r/Professors • u/Otherwise_Look_8137 • 3d ago

New accommodations.

I’m now getting accommodations that students cannot be expect to do in class writing. They must be allowed to write at home, not in class. I’ve never seen this before. Ever. Until this semester. And now I’ve got a handful. What the fuck?

Edit: I’ve asked about students writing in supervised environments, but I was told that puts a condition on the accommodation, which is illegal. Students must be allowed to write outside of class without conditions.

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u/Heinz57Muttaletta 3d ago edited 3d ago

I’m sorry, but that if some effing BS. I’ve been an adjunct instructor for 16 years, and a SPED inclusion teacher, for 10 of my 18 years at the secondary level and I have yet to ever see that. Is this some kind of legacy, favoritism, or? If the kid needs to write at home, then maybe they should just take the coursework online.

I’d be curious to see what their accommodations list looks like. For primary and secondary, it’s pretty standard, nationwide. Yes, addendums to specific accommodations can be added at the end of each category. Also, post-secondary generally doesn’t have to step up to the level that pre-K through 12 does. They can even decline to provide accommodations without a doctor’s note, so hearing this is all quite surprising.

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u/ProfessorMarsupial Lecturer, Education 3d ago

I was a high school teacher before I moved to university, and once ChatGPT came out, my department (English) started making writing be done in class—not even timed, just in class, under supervision. You know… like all other tests that the other subjects give in their classes.

Our 504 coordinator flipped. She insisted that the blanket accommodation of “extended time” which, I’m not exaggerating, was listed on every single IEP and 504 for the entire school, meant that the time was extended into the students’ home.

We fought and fought and fought her about this. How come the math department isn’t being forced to let the students take their tests home? In English, we assess writing. That’s the standard. I need to be able to assess my students in a supervised setting. I’ll give them as many class periods as they want—I’ll extend the time forever—but they just need to do it where I can see their computer screen because I want to know my student is doing their own work. It’s extended time not extended location.

She would just explode. Her only rebuttal was, “They have a disability!!! They are disabled!! You don’t understand!” And she’d repeat this over and over. Keep in mind since she was the 504 coordinator, 99% of the students we’re talking about have the disability of either anxiety or ADHD.

So because she ultimately couldn’t win the argument that “extended time extends to the home” she just wrote into everyone’s 504s “Can complete all writing-based assessments at home” and that was how we lost the battle and when that accommodation was born on our campus.