Providing Test Accommodations

How long do students have to sign up for a test?

Per Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (34 CFR 104.43), once an Accommodation Notification is delivered by the student (or in some cases straight from Disability Services) to the professor, the accommodations must be met. The recommendation for students to give one week’s notice when submitting a test request is not meant to be a hard rule for students to follow but rather a standard that the student follows as a courtesy to Disability Services and the faculty member, for administrative purposes. Holding students with disabilities to a strict one week rule enforces a different standard for those students compared to others who only have to show up to class to take a test. We are very flexible with students with the timeline of submitting test sign-ups because there are so many variables as to why one cannot meet the one week recommendation.

Some of these variables for students include:

• New students to our office
• Student’s first time using accommodations and are new to the process
• Time management directly relates to the student’s disability
• Test date not given in writing (oral comprehension limitation, per the disability)
• Short-term memory issues
• Temporary accommodations (broken wrist, concussion, etc.)
• Test date was moved or announced at the last minute
• Hospitalization
• Sickness
• Death in the family

Test Information

Disability Services is very flexible for faculty. We allow faculty to submit tests by any means that works for them as long as we have the test prior to the test time. We even sometimes go pick up the test from the faculty member minutes before the test, if they were to forget or if the student were to sign up at the last minute.

For faculty requiring one week’s notice of a test, we strongly suggest that you sit down with the student, the week before a test and fill out the test signup with them. This proactive approach will benefit all parties involved, encouraging students to communicate with faculty during office hours and/or before or after class.

For adjunct faculty who have limited on-campus availability, we suggest that you automatically send us the test for any students that have given you the Accommodation Notification form so that we have it on hand if a student were to sign up at the last minute. It is helpful if the faculty member includes the student’s name and the test date/time on the test.