Radford faculty plays a crucial part in the lives of all of their students. CAS looks forward to working with faculty to assist in accommodating students with disabilities. There are three academic accommodations that will require faculty and a CAS access specialist to work together to determine what is reasonable and not a fundamental alteration to a course. These are: amended attendance, assignment extensions, and flexible exam schedule.
Please contact CAS with any questions or concerns when working with a student with a disability or a student you suspect may benefit from CAS services.
The accommodations process begins with receiving an email from cas@radford.edu notifying faculty that a student is registered with CAS, has an Access Plan, and will contact the faculty member to review the Access Plan. This email notification is sent to faculty's Radford email account.
Students are expected as part of the CAS process to initiate a meeting to discuss accommodation plans. However, if you receive a letter and the student does not contact you regarding their accommodations, we recommend reaching out to the student. A brief email acknowledging you received the CAS notification and encouraging them to meet with you is suggested. Include this email in your class records.
We recommend only providing accommodations to a student who meets with you to review their Access Plan. Please refer students to CAS if they disclose accommodations needs that you have not been formally notified about.
Information about a student's CAS affiliation and accommodations should be provided reasonable confidentiality. CAS complies with FERPA guidelines and can discuss student progress to support coordination of services for the student's educational benefit. CAS welcomes faculty to contact the office at anytime concerning student needs.
A student does not have to disclose their disability. If a student is approved for services with CAS, we encourage students to share as much information about their learning style as possible. However, if you suspect a student is struggling academically due to the lack of access to material and information, please have private conversation. Ask the student if they applied for services with CAS. If the answer is, "no", then encourage them to do so. In some cases, instructors have accompanied a student to the CAS office to share their thoughts and concerns.
It is preferred and recommended that students approved for services with CAS, request access plans, and share them with instructors prior to the start of the semester. However, per ADA regulations, students can request accommodations due to a medical diagnosis at any time of their academic career.
“If you are a student with special needs or circumstances, I invite you to contact me early in the course so appropriate supports and scheduling can be addressed.
Students seeking academic accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act must apply for services with Radford University's Center for Accessibility Services (CAS). The policies regarding students with disabilities may be found on the CAS website. You may also contact the CAS office."
“Conditional Accommodations” are given in circumstances when a diagnosed disability
may have a flare up or be
episodic in nature and not in the student's control. OCR predicates that faculty and
CAS offices work to determine
what is reasonable for these accommodations.
If you see a Conditional Accommodation on a student's Access Plan, contact CAS.
The faculty member and student's CAS access specialist will create a plan that meets the student's needs.
Extra Time on Assessments
The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) position for persons who receive
extra time on an Assessment due to a diagnosed disability and
registered with CAS offices is as follows:
The increase in testing time a student with a disability receives is based on the assessment time that the remainder of the class receives. This means CAS will be accommodating the extra time based on the time that was afforded to other students in the class to complete the assessment.
For example, if the class is given 45 minutes and the CAS student has 50% extra time
accommodations, then the testing time given to the CAS student is 68 minutes. At this
time OCR does not support universal design concept with assessments
.
An assessment takes two hours, but professor provides the class fours for the assessment
(trying to accommodate everyone in the class) then the CAS student with the 50% extra
time would receive 6 hours – not the 4 hours the professor provided “to cover everyone”.