conditions for which he is entitled to accommodations. Those conditions don't go away. Believe me, we have tried everything we can try, for his entire school career, to make those things go away. They don't. They're permanently part of his makeup.

It's true that he was tested at age 10, and when he was 15, the unhelpful and obstructive school insisted those tests might be invalid by now, so we had to have him tested again. So I had to spend another $800 having him tested, which provided the same results as before. Sometimes public schools administer those tests free (don't get me started on why ours wouldn't). But universities never do. If you're implying that the student ought to be tested again to confirm that they still have their conditions, who's going to provide that $800 or so? And if you're implying that they don't need to be tested again, I'm not sure why a new piece of paper is needed, when the old one served perfectly well.

There's this notion that all these students are gaming the system. I've never seen any evidence of it. I often have students who have an accommodation, but choose not to use it for my exams because they don't think it will be necessary based on the format. Even when the disability office runs well, testing accommodations are sort of a pain for students. You have to set the whole thing up and go to this different place. If you get extra time it means you have to sit there and take the exam longer. It isn't the sort of thing that appeals to lazy students.

Ugh, don't even get me started on how awful our accommodations office has been since the end of Winter quarter.  The university said all final exams had to be online (less than a week's notice) and the accommodations office immediately said that they were CLOSED and would not be offering any exam proctoring.  They had hundreds of students who had ALREADY arranged for their final exams at the testing center, which if nothing else would have provided good internet and a chair to sit in.  Absolute chaos.
And they are still closed.  No in-person testing services whatsoever.  I can easily set up additional time on online exams for students, but I can't find them a reduced distraction environment or print their exam on blue paper etc. 

[mamselle]

I agree that some conditions remain (or get worse) as children age--I have the son and father in one family of music students for direct proof--so I also agree that the needs for accommodations may well never need to be abated or reduced because those needs may well continue for life.

1. As a very simple example on the younger side of the equation, in an hour's lesson my two ADHD music students each need two-minute breaks after warm-ups, and again after their first two pieces, just to get through without issues. They do well--one very well--with that arrangement. I only started considering such options when I began subbing in a public school system with a few calm, unruffled, non-judgmental protocols like that in place for students who needed them.

It has worked for 5 years or more, now, since the older one was 7 years old, in the one case; it became apparent for another child after a couple of oddly-placed melt-downs (we were doing fine--suddenly, tears and temper out of nowhere...) that that's what was needed for that student.  I've only worked with that child for a couple of years now, but it's made a huge difference in her lessons, and I'll keep it in place going forward.

Not using such protocols may have been a part of the problem with another student, too, a few years ago, who quit before I realized the issues there.

2. The idea of re-issuing new pages each semester in a campus setting, for college-level course-work, has always made sense to me: it made things clearer, showing the Accommodations office to be on top of things, assuring professors that careful assessments and protocols had been made, and underlining the fact that that the student continued to be monitored.

I've adjuncted at three different sites, and each had some variation on it. Seeing those pages each term, even for a returning student, reinforced for me the importance of their needs, and sent a message: the Accommodations office kept up regular student communications, and was a potential ally in times of need.

They were often, too, a good first-line-of-questioning for problems. When I had a serious unexplained student absence, they couldn't say much but they could affirm that they'd been in touch with the student and would ask them to be in touch with me, relieving a lot of anxiety and uncertainty.

3. I don't advocate re-testing in most cases, either, but one parent has told me recently that a re-test, three years after an earlier effort, showed up more specific issues for a child they already knew had some needs: these can now be folded into their IEP.

It didn't prove that certain needs had "gone away" but it clarified the degree and kind of some of the issues (a particular type of dyslexia showed up that hadn't appeared in previous tests, for example) because the child, at a much younger age, couldn't complete the whole test due to attention-span issues.

But these are nuanced exceptions, not meant to disprove Hegemony's primary point.     

M.

[Aster]

Hmmm... I have never thought about the possibility that students needing learning accommodations might later be cured or gain improvements in their situation later in their life to render their original accommodations unnecessary. I'm pretty sure that most of my colleagues have never thought about this before either.

Mind blown.

[mamselle]

I think it's really a kind of denial of their needs at all, one of the narratives that suggests they're being "babies," and "will grow out of it," writ large.

M.

[downer]

There are many conditions that disability services will say deserve special testing conditions. Learning disabilities, ADHD, psychiatric conditions, health conditions, and autism. Some of these vary with time, some can get worse, some can improve, and some are steady. There can be major changes in a person between ages 18 and 22.

To have a uniform policy for all cases seems like a simplistic approach.

[the_geneticist]

And there are "temporary" disabilities like a concussion, broken arm, or other trauma.  A good accommodations office makes it reasonable for those students to get help in a timely manner.