Special Education Vocabulary: Accommodation

The law says that a school has to "accommodate" a student's disabilities. Do you know what that MEANS? Technical jargon can get in the way of understanding your child's rights.

What is an accommodation? The long list of technical terms in special education can be daunting to some parents. And since accommodation is one of the most basic terms, I thought I'd take a little time here to make sure you could find a clear, concise definition...

Schwab Learning has one of the best explanations of the term accommodation that I've come across on the Internet:

Accommodations provide different ways for kids to take in information or communicate their knowledge back to you. The changes basically don't alter or lower the standards or expectations for a subject or test. Through the child's Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 Plan, classroom accommodations are developed formally.

Their page goes on in other places to explain (correctly, I might add) that an accommodation is a change in the student's classroom learning environment so that the student has better access to the educational process.

Accommodations can be simple. If a child's disability has to do with their hearing or vision, one of the simplest accommodations is usually called preferential seating. Johnny can't see very far or hear very well so we move him to the front of the room - closer to the blackboard and to the talking teacher. And in some cases, accommodating a child's disability with a change in their classroom learning environment as simple as that one makes a huge difference in how well they do.

Some other common accommodations include:

• Extended time - a child with a disability may be given extra time to take a test or complete an assignment.
  
  

• Oral testing - if we want to know whether a child with a learning disability knows who the first president was, we can ask him and let him tell us instead of writing down our question and having him write down his answer. After all, if he knows who the first president was he should get credit for that. And if his disability interferes with his ability to write, that's a fair accommodation to make.
  
  

• Assistive technology - a child with a vision problem can listen to a story on tape instead of reading it from a book and a student with dysgraphia may benefit greatly from using a word processor instead of a pencil.
  
  

• Peer tutoring - simply assigning a classmate to help a disabled student "get it" can be powerful.

Parents should distinguish between these two ideas. Accommodations do not change what is expected of a student in school; they only change the way the student gains access to learning. Modifications actually change the curriculum and expectations placed on a disabled student. But we'll leave that piece of vocabulary, modifications, for another day...

What is a 504 Plan?

Note: Visit my education blog, The Green Cup.

What is a 504 Plan? Do you need one? How is it different from an Individualized Education Plan (IEP)? These are important question if your child has a disability.

In the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Public Law No. 93-112), Section 504 states that: "no otherwise qualified individual with a disability...shall solely by reason of his/her disability be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination to any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance..." (emphasis added).

At the moment, every public school system in America receives some degree of federal funding. Because of this, they are all subject to this law. What that means for you is this: if your child has a disability, the school system must accommodate that disability in some way - under Section 504 if no other way is available. Probably that will mean the development of a formal plan for defining and providing those accommodations.

A 504 Plan is civil rights document. It protects your child's rights regarding access to education. Often the disability is a medical problem like asthma, childhood diabetes, or allergies.

Sometimes the problem is more complicated and the school system and parents must decide whether the child needs a 504 Plan under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 or an IEP under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The difference between the two, in theory, is simple. Technically, a 504 Plan provides accommodations for the disability. Accommodations are environmental in nature. Changes are made to the learning environment:

• a handicapped bathroom is installed.
  
• an elevator is made available.
  
• assistive technology (possibly something as simple as a cassette tape player) is provided.
  
• perhaps the student is given extra time on some assignments or tests.

The curriculum itself does not change. An IEP, on the other hand, is for students whose disabilities require specially designed instruction. The curriculum itself must be modified in order for the student to receive an appropriate education.

Do you need a 504 Plan? A 504 Plan formalizes a set of accommodations that the school may be quite willing to make informally. For example, if your child has asthma and you bring the school some kind of a medical statement to document the fact, the school may be quiet willing to:

• alter the child's schedule of physical activity.
  
• hold medication in the office for the child and administer it when appropriate.
  
• commit to take a particular set of steps in the event of an emergency.

Under these circumstances, does the 504 Plan serve a purpose? Maybe not. But having the formal document in place can be reassuring for everyone involved. And sometimes the exact accommodations to be used aren't as obvious as in the case above. In those cases, the formal plan helps people remember what to do.

There are some basic steps involved in obtaining a 504 Plan. The first is referral. A teacher, support staff, a parent, or a medical professional may refer the student for consideration, usually by calling the school and speaking to the principal or the chair of a school team that considers such matters.

The next step is a meeting to discuss the referral; perhaps a 504 Plan will emerge from that meeting, or perhaps more than one meeting will be required as the team involved gathers information. The last step is to review the effectiveness of the 504 Plan at some later date.

A 504 Plan can be an effective tool for safeguarding your child's right to an appropriate education.

Special Education Vocab: FAPE

The law says that your school system is obligated to provide a student with disabilities with a FAPE – a free appropriate public education. Do you know what that MEANS?

Technical jargon can get in the way of understanding your child's rights.

What is a FAPE? The long list of technical terms in special education can be daunting to some parents. And since FAPE is one of the most basic terms, I thought I'd take a little time here to make sure you could find a clear, concise definition...

The Special Education Lawyers website has one of the best explanations of the term FAPE that I've come across on the Internet. Their page looks at each word individually and talks briefly about what it means for an education to be free, what it means for it to be appropriate, etc.

The concept of a FAPE comes from a court ruling in 1971. In the case Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a federal judge ruled that retarded children had a right to a free public education under the "equal protection" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The case affected students in Pennsylvania. But the next year a case in the District of Columbia, Mills v. the Board of Education, made the concept of FAPE binding on all schools in the U.S.

To catch up with the courts, Congress passed a number of laws over the next few years. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, along with the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) in 1975 were the most important. EAHCA was reauthorized in 1990 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

The concepts involved in FAPE are fairly straightforward. Education should be free - from transportation back and forth to school to the cost of textbooks, if it is essential to education it should not cost the student (or the student's guardians) anything. Education should be appropriate; this idea is harder to define and is usually the point of contention when disagreement occurs between a child's family and a school system. And education should be offered by a public agency (a government run school system).

What is (and is not) appropriate is a changing concept because education is a growing academic field and because values change with time.

• Fifty years ago, for example, sex education would probably not have been considered appropriate for many students; but our values have changed.
• Twenty-five years ago it might have been consider appropriate to "guide" students with disabilities into academic paths or tracks that focused on trade skills like auto mechanics; but changes in our values and in the economy have broadened the academic and career choices for many disabled students.
• And advances in our understanding of how children learn regularly require that we re-evaluate the methods we use to teach all children.

What is appropriate changes with time. But all students with disabilities in America have a right to a free appropriate public education - FAPE.