Parents generally know or soon learn that their student's high school has the legal obligation to reasonably accommodate their student's disability. But legal obligations are one thing while meeting those obligations is another thing. Just because your student's high school owes your student the obligation to provide reasonable accommodations for your student's disability doesn't mean that the high school will actually do so. Your student may even have an individual education plan (IEP) providing for certain special education services and accommodations. But again, just because an IEP promises services and accommodations doesn't mean that your student is going to get those services and accommodations. Parents and their students can face such significant issues with disability accommodations that the student cannot proceed through traditional high school. If your student isn't getting the needed and promised special education services and reasonable disability accommodations, retain national education attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm's student defense team. Get the skilled and experienced help you need to enforce your student's federal disability rights.
Federal Obligations to Reasonably Accommodate
When enacting the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Congress recognized that statistics continue to show that millions of high school students require special education services and accommodations to overcome disabilities that would otherwise impair their learning. Under IDEA's implementing regulation 34 CFR Section 300.101, a high school must provide a “free appropriate public education” (FAPE) to a student with a disability. The regulation further expressly provides, “Each State must ensure that FAPE is available to any individual child with a disability who needs special education and related services, even though the child has not failed or been retained in a course or grade, and is advancing from grade to grade.”
The IDEA law and its implementing regulations are one source of the obligation your student's high school owes to your student to reasonably accommodate your student's disability. When Congress enacted Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 USC § 794, and the US Department of Education adopted implementing regulations at 34 CFR Part 104; the enactments further required all high schools receiving federal funds to provide a free appropriate public education to students with disabilities. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits local governments, including public high schools, from discriminating against students based on disability. Together, these laws provide a substantial basis for enforcing your high school student's right to reasonable accommodations to overcome your student's disability.
Disabilities to Which Reasonable Accommodation Applies
Your student's high school owes reasonable accommodation for more than just physical disabilities like standing or walking impairment. For example, the IDEA law's federal regulation 34 CFR Section 300.8 defines disability to include any of the following conditions when they cause the student to need special education or related services and accommodations:
- an intellectual disability,
- a hearing impairment, including deafness,
- a speech or language impairment,
- a visual impairment, including blindness,
- a serious emotional disturbance,
- an orthopedic impairment,
- autism,
- traumatic brain injury,
- a specific learning disability, and
- other health impairments.
The last general category of “other health impairments” requiring special education services is a catch-all provision, meaning that your student need not have one of the other listed disabilities. Other health impairments needing special education services or accommodations qualify your student as having a disability. One state education association's accommodations guide, for instance, lists allergies, anxiety, asthma, cancer, cerebral palsy, diabetes, epilepsy, hemophilia, obesity, skin disorders, and tuberculosis as additional qualifying disabilities. Indeed, learning disabilities like dyslexia, ADD, and ADHD are among the most common of accommodated disabilities. And your student's high school owes the obligation to identify your student's disability whether you request it or not. Retain national education attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento if your student's high school has failed or refused to identify your student as having a qualified disability.
What Are Reasonable Accommodation Rights?
The reasonable accommodations your student's high school owes your student can be as varied as the qualifying disabilities. Federal law doesn't require full accommodation of all disabilities, just reasonable accommodation. High school officials may determine reasonableness based on factors like the cost of accommodations, their availability, what alternatives to accommodation may exist, and whether an accommodation will disrupt, distract, or fundamentally the education. Accommodations obviously depend on the disability. Accommodations can also vary from school to school, district to district, and region to region, depending on customs and the cost and availability of various services. According to a state education association's accommodations guide, these few examples, among dozens of others, maybe some of the common accommodations that your student's high school may need to make available to your student for the following conditions:
- for ADD and ADHD, frequent breaks, nonverbal teacher cues, allowing the student to stand and move while working, reducing distractions, allowing peer assistance, extra time for assignments, oral instructions, fidget items, and display of classroom rules;
- for allergies, banning peanuts and other allergens, checking labels, allergen-free zones within the school, extra cleaning, disposable utensils, extra hand washing, hand sanitizer, and available emergency medicine and transportation;
- for anxiety, a calm-down corner, aromatherapy, cue cards, yoga, fidget toys, weighted blankets, guidance counseling, counseling visit times, extra time for assignments, transition warnings, reassigned seatmates or instructors, walk-around time, and reduced distractions;
- for arthritis, alternative seating, peer assistance, extra assignment time, movement time, medicine time, seating near an emergency exit, rest time, oral rather than written exam answers, seating near heat sources, adjusted attendance policy, and alternative utensils;
- for asthma, missed class work plans, school nurse training, inhalant therapy assistance, removal of allergens, modified field trips, rest during physical activity, peer assistance carrying materials, and remaining indoors on cold days and during poor air quality;
- for diabetes, frequent restroom breaks, breaks to check glucose levels, nurse training for medication dispensing, food access, altered meal schedules, and items; distribution of emergency action plans, altered exam schedules; and
- for dyslexia, preferential seating, repeat oral instructions, simplified written directions, substituting pictures for text, smaller and shorter assignments, worksheets, highlighting, note-taker assistance, adjusted reading levels, and use of instructional aids.
Reasonable Accommodation Issues for High School Students
The above sections show you the source of your student's right to require the high school to reasonably accommodate your student's disabilities, some of the disabilities the school must accommodate, and some of the accommodations the school may have to provide. But high schools don't always do as the law requires them to do. You and your student may face serious issues getting your student's high school to comply with its various obligations to reasonably accommodate. And the failure or refusal of your student's high school to reasonably accommodate your student's disabilities may cause serious problems for your student, right up to discipline and even expulsion. Retain national education attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento's skilled and experienced disability accommodation representation if your student faces any of the following reasonable accommodation issues.
Refusing to Identify Your Student as Disabled
For your student to get necessary reasonable accommodations, your student's high school must accept that your student has a qualifying disability under regulations like 34 CFR Section 300.8 summarized above. The school and its teachers and administrators have the responsibility to identify students with qualifying disabilities. If your student's high school has refused to accept that your student has a qualifying disability, then your student likely won't get the reasonable accommodations necessary for your student to get a free appropriate public education.
Refusing to Provide Accommodations
Your student's high school may have accepted that your student has a qualifying disability, impairing your student's ability to enjoy a free appropriate education. But your student's high school may simply be refusing to provide the necessary reasonable accommodation. The school may maintain that your student doesn't need a required accommodation or that accommodation is unavailable, too expensive, or too disruptive and distracting. Whether the school asserts reasons for refusing or not, you may need help enforcing your student's right to available, reasonable-cost, non-disruptive services and accommodations.
Providing the Wrong Accommodations
Sometimes, high school officials are happy to provide disability accommodations of an available, standard type, in a one-size-fits-all approach to accommodations. If, for example, the school already has a reader or note-taker for other disabled students in a certain class, the school may insist that the same reader or note-taker can also adequately accommodate your student. Or if the school frequently grants extra time to complete exams or assignments, then it may offer your student the same standard accommodation. But one size doesn't fit all, especially when it comes to disability accommodations. Your student may have an entirely different need for accommodation that the school unreasonably refuses to supply.
Removing Needed Accommodations Previously Provided
Sometimes, high school officials begin to supply a reasonable accommodation and continue to supply the accommodation for a time but then unreasonably terminate the accommodation when the disabled student still needs it. Perhaps the student's teachers changed, the student's classroom location changed, or the school lost a note taker or reader or damaged a piece of accommodative equipment. If the school discontinues reasonable accommodations without good reason, when your student still needs those accommodations, your student can face significant progression, academic, or behavioral issues.
Inappropriately Limiting Your Student's Education
Sometimes, high school officials inappropriately limit a disabled student's education as an unreasonable form of accommodation. For instance, rather than modifying a field trip or providing assistive equipment for the disabled student, the school may simply leave the student behind from the field trip. Rather than providing a ramp for the disabled student to participate on stage in a drama or choir, or band concert, the school may deny the disabled student participation or require the disabled student to perform from the audience floor apart from the non-disabled students. Inappropriately limiting educational opportunities can detract from your student's education, reduce your student's motivation, and isolate your student from supportive peers.
Disciplining Rather than Accommodating
Some disabilities, especially psychiatric disabilities involving mental and emotional health, can cause the student to act disruptively or otherwise appear to misbehave when the high school fails to reasonably accommodate the disability. Reasonable accommodation might have prevented the seeming misconduct, but instead of providing the accommodation, high school officials may pursue discipline. The federal obligation is to reasonably accommodate, not to substitute discipline for accommodation.
Modifying Your Student's Education Without Manifestation Review
Disciplinary charges relating to an unaccommodated disability can result in loss of privileges, reassignment, or even school suspension or expulsion. Yet the federal regulation 34 CFR 300.530(e) requires your student's high school to conduct a manifestation determination before changing your student's placement. The requirement is to ensure that schools don't substitute discipline for accommodation. Your student's high school must provide the manifestation determination. The high school's failure to do so may result in your student's prompt reinstatement.
National Education Attorney Advisor Assistance
National education attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento can provide you and your disabled student the skilled and experienced representation you need for your student to get the most out of the high school education. Attorney advisor Lento knows the above laws, rules, and regulations. He also knows high school procedures for resolving administrative disputes over disability accommodations. Attorney advisor Lento can often quickly get the attention and respect of high school officials for an early informal negotiated resolution. Attorney advisor Lento also knows how to strategically invoke school procedures and conduct communications and conferences to your student's best advantage. Get the help your student needs to achieve your student's high school education goals.
Alternative Special Relief for Accommodations
You and your student may have alternative special relief available, even if you have already exhausted the school district's disability accommodations procedures. Attorney advisor Lento has the national reputation and relationships to reach and negotiate with a district's general counsel, outside retained counsel, or other oversight officials. Litigation can be another option for relief. But informal resolution through oversight channels could be your student's best option for swift relief, gaining reinstatement, and necessary accommodations. Your student's continued academic preparation and social development, and your student's future education and career, are worth pursuing all avenues for relief through a skilled and experienced national education attorney advisor.
Premier Attorney Advisor Available
National school education attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento represents high school students nationwide on disability accommodation and related issues. He has helped hundreds of students nationwide preserve their education and future. Call 888.535.3686 or go online now to retain attorney advisor Lento and the Lento Law Firm's student defense team for your high school student's disability accommodations issue.
