Transitioning to College: What You Need to Know Presented by Beth Case on August 18, 2004 RACHEL: Hello everybody, and welcome to the first of two Web Casts about students with disabilities and college or postsecondary education. My name is Rachel Kosoy. I am with the Disability Law Resource Project, your sponsor for today's event. I will be moderating the Web Cast and voicing your questions to our presenter. Before I turn things over to the presenter, I just want to say a thing about sending us questions. In order to submit a question, you can click the submit question button at the bottom of your Real One Player, or you can simply address something to webcast@ilru.org. And if you have questions now, please go ahead and send those in and as questions arise, also go ahead and send them in. If anyone has technical difficulties, you can give us a call. The number is (713)520-0232. Okay, today's topic is, transitioning to college, what you need to know. The second Web Cast in this series will be determining appropriate services for deaf and hard of hearing students, and that Web Cast will be next month on Wednesday, September 15th. Today, we're really going to focus on the transition from high school to college for students with a range of disabilities. In high school, certainly students are peripherally involved, if at all, in determining and arranging their accommodation, and once they get to College, things are very different and the landscape has dramatically changed. So we're going to be talking today about the differences in the laws that apply during high school and those that apply in post-secondary education. We also will be talking about how students can best prepare for post-secondary education, and then, of course, how to go about actually securing necessary accommodations. Let me introduce our presenter for today. We are lucky to have with us, Beth Case. Beth is a disability counselor at North Harris College and she is the Texas Outreach Specialist for the Postsecondary Education Consortium. And many of you may have heard of Beth. You often see the initials P.E.C. She has a Masters in Clinical Psychology and has been working in post-secondary disability services for eight years, and specializes in working with students with hearing loss. She's provided workshops and training on disability issues across the country, and she is currently the president-elect of AHEAD in Texas or the Association on Higher Education and Disability in Texas, which is a big job to take on, and I commend you and I'm glad you're moving into that position, Beth. BETH: Thank you. RACHEL: So without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and turn things over to you. I understand we're going to be sort of talking in three different sections and pausing periodically for questions. So I will wait for your cue. BETH: OK, I'd like to welcome everyone to my Web Cast and I'm glad that you're interested in this topic. It's a really important topic. Transitioning from high school into college is an exciting and anxiety- producing time for just about any student. Just the school is different and the idea of not going to class all day is different, but when you have a disability, that just adds one more thing that you have to consider into the whole transition process. So my goal today is to give you all some information that will help any high school students that you are working with be better prepared so that transition will be a lot easier for them. I'm not sure who all our audience is today. I'm hoping that we have some students, some parents and high school counselors and teachers and disability providers perhaps. And this is definitely an appropriate Web Cast for all of those audiences. So just a general overview -- Rachel kind of told you what I'm going to do but I'm going to start out talking about how high school and college are different, how the laws are different, how things function differently between the two worlds as far as disability services. Then we'll take a break and I'll take some questions on that area. Then I'm going to talk about what students can be doing while they're still in high school to prepare to make that transition easier. Then we'll have another pause and then I will talk lastly about how do you actually get your services set up at the college. And of course if you have any questions, send them in any time and I'll get to as many as I can. All right, let's get started then. If you work in K-12 you are familiar with I.D.E.A., Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. I.D.E.A. is what we refer to as a "Success Law", and what that means is that under I.D.E.A., the student is provided with whatever services are necessary in order to help them succeed. This can sometimes mean changing a test, giving the student a different test than the rest of the students. It might mean that they take different classes. It might mean that they have different homework or sometimes less homework where every other student answers 20 questions and this student only has to do 10 for example. They may get a lot of one on one tutoring. They may have an in-class aide. They may have someone that accompanies them from classroom to classroom, a resource room, and a lot of very intensive services that helps the student to succeed. Once the student leaves high school and goes into college, I.D.E.A. no longer applies. Now they are covered under the ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA is not a Success Law. It is an access law. And what that means is that the student is provided equal access to all of the information that the other students have access to, but they are required to do all of the same work. So the student with the disability will do the same homework, will do the same test, will have to take the same courses, everything -- they have to -- they will do it the same way. Now they might have it in a slightly different format. Their test might be in Braille or it might be, you know, as a digital format they can listen to with a screen reader, but it will be the same questions. An accommodation in high school, for example, if it's a multiple choice test, maybe one or two of the wrong answers will be marked off so the student has fewer choices to choose from. That won't happen in college. In a college environment they will have to answer, - choose from all four choices just like everyone else. And that's a big change. And that's a little bit of a shock when I'm working with incoming freshmen or coming straight from high school where they are used to a lot more intensive services that they now have to do the same courses as everyone else. So that's a really big difference to understand. Another big difference to understand is where does the responsibility of getting the accommodations come from? Under I.D.E.A, the responsibility is pretty much all on the school, the parents, the teachers, their counselors to determine what is an appropriate service and to arrange it. Often times, the students are not involved in this process at all. Sometimes you will see students -- maybe their junior or senior year of high school being invited to the ARD meetings, but even that is not that common. It depends on the school. It depends on the student and the parents. A lot of times the student doesn't have to say I need a sign language interpreter because the school knows that they are deaf. The school knows that they need an interpreter. The school knows what classes they are taking and the student goes to class and their interpreter is just there. That changes once you get to college. Under the ADA, more responsibility is placed on the student. Yes, the school is still responsible for making their programs accessible, but it is the student's responsibility to self-identify. They are responsible for contacting the school's disabilities office and saying, I'm a student with a disability. I'm going to be coming there in the Fall or whenever, and I need services. And the student needs to follow through whatever procedure that school has set up in order to implement their services. And I'll talk about that a little bit more in the later section. Also in college there is not going to be someone checking up on -- in most cases. I'm making generalizations here because every college is going to function somewhat differently; but in general, you know, there is not going to be someone contacting the student saying are your classes going okay? Are you getting the accommodations we set up for you? Are they working? Are you having any problems? That's just not going to happen. It's the student's responsibility to come forth and say, you know, I'm having troubles with this note taker or I know that I'm having extra time for my tests but I'm still having trouble finishing. The student is responsible for bringing that up that they still need additional help. So they are much more involved in determining what accommodations are that they plan to use, they are much more involved in making sure that the accommodations are sufficient. Whereas in the past they may not have had anything to do with that. So it does happen, for example, that -- like my example of saying the student sign language interpreter is just there. It has happened where a student will show up a couple of weeks into class and say where is my sign language interpreters? And the school never even knew that the student was attending because they didn't self-identify, but the student didn't realize they had to self- identify because they never did before. So it's these kinds of differences that I'm hoping to help with this Web Cast, help everyone understand the differences between what the student is used to in high school and what they will be facing in college so they are aware. Oh, okay, I need to tell somebody what classes I'm taking so that my interpreters will be there. Are there any questions on that so far? Anything related to that? RACHEL: No, none so far. BETH: Okay. Then I will just keep talking and if something comes up, let me know. So I want to talk now about some of the things that students can be doing while –they are,- I wouldn't even wait until the senior year. You can start on these junior year, if not even earlier. What are some of the things you can be doing now that will help with the transition process into college. Probably one of the major things that's important for the student to be able to do is to state what their disability is, how it affects them, and have some ideas about what accommodations are helpful for them. Even though they are still in high school, and even though the accommodations that they get in high school may be different from what they get in college, it's still very helpful information for their disability counselor in College to know, you know, when this student takes their test in a private room, they are able to do much better or whatever the accommodation is. But I do have students that will come into my office and when I ask them what their disability is will tell me, oh, I don't have a disability, I was just in special education. Or they'll have some vague idea like I'm just a slow learner. Okay, it's really important that the student knows the name of their disability. I have a learning disability related to auditory processing or whatever. That they are able to state what their disability is, that they're able to state how it affects them. I have a reading comprehension learning disability and therefore it takes me longer to read and to process what I'm reading. So they can say how it afects them and they can talk about what accommodations they need. Because it takes me a longer time to process and understand what I'm reading, I need to have extra time when I take a test or it is really helpful for me to have my books , recorded texts books so I can listen instead of spending so much time trying to read my books or whatever. That kind of information is so important when they go into College that they know what has worked. They know what hasn't worked, and they don't spend a lot of time on trial and error once they are in College on seeing what kind of accommodation is going to work. Now, obviously, some students are going to be able to do this better than others and some are going to have had the chance to try different options more than others, but as much as possible, to be able to talk about what has worked and what hasn't worked and how their disability affects them is really important. Along with that is documentation. Now, different high schools are going to do this different ways, some prefer not do give the documentation to the student themselves. Some prefer to send it to the College, that's fine, but it's important for the high schools to understand what is considered appropriate documentation at the college level. Now, here I'm going to go making some generalizations. I realize we may have a national audience and that policies and laws and so forth are different from state to state, but -- so this is one of those things. I'm going to talk in some generalities and it will be one of those things you need to talk to the College that the student plans on attending and asking them what they accept for documentation, but for 1example, in some situations documentation for high school might be accepted with teacher observations and maybe a counselor observing the student in class, something like that. And certain accommodations may be made on that sort of documentation of disability. Once you get into College, it may be a little more strict, and it's very difficult to talk without knowing all the different state laws and that sort of thing, but for example, up until recently I.D.E.A. required documentation to be updated every three years. That's now no longer the case and one of the things that we're running into is students coming to College with documentation of a learning disability that is several years old. And even though it's understood that a learning disability does not just go away, how it affects the student can change, and that if you go to College with documentation of a disability that is several years old, chances are they are going to require that you bring updated information. And the College does not pay for that re-evaluation in most cases, which means that it does become the responsibility of the student or the student's family to pay for that re- evaluation. So it's important to know what kind of documentation is equired by the school you're planning to attend - how current do they need to have it done. Let's see what else was I going to say about documentation..Documentation -- if you're wondering who can document different things, it really depends on the disability. If it is a physical disability, it needs to be documented by a Physician, by an M.D. If it is a psychological disability, it needs to be documented by a Psychologist. If it's a hearing loss, it should be an Audiologist, someone who specialized in diagnosing hearing loss and so forth. So it's kind of a common sense, if you think about it. Sometimes I will have someone come in and say, well, you know, I've been diagnosed with depression, can my General Physician diagnose this? Well, really, depression is a psychological disability and therefore it really should be done by a Psychologist. But these are generalizations. Again, you need to talk with the school that you're planning on attending so that they can say what their guidelines are. But it is going to have to be fairly current. Probably the biggest issue we're running into right now is students coming straight from high school with documentation several years old. And at my college, for example, we will accept some documentation up to five years old and that is much more lenient than a lot of schools. A lot of schools will have a three- year limit and we do have shorter limits depending on the disability. If you plan to come to North Harris College, call me and we'll talk about our details. RACHEL: Ok Beth, I actually have a couple questions that are right on point there if I can jump in. BETH: Sure. RACHEL: Ok, one of them is if it looks like a student may need new documentation when they get to college, is there a way that they can have their high school do that or have it done in high school and, therefore, have the high school pay for it? BETH: That's going to depend on the high school. Yes, you can certainly ask them. There are some reasons that you might not want to. For example, a learning disability tends to be kind of a touchy one, and the reason is that one way of diagnosing a learning disability is to look at the discrepancy between the student's achievement and their potential as measured by an IQ test. Sometimes what will happen is the student with the learning disability who is using their accommodations well and is doing well in school because they are using their accommodations, their achievement will catch up with their potential and, therefore, if they are re-assessed, it may not show up that they have a learning disability because they are now achieving much closer to their potential. This is sort of a -- it's an imperfect, in my opinion –I don't know who I'm going to offend here, it's not a perfect way of diagnosing a learning disability, but this is one way that's commonly done. If that happens, then not only would the new documentation not show that the student qualifies for services in College, but it might – for example, in Texas, we have exit exams. And if the student -- and a lot of students with learning disabilities don't have to take or pass the exit exam. If they are retested at the last minute and there is no longer this discrepancy showing on their testing, they are no longer exempt from that exit exam. So you've got to look at it as a case-by-case basis. If the student is still showing quite a large discrepancy between what their potential is showing based on IQ tests and what their achievement is showing, then it will probably still show up and, yes, you can ask the high school about doing it. You can't make them do it, but realize that if the student is doing well in school and their achievement is catching up with their potential, there is the possibility that the testing may show that they no longer qualify for services. RACHEL: Okay. This next question I'm sort of asking for a little bit of repeat, but I guess I'm realizing, listening to what you're saying, that these might be questions for an expert in learning disabilities. BETH: I will admit learning disabilities is not my specialty. As you said before, deafness is really my area and maybe we could get a follow-up with an L.D. specialist, but ask me any way. RACHEL: Okay. Well, the question is basically if somebody has a learning disability, don't they always have a learning disability and why would you need new documentation? BETH: Right. And once they have a learning disability, they always have a learning disability, but the way that it affects them can change. So if you're looking at how a student in fifth grade is functioning with their learning disability, compared to how they are functioning when they are a junior or senior in high school, it's going to be different. They are still going to have a learning disability, but how it is affecting them and how they are functioning is going to change. I was going to save this until later in the presentation, but since it's come up I'll mention it now. One of the things that we talk about in the disability field is that we accommodate the effects of a disability, not the disability itself. So there is not a checklist. It's not like, oh, okay, you have attention deficit disorder, you will get these accommodations. You have a learning disability, you will get these accommodations. What you look at is how is the disability affecting the student in school? And then we look to accommodate how it's affecting them. It is perfectly feasible, and possible, that a student could, for example, be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder but they're on medication, it's under control at this point in time, that it is not really affecting them. So even though they have been diagnosed with a disability, they may not qualify for any services because it's not causing them any difficulties. But that, you know, another point in time when they are changing their medication, it's not under control, there are additional stressors in their life that is making the attention deficit disorder impact them much more heavily, that same student would qualify for services. So to bring it back to the original question, once they are diagnosed, do they always have a disability? In the case of a learning disability, yes. But that doesn't mean that they will always need services. How is the disability affecting them at that point in time. RACHEL: Have you seen where students with learning disabilities who may be with current documentation because they are using accommodations, you know, are not presenting as learning disabled, that the students then in college aren't entitled to services and may need to go for awhile without the accommodations and not do well in order to qualify. BETH: That's a convoluted question. I know where you're going. If the student -- if their most recent documentation comes in and shows that they are not -- that they do not currently qualify as a student with a learning disability, then chances are – and again, this is a lot of stuff that will depend on the individual disabilities office at the College you're looking at, but it is possible that they may not then qualify for services. And what I would probably do at that point -- if someone came in to me with that sort of information, I would probably try to refer them for a reevaluation. Again now we're getting into differences between most states have some sort of vocational rehabilitation agency, and it's possible that by getting them hooked up with the vocational rehabilitation agency, they might be able to be reassessed at little or no charge to the family. My experience has been that if the student has been diagnosed in the past, they are much more likely to get that -- to get a reevaluation from a rehab agency. But here again, I don't work for a rehab agency and I can't say what they will or won't do. RACHEL: All right. That last question was my own I threw in, so I'm sorry. I got caught up in the discussion and I threw in one of my own questions, but let me let you get back on track. BETH: Right. I mean, I guess the bottom point is I don't want to say any student who needs the service would be denied it, although it is possible that I would try to – if they were one of my students, is I would try to get some further information so we would still provide them with some services. Because obviously they were using services that they were succeeding. So, yes, we might want to see about scheduling an L.D. specialist to talk about some of these issues because it is not my strongest area. So, let's see, where were we -- talking about how to prepare for the transition. If you're looking at different colleges, it would probably be a good idea to contact the disability services office at the different Colleges that you're considering, and talk to them about what kind of services do they offer? How do they arrange their services? What's their experience working with students with disabilities similar to yours? I'm certainly not saying to make your decision over which College to go to based solely on what kind of disability services they offer because wherever you go to school, they are required to accommodate you, but it might give you just some sort of feel for – you know, their experience with certain disabilities. If they've never worked with a student that has a disability similar to yours, just realize that you might have to do a little bit more -- be a little more proactive in saying, okay, I know you haven't worked with a student with this kind of disability. This is what I'm going to need. And so if they need to buy some special software, if they need to buy some computer equipment, if they need to -- if they've never worked with a deaf student and they need to go out and hire interpreters, that they are prepared and have the time to do whatever extra is needed. Also another large thing that is important to do as you're preparing for the transition is to become comfortable with whatever assistive technology or other independent skills are relative to your disability prior to going to College. For example, if you're a student with a low vision or blind, who has low vision or blind, something that's really common to use in College would be a screen reader and this is, if you're not familiar, this would be a software package put on a computer that would read out loud to you whatever is on the computer screen. It allows the student to be able to surf the web, to read their textbooks, if you can get them in digital format. They can listen to their textbooks from their computers, to write papers, all this stuff we live with our computers, it allows the student who is blind or very low vision to do all those same things. There is a couple of major competitors on the market, but if you are not using those in high school -- I know a lot of high schools do not use screen readers, but yet it is a very common accommodation in College. You don't want to have to learn a new software package at the same time that you're worried about getting around a new campus and, you know, taking all these new classes and doing the whole College adjustment thing. So it would be important that you start working on learning these software packages while you're still in high school. At the latest, the summer before you go to College so that you're familiar with that. By the same token, you know, being able to take notes for yourself, if that's an issue. Without having a specific disability in mind, I'm having trouble coming up with examples. I'm getting stuck on the visual thing here, but to be comfortable with whatever assistive technology, independent skills, being able to talk about your disability, become as much of a self-advocate as you can before you get into College. And this brings me to another very important point that I want to talk about, and that's dependence versus independence. Again, if you go back to how involved students typically are not involved in their accommodations up through high school, they become dependent and, understandably, so, on other people to arrange their accommodations for them. And that's just –you know, that's how the system is set up for the most part; but if they are not able – students, I'm having trouble forming a sentence here. Let me back up. Students by the time they get to College need to be able to state, like I said before, what their disability is and what they need. And that's a step towards independence that they are able to ask for what services they need and to help get them set up. They need to be able to approach their teachers and be able to explain to their teachers what services that they need. Some of this will depend on what College you go to, how much the disabilities office is involved in introductions between the student and the teacher and so forth and I'm not going to really touch on that because that's between the individual College, but the student is going to have to be able to do more for themselves. They're most likely not going to have someone to walk them from classroom to classroom, for example. So they need to work on mobility skills if that's an issue. So as they are moving from high school through College out into the real world, it's a transition not just from high school to College, but a transition all the way through high school to College to the working world and needing to be more and more independent as they go through that process. However, sometimes we will get students that are so far on the independent scale that they're hurting themselves there as well. Independence does not mean doing everything on your own. Independence means realizing what supports are out there for you and when is it appropriate to use them. Independence is also -- is knowing when to ask the disabilities office for help. It's knowing when to go to the disabilities office and say, "my interpreter hasn't shown up this week". So there is sort of – we get extremes. We have students that have so few independent skills that they don't even come in to ask -- to let us know that they are coming to school because they've never had to even tell anybody before what their schedule was or that they were planning to come to school. It was just there for them. To the other extreme of students that are so independent that they don't want to use the services because they want to do it on their own. I'm not sure if that's coming across clearly. RACHEL: but I think you -- I think it's understandable. BETH: So there is a place in the middle that students need to be working on their independence skills so that they can come forward and ask for the services that they need, but to understand that asking for help also does not mean losing your independence. That the disabilities services office is there for a reason and that's to make sure that you have that access that the ADA requires that you have. RACHEL: Okay, actually I have a question that is somewhat related to that. BETH: Okay. RACHEL: Do you want to take questions? BETH: Sure, why not, questions are fine. RACHEL: Okay, this one question is about kind of what students can expect of the disability services offices and I'm going to paraphrase here, but basically what happens if a disability services office helps you know, come up with and arrange certain accommodations and then a professor does not want to comply? Can the student expect –I mean, what recourse do they have and can the student expect that the disability services coordinator will advocate for them? BETH: Okay. Again, specific procedure is going to depend on the school, but my general answer would be if a student is not getting the accommodations that they have arranged with the disabilities office, if a professor is saying I don't want to do this, they need to immediately go to their disabilities services counselor and, yes, I would expect that the disability services counselor would be involved at that point to talk to the teacher to say, you know, this is really -- you need to be doing this and work on getting the accommodation for the student. So I think bottom line to that question would be, yes, they should be able to expect their disability counselor to support them in that. Now, I'm saying that as in -- that this is an accommodation that has already been set up between the student and the disabilities office. Sometimes, you know, we will have students that will come in asking for an accommodation which cannot be provided and in that case the counselor may have to tell the student, no, this is not something we can do. For example, like when I said earlier how a lot of times students in high school get used to having fewer questions on their tests or fewer homework questions and that sort of thing and they will come into College and expect the same and they may go to the teacher on their own and say, "well, you know, I don't have to answer as many homework questions as everyone else because I have a disability". And in that case, if it came to the disabilities counselor, the counselor would most likely say, well, actually yes, you do. You have to do the same homework as everyone else. So I just like to point that out because sometimes faculty will have the perception that, you know, we always do whatever the student wants and that's not the case. Just like we don't always do what the faculty wants. What we do is try to make sure that we are meeting the law and that the student has access, but in this particular question it sounds like what they were referring to was an accommodation that was officially set up and that the teacher was disagreeing with and, in that case, yes, the disability counselor should be backing the student and making sure they get what they are legally entitled to. RACHEL: Okay. which might be partly my fault, I have some more learning disability questions come in. BETH: Okay, I'll see what I can do RACHEL: Do you want them now? BETH: Big caveat, I'm not a learning disabilities expert, but sure, shoot, let me see what I can do with them. RACHEL: So is the best way to get your student evaluated to prepare them for College, would it be to have an outside evaluator do the evaluation so it will be current? I think this is the crux of the question, how do you go about finding the evaluator? Is it through a directory or something the high school can provide or the College can provide? BETH: I don't know of any centralized nationwide place you can go to. It may be that your school or your College might have some references that you can certainly call and ask them. What's really important though is that -- and you can certainly just go to the phone book and look under Psychologists and make some phone calls on your own. The important thing to do when you are looking for an evaluator, is that they are experienced in evaluating learning disabilities in adults. Diagnosing learning disabilities in adults is quite a different beast than evaluating and diagnosing in children. So if you're a high school student or your child -- we're talking about a high school student here, you want to be sure -- because at that point you're essentially an adult and you want to be sure that the psychologist evaluating you is experienced with diagnosing it in adults and they're not used to just working with kids because it is a different expertise. Does that help? I mean, I don't have a reference list to refer you to, but you can certainly try – RACHEL: I'm sure there is learning disability associations that would have listings for people. BETH: Possible, yes, Just make sure that you are getting someone who is experienced with adults. RACHEL: Ok, all right. Let's see, another one is -- all right, this is sort of asking for confirmation. Ok, so if the student has planned early and already knows that the College that where they are going to attend is going to need the documentation, even though it's not required under I.D.E.A. that the high school provide it, are you saying that they can still go ahead and request it? BETH: the high school can go above and beyond as much as they want to. So, yes, you can ask your high school if they will reevaluate, but they don't have to. Does that answer? RACHEL: I think so. If that didn't answer this person's question, please E- mail us. BETH: the school certainly can do it if they want to. They can be willing to, but they don't have to. RACHEL: Okay. Here is another one, should a high school student with a learning disability necessarily take the S. A. T. and the A. C. T. to meet the entrance criteria? BETH: for College? Yes. RACHEL: Is this something that might change from College to university? BETH: if the school -- if the College or university that the student wants to go to requires the S. A. T. or the A. C. T. for admissions, then a high school student with a learning disability will have to have that test. Now, you can check with the school to see if they might have some -- you know, if that school has any exceptions that they make, but under the ADA, a student must meet all the same requirements as -- a student with a disability must meet all the requirements as any other student. Therefore, if the College says you must have an S. A. T. score of whatever in order to become a student here, then a student with a learning disability must still have an S. A. T. of that level in order to become a student there. Now, it is possible to get some accommodations when you take the S. A. T. and A. C. T. So what you need to do is -- when you get the booklet where you apply for the test, there is a section in there that says if you have a disability and need accommodations, here is the procedure you need to go through. And it is possible to get accommodations such as extra time and things like that on those tests to help -- so you might score better. But the student -- if the school requires it, you'll have to take it. RACHEL: Right. So and to request an accommodation to take one of those tests, then you deal with the testing agency? BETH: Yeah. It explains it all in the booklet. Like you can get the booklet from your high school counselor's office, the application is a little booklet. I think you can probably also do it online now. But one thing to realize is that if you do need accommodations, you need to plan some extra time. What will happen is that there is a form you will fill out. You'll have to have someone who can verify the disability fill out some forms. They get mailed in to a separate address. All the documentation is reviewed, and then you get a letter back saying what accommodations, if any, that you qualified for. And that can take -- I think about, if I'm remembering right it can take about three weeks. So you need to plan in that extra three weeks when you're looking at what test date you're planning to take the test. But yeah, it's all in the booklet. If you have to take any kind of standardized test, A. C. T, S. A. T, G. R. E, M. C. A. T, all of those tests, if you look in the booklet to apply for the test, there is a section that says if you are a student with a disability who needs accommodations, you need to go through this procedure. RACHEL: Okay, great. And then to find out if the College or university requires it, do you deal with -- which office do you deal with? Is it the admissions office? BETH: Yeah, I would say either admissions or you could always just call their disabilities office directly. If you can talk to admissions, you might not get somebody who is knowledgeable on all the ins and outs and exceptions and I would say if you call the disabilities office and talk to a counselor or specialist in the disabilities office, they would know if they had any exceptions. RACHEL: Okay, great. Okay, we're getting a number of questions in. Do you want to kind of finish any presentation you have? BETH: Yeah, I don't have a whole lot more in my plan presentation, so let me just finish that up and we'll take questions until we run out of time. RACHEL: Sounds good. BETH: Ok, some of this in fact may be relevant. What I wanted to talk about now is how to actually set up your services for College. We talked about some of the differences, talked about what you can do in preparation. Now you have decided where you're going to go to College, and it's time to set up your services. As soon as you have decided where you want to go, call their disabilities office. It's not that uncommon for me to get phone calls from people six months or more before they are planning to start. And that's great. At least to touch base and say, okay, I am planning to come there in the Fall, what do I need to be doing? And, again, here I'm going to talk about a very generalization. Every school is going to have their own procedure, but in general, it will probably work something like this: You will set up an appointment with the disabilities counselor. Sometimes they are called service specialist, a lot of different titles. Basically, you'll make an appointment with somebody in the disabilities office. You're going to need to bring in your documentation of disability. And they are all going to need that. So make sure you can get that. You go in with your documentation of disability. You sit down with the counselor, and you talk about your disability. All those things I said you needed to be able to talk about, this is why. You're going to sit down, your gonna say what your disability is, you would talk about how it affects you, talk about what services did you use in high school that were helpful. You'll talk about what services maybe you tried in high school that didn't really help very much and then you'll talk to the counselor about what services they'll going to be able to offer you in college. Now, even though there may be some of those services I talked about before that they could do in high school, but you can't do in college, it still is helpful for the counselor to know what you used and how it helped because there may be something along a similar line that they can do, but if they know that this worked, chances are and we can't do is that exactly, maybe there is something that is similar that will work. The more information they have, the better they can come up with what to do to help you. It is all done on an individual case-by-case basis. Sometimes I will have students come in and they will say, well, you know, my friend has the same disability as me and she is 1getting such and such service. I want that service, too. That's not how it works. Like I said before, we don't accommodate a disability. We accommodate the effects of a disability and it may be that the way that this disability is affecting the friend is different than the way it's affecting this student. And it may be that this student gets something her friend doesn't get. So it's all done very individualized. How is your disability affecting your ability to go to school? And that's a good question to ask yourself before you go into that appointment. Because a lot of times I will have students just kind of look at me and say I don't know how it affects me. So kind of think about it. Does it affect your understanding of reading the materials? Does it affect how fast you process information? Does it affect your ability to see the material, to hear what the teacher is saying? Does it affect your ability to get physically from one room to another? You know, is it fine motor problems that makes it difficult for you to hold a pencil and write, just how does your disability affect your ability to do what is required of the average student in school? And then we look at those difficulties and how can we compensate for those difficulties, how can we get you the access that you need to have and what accommodations can we provide to help compensate for the difficulties that you do have? So that's basically how it's going to start up. Is you're going to go meet with the counselor and you are part of the process. You as the student are part of the process. It is no longer, we have determined this is what you will be using and here it is. Another thing that comes back to the responsibility thing. Yes, as a student you are now very much an integral part of the process of determining what is an appropriate service for you and what services you want to use. By the same token, these are now optional services for you to use. They are not optional that the school gets to choose whether or not to provide them, but they are optional whether or not you use them. If the school says, you know, if the disabilities office says, okay, we are authorizing you to be able to have extra time on an exam in a private room, that doesn't mean you have to use it. If you choose that, no, you know, I think I'd just rather take my test in the class with everybody else, that's okay. That is your choice. Okay? You're not going to be forced to use any accommodations that are set up. When you meet with the counselor, you will talk about what you qualify for, how to access those, but it comes back to being your choice on whether or not you actually do or not. And I get that a lot with students that will come in and say, well, you know, I don't think I really need the extra time on the test but I might. I did use it in high school, but I'd kind of like to try it in College with doing it the same as everybody else and then if I need it, then I'll use it. And that is perfectly fine; but here is the problem. If you qualify for extra time on exams, and you decide to try to take the test in the classroom with everybody else, and you fail the test. You then have the choice to say, okay, from here on out I want to have the extra time on my test. That's fine. You cannot say, well, I didn't use my extra time and I failed. So now I want to take that test again with my extra time and replace the grade. You can't do that. The accommodation was offered. You declined it. You are kind of stuck with the consequences. So what I recommend to students in that sort of situation who are thinking they might not need it, to say, okay, why don't you try it with the extra time first. Then if you find out that you're finishing with lots of time to spare, and you think you'll be okay taking it in the classroom with everybody else, that's fine. But at least that way you're starting out in the safer way as opposed to, I'm going to try to do this without my accommodations. Then you're stuck with any bad grades that you got as a result of not using your accommodations. You can't go back and say, well, I tried it without them and now I want them and I want to be able to retake that test. You can't do that. Yes, you have much more choice once you are in College in what accommodations you use. You have a choice about whether or not you use them at all, but you are also responsible then for the consequences of what you decided to do or not do. And one last note I want to talk about because I'm sure there will be lots of questions coming up now, is the involvement of the parents. And we certainly do not want to alienate the parents. The parents typically with students with disabilities are very involved in their student's lives, in their children's lives at school. They often fight very hard to get their student what services that they need. They are very knowledgeable about their students and what they need and what they -- how it affects them and that sort of thing. Parents are a valuable resource. However, legally, once the student gets into College, we have to work with the student. And if the student would like to have their parents there when their accommodations are being discussed and the procedures are being discussed and so forth,, that's fine. That's entirely up to the student's decision. But sometimes I will have parents who want to come to that meeting and set up the services for their student -- for the child -- for their child, our student, without the student being present and we cannot do that. In fact, you know, if a parent were to call us and say, hey, is my student using services? Are they following through? We can't really tell you without the student's permission, the student being there for that conversation. So we definitely want the parents' support. They are very valuable in helping students with the transition, but it's also important that everybody understand that -- I guess sort of the power, the involvement in their accommodations is being transitioned from the parents more towards the student and the parents take perhaps a more supportive role in the accommodations as opposed to the more central role that they had in high school. But as the students often are not quite ready to take on all of that responsibility themselves, it's kind of -- it's a transition. It's a transition phase. We certainly do not want to say, okay, parents, thanks you've been really great so far but we don't need you anymore. Because that is so totally not true, but just the understanding that the student must be involved in all aspects once they get to College. >> RACHEL: It sounds like it's not only a transition for the students; it's really a transition for the parents, too. >> BETH: I would say, yeah. It is. I have to say that most parents I have worked with have been absolutely fantastic in helping support their students and they want their student to be self-reliant and self- sufficient and be able to take on those responsibilities and I definitely applaud parents in all that they do in helping students -- helping their children deal with a disability and that sort of thing, but it's very important. I have parents out there listening that you help your child understand that they are going to have to be taking on more responsibility once they get into College and helping them prepare for that and helping them know that you're still there for their support, but that they will be more involved than they have been in the past perhaps. RACHEL: Okay: BETH: I guess that pretty much wraps up most of my planned presentation and we'll just go to questions. RACHEL: Ok, sounds gook. Picking up right where you left off, I did get a question from -- I think its from a parent asking if the disability services office actually offers students an orientation so that they know what's then expected of them? BETH: Again, it's going to depend on the school. We tend to do the orientation more at that first meeting when they come in and we go over a lot of these things that I just talked about, as far as it's more their responsibility to come to us if there is a problem. It's kind of a joke that I have my soap box speech that I give all students when they come in as far as I can't help fix a problem that I don't know about. So it's the student's responsibility to come let me know if there is any problems and that sort of thing. So we kind of do that responsibility talk -- or at least I do -- in that first meeting with the students. Other schools might have a more formal disability orientation day where they bring in students who have disabilities or some kind of orientation as a group. I also do a lot of outreach to the high schools and trying to -- the same kind of thing I'm doing here is I will go to a high school and talk to students there. So I think I got lost in the question. (Laughter) the question was do Colleges provide orientation to let them know all of this stuff? RACHEL: Right. BETH: I would say most schools are going to have some sort of orientation, but some of this information, it's not going to get to them soon enough. Some of this information I'm talking about, they need to know while they are still in high school and so that's kind of why we're trying to find these other ways of reaching out and letting people know about it. I would say most schools are going to have some sort of orientation, whether it's done on a one on one basis or as a group, but it's just going to depend on the school. RACHEL: All right, I have three questions that are sort of interconnected here that basically are asking about -- I guess either when a teacher or a disability services office don't necessarily agree with an accommodation. Look, maybe I can't get all three together. Let me try these two together. Basically, is the disability services counselor -- do they have the final say on whether somebody gets an accommodation or not or what happens if there is a disagreement between the disability service counselor and the student? So what can a student do at that point? Is there somebody higher up or another office that they can go to? BETH: Okay. I kind of see two questions in that. I'm going to address two issues with that question. I'm going to start with what happens if an accommodation has been agreed upon by the student and the disability office and the teacher doesn't agree with it. Does the disabilities counselor have the last say? Not necessarily. One thing I haven't really touched upon -- maybe I touched upon it a little bit, but I haven't really emphasized it, is you cannot change the core requirements of a class or of a program. If the teacher feels that an accommodation is going to change the core component or the core requirements of a class, they can say that. We can't do this accommodation because it's going to substantially change the course. For example, let's say that we have a computer class, and we have a student who is unable to use their hands, and the class has to do with web design, some kind of graphic design thing, okay? And let's say that -- and this is not a very good example, but we'll go with it any way -- RACHEL: Yeah, I'm listening. BETH: Let's say the goal of the class is to understand something about design. It's to understand how colors work well together, to understand layout and that sort of thing. If that's the situation, it may be perfectly fine to have an assistant in the classroom who is -- this isn't a good example -- RACHEL: Actually, I see where you're going. I do think it's a good example. BETH: if I get stuck you can help me. If the student has somebody, an assistant in the class who is doing some of the hands on work for them, that they are telling them, okay, move this over there and they're telling them, okay, now, change this color to blue or whatever. Because the point of the class is do they understand layout. Now, let's say that we have a very similar class and the point of this class is that you are able to use a specific software package in order to create the website. And you cannot physically do it. To have somebody else physically doing it may -- there is an argument there -- may change the point of the class. If the whole point of the class is that when you are done with this, you will be able to design a website using this software package, and you cannot physically use the software package, then having somebody else do it for you -- there is an argument there that perhaps that's changing what the goal of the class is. It may not be the best example in the world, but the point I'm trying to make is you have to look at what is the point of the class, and does providing that accommodation change what you are going to get out of the class? Once you're into College, when you pass a class, the assumption is that you can do everything as a result of that class that every other student can do as a result of that class. And if providing a certain accommodation is drastically going to change what you get out of the class, it may be that that accommodation is not appropriate for that class. RACHEL: Okay, and if I can just throw some things in there. I think that your example really helps elucidate the concepts. Just so people know that there is so much technology wise today that that should not end up happening. BETH: That's why I started to back off of that example because hopefully with technology you would be able to use the software anyway. Real world though, not everything is that perfect. You know, the technology -- RACHEL: but if a program that somebody is going through in a College is, you know, to learn web design, then the College is going to have to use and teach that with some software that is accessible. Now, there certainly could be an elective, learn design with this software or that software or the other software, but if the College is basically training people, you know, to be able to be web designers, then the College is responsible to make sure that their I. T. is accessible. BETH: and let's take another example. Maybe this is a little more clear. Let's say the student is wanting to go into the auto mechanics program, but yet they are not able to physically work on a car. Okay, to say okay, you know, the point of this certificate is that you're going to be able to be an auto mechanic, but yet you physically cannot do the work. Then to say, okay, we're going to provide you an assistant who is going to do all the physical work and you just have to tell them what to do is not really appropriate because you're not going to have that on a job. The point is that you are going to be able to be able to do the work. Or a really silly example -- you're blind, there is not a whole lot we can do for you in the truck driving academy. So there are going to be situations where an accommodation is not going to be appropriate for a class. RACHEL: Okay. BETH: To go back to the original question. RACHEL: Let's go back. I think some of what these questions are really getting at is what happens actually if -- BETH: if there is a disagreement? RACHEL: Yeah. BETH: If the teacher does not agree with an accommodation, then it basically becomes a dialogue between -- and we don't immediately as disability counselors, we don't immediately go to the professor and say, well, too bad, you have to do this any way. We listen to them and say why do you think this is not an appropriate accommodation? And sometimes the teachers will come up with something even better and it is fine with the student and everybody is happy, but if it really comes down to a major disagreement and all parties cannot agree on -- if the teacher is saying absolutely I will not do this and the disability office is saying, well, you really need to and there cannot be any sort of agreement reached, well then we would probably go to our legal counsel and ask for some help there. RACHEL: Okay. And then what happens if there is just a disagreement between the disability services counselor and the student? BETH: Again, we try to come to some sort of agreement between the two. If it is something like, you know, the student is insisting that they have less homework and we try to explain to them that the law has changed and we can't do that anymore, you know, those type of things tend to get solved pretty easy. If it's something bigger where it's just a fundamental -- if the student feels that they have been discriminated against, if the student feels they are being denied a service that they are legally entitled to, most schools will have some sort of grievance policy. Again, this is going to be depending on the school thing. There is going to be some sort of grievance policy. If the student wants to take it -- if they are not satisfied with the school's grievance policy and they want to take it outside generally going to O. C. R, Office of Civil Rights is the first step outside of the school system as far as, you know, bringing any sort of legal case against the school. But generally there is some procedure that goes up through the Dean, Vice-President, you know, up through the chain of command within a school if the student feels that they are not being -- not getting the services that they need. RACHEL: Okay. I'm going to switch gears. BETH: Okay. RACHEL: We have a couple of questions that I think are really asking about clarity, about the laws. One of them wants to know is there a specific law that has to do with note takers in College and who must provide them? There also is another question about does the law state that the university must pay for interpreters? BETH: (Laughter)Okay. Some of my favorite questions. Under -- there is -- note taking is listed as a possible accommodation in the ADA. It says services that may be provided and here is a sample of some of the services that may be provided. There is nothing that's going to say specifically if you have this disability, you will then get note-takers. There is nothing that's going to say if you get a note-taker, it will be a paid note-taker. And this really comes down to school policy. Some schools will hire outside students who are not in the class to go into a class and be a note-taker for students. Other schools are going to use students that are already in the class and that will therefore take notes for themselves that will then share with the student. Some will reimburse the student somehow with a voucher or the bookstore or something if they take notes for the whole semester. Some schools you can get service learning credits for being a note taker for a student. There is nothing legal that's going to say how note taking services are set up. It is simply listed as one of possible accommodations that a student may qualify for. It may not be what the person wanted to hear necessarily, but again, that's going to come back to is it something that's reasonable based on how the disability is affecting this particular student that they're not going to be able to take quality notes for themselves and will need some sort of back up on note taking. So that kind of comes back to the school policy. The other question about interpreters and who pays for interpreters, is that what it was? RACHEL: Yes. BETH: Ok, the school is responsible for making themselves accessible to students who need interpreters, which is a kind of convoluted way of saying that the school needs to provide interpreters for events, classes and so forth that happen on their campus. Who pays for them? Now, certainly the student is not going to be paying for them. I'll be very clear on that. If there is any question about is the family or the student having to pay for interpreters for school functions? Absolutely not. Most states, however, have some sort of agreement with their vocational rehabilitation agency about who pays for interpreters. In some states the rehab agency is going to pay for interpreters for their clients. In some states the school pays for all of it. In some states they share the cost. So, again, there is not a law that says -- the law doesn't say the College will pay for the interpreters. It says that the College will make their programs accessible, which means that they have to make sure interpreters are provided, but it doesn't mean that they have to foot the bill. It can be paid by rehab or some other way, but they have to make sure they are provided somehow or the other. Does that answer the question? RACHEL: I think so. And there is kind of a connected question now that you brought up vocational rehabilitation. Which is, if voc rehab says they won't pay for it, then at that point is the College going to be required to pay for it? BETH: Yes. Bottom line, the College is responsible for making sure they are provided. Which means bottom line they will be going to be the one paying for it. They can come up with some other sort of arrangement. RACHEL: Ok, ok, and that follow up came from somebody who was letting us know that in most cases voc rehab agencies require a student with a disability who wants to attend a certain College to perform well in school maybe for up to two years in some cases and so there certainly can be a gap. BETH: I have to interrupt here because I am on a portable phone and my battery is about to die. So, I'm going to go, and will speakerphone be okay, do you think? RACHEL: Sure. BETH: I'm going to put us on speakerphone hold on. Are you there? RACHEL: Yes, if you can get as close to the phone as possible. BETH: Sorry about that. I didn't charge up my phone well enough. Yes -- hold on. Different rehab agencies are going to have different policies. Some of them will require that students go full time, that they maintain a certain GPA, that they are making progress towards a degree in order to continue their financial support, so, yes, that is true. RACHEL: Okay. All right, I'm going to give you another one that is right up your alley. BETH: Okay. RACHEL: This comes from somebody who it sounds like graduated College a while ago and has a hearing disability. When in College ended up being frustrated because nobody knew what an FM system was, which is something that people who are hard of hearing often use. And found it difficult to have to explain every semester to every professor and everything about what it was. Can you make any suggestions about how that transition might be easier? BETH: That is right up my alley. I wish I had planted that question, but I didn't. There are a number of wonderful fact sheets that are put out by (Inaudible), which is the Northeastern equivalent of P.E.C that I'm involved with. The one page -- most of them are just one page, front and back, brief information about topics related to students who are deaf or hard of hearing that are intended to be given to the teachers. Exactly for this kind of thing. It is a tip sheet on -- we use it in more general term assistive listening device. It is the same device as the FM system the listener was referring to. It's a one-page sheet that can be sent from the disabilities office to the professor or the student can just give it to the professor however logistically it works out best. But it would explain what the system is, how does it work, in a way so the student is not having to explain it over and over and over. So we do have those resources available. And before we hang up, I'll make sure you know how to get all those. RACHEL: Ok great and actually. What we can do is instead of rattling off some websites for people which can be rough, I'll make sure to get those resources from you, Beth, and I'll post them up on the Web page so when this is archived in a day or two, people will be able to come back and just find them. BETH: That would be great. RACHEL: All right, I just got a whole stack of new questions in. One goes back to the question of evaluations and I mean, some of these questions really might actually be for schools or for experts in I.D.E.A, whereas Beth is really an expert in what happens in College; but this person is saying that she believes that schools are required to reevaluate students with disabilities every three years so that technically really people could have a fairly current evaluation from the high school. BETH: That was the case until I.D.E.A. was what's the word I'm looking for, I lost the word, reaffirmed, but I.D.E.A. used to require every three years. When it was recently renewed, it did not have that stipulation in there anymore. RACHEL: Okay. All right, keeping rolling, we'll try to get in as many of these as we can. Are accommodations at College reviewed annually or once they are determined do they remain for the duration of somebody's College time? BETH: Good question. Again, it's going to partially depend on the school you go to. It's also going to depend on the disability. For example, me personally, I like to review the accommodations once a year, just to touch base with the student, to make sure that, you know, if there are any problems that have come up, that we can talk about them, that we can see if any changes need to be made. Most times they are probably going to pretty much stay the same, but you know, maybe they need some tweaking. You do not have to wait that long, though. If you're student and something is not working on your accommodations and you want to change something, you don't have to wait for some kind of annual review. You can just go to your counselor and say this is not working. On certain disabilities if I had something that was very changeable, like say a psychological disability that was in flux, I might want to have a meeting every six-months, once a semester or something, because those needs might change more drastically than someone with a more stable disability. RACHEL: Okay, all right, forgive me, I'm trying to really sort of get the essence of some of these questions. I'm going to have to come back to this one, but it sounds like somebody has sent in some feedback about what happens in the high school and should happen in the high school. So let me try to read that one while you're talking again. BETH: Okay. RACHEL: and come back to it. All right, there is a question about are things different, is the law different, with a public versus a private College? And the question specifically relates to interpreting services, but I believe we can sort of address it more globally as well. BETH: Okay. I'm sorry; I missed this part of it. The question is whether the law applies differently to private or public schools in college? RACHEL: Correct. BETH: Pretty much not. If you want to get down to real picky things, there are different sections that might apply slightly different, but this isn't that different of a detailed legal talk. Basically, no, there is not going to be any difference, a public or private college or university; you're still going to be entitled to accommodations. RACHEL: Okay. Like just if I can kind of build on that or echo what you're saying, that really what we are able to do in this Web Cast is, you know, kind of give some good general answers without really having time to go into the legal details of which parts of the law address some of these issues. However, if anybody does want to know which part of the law applies to any specific question that you have, please feel free to E-mail us and we certainly can send that right back to you. Okay? Because I think what Beth is really saying is that, yes, there are different parts of the law that will apply here or could apply also depending on funding streams, but generally, yes, I mean all the schools are going to be required to provide accommodations. BETH: That's exactly what I was saying. Thank you. RACHEL: Like I said, I was just echoing. BETH: Are there other questions? RACHEL: There is another question, what if your child enters college as a minor under the age of 18? Does the rule still apply about informing both the parent and the child about what accommodations are being used? I guess basically this question is, is it a matter of entering College or does their age play in to the picture as well? BETH: You might back me on this one, but my understanding is if a child is under 18, then we need their parents involvement until they turned 18. RACHEL: Well I was hoping you had the definitive answer on that one. BETH: I don't have the definitive answer on that one. There are certain release forms that we need to get sometimes we have to get signed and if they are under 18, the parents need to sign it as well. As far as setting up their services, I would say, you know, that the parent wouldn't have to be involved if they were under 18 as far as setting up their services -- RACHEL: Okay, It sounds like really that this question is getting to laws that are not disability-related laws. BETH: Yeah, right. RACHEL: and so this is something we would have to look into a little more carefully and maybe offline and get back to that questioner. BETH: One thing related that I'll say this real briefly because I know there are other questions, is that sometimes we will get what we call dual enrolled students and that will be a student that is still in high school but also taking a College class. And that's a whole other can of worms and then that may be partially what you're addressing. And that really becomes a case-by-case situation. I can't give a global statement about who provides what in that sort of situation. It depends a lot on what kind of agreement is set up between the high school and the college and so forth. If you do get into a situation where a student is doing both high school and College at the same time, you just need to make sure all interested parties are talking early on so any problems or questions are resolved long before the class starts. RACHEL: All right. I know we're nearing the end of our time here. We have a few questions that are touching on I guess different pieces of the issue of technology. And can you talk a little bit about the school's responsibility when it comes to technology? There actually seems to be a particular interest in assistive technology and in what case does the College have to provide that? BETH: Okay. I'm thinking. Most schools that I have worked with any way or talked to do have assistive technology for students to use, things such as screen readers, screen enlarging programs, some kind of voice recognition software. Remember the bottom line is to make sure that the student has access. The law doesn't really say anything about how you provide that access. So although most schools are providing some sort of assistive technology, if they don't have it to offer, as long as they are offering the access some other way, that may be sufficient. For example, a lot of our students use screen readers to read their textbooks. We get the books in a digital format one way or another and that's a whole other presentation, and they can use the screen readers to read their books out loud to them. But let's say there was another school that doesn't have this software and they have a student that needs to have their books auditorially. They can have someone read the textbook on to a tape recorder. It's still giving the student access to listen to their textbooks. You know, technology -- the assistive technology may have some advantages, but they are still providing access and still doing what they need to do. So instead of saying the school must provide assistive technology, not how are they providing the access necessarily, but are they providing the access. Now, if they have online classes, if they have websites that the students are required to go to for their class or something like that, then there needs to be some sort of technology that will allow the student to access that information if every other student has access to that information, then they must as well. And really about the only way to provide that I would think would be through some sort of assistive technology. But the point is access being provided, not necessarily are they using the brightest and best and shiniest new way of doing it. Now, chances are the school is not going to provide that sort of software for home use. It would be just something that they would have in the lab at school or something. RACHEL: Okay, and I do think maybe it was unfair of me to throw you that one with so little time on the clock, and we do -- actually in addition to putting up some of the resources you mentioned earlier on this web page as we archive it, I also will put uplinks to some other Web Cast we've had that deal specifically with the issues of technology in post-secondary education. And these questions are prickly and often times you need to know more details, but I mean, these are some really serious issues and ones that are being given really some good attention lately. So I will provide additional resources to people specifically about technology. BETH: and it sounds like I am repeating myself a lot, but some things are really determined on a case-by-case basis. It is hard to make a global statement about a lot of things. So I'm not trying to necessarily avoid a question, but it is just hard to make a global statement on this of these things. RACHEL: I wanted to actually just kind of sort of communicate what this one questioner sent in and then we can -- I'll turn it back to you to wrap up. This person says that it seems like a lot of what we're talking about is really a failure of high schools to properly conduct transition planning and then has laid out a lot of what should be an effective transition planning. By the way, I'm not sure if this letter came from somebody who is affiliated with a high school or not; but in any case, there is some information here about what should be included and it's interesting that he's talking about transition meetings really should help communicate the student's needs to the College and often times when the College is local, that it's possible to tap somebody from the College at the high school transition meeting or some communication with them and also to point out that it's important to let students know that they may have been getting all kinds of related services through I.D.E.A. is that they now won't get in College, such as speech services, transportation, so the whole picture -- I just chose to say this now because I think it really echoes what you started with, Beth, that the whole picture changes. And that people really need to not go into College making certain assumptions but to really ask. And hopefully today we've given people a taste of what to expect and how to prepare, but that we're certainly here for additional questions and of course we can only scratch the surface in our short period of time. BETH: I'd like to say that was a fantastic question and I'm glad is that person wrote in. I do want to clarify that I'm not trying to blame the high schools in any way. Most of the high school counselors that I have talked to have no idea that there is a change, that there is a difference in between high school and College and once we've talked are very interested and excited and willing to work with the students and help them with the transition. I'm not in any way saying that the high school is somehow failing. I think it's more of a lack of awareness on both ends. Those in the high schools understanding how things change once they are in College, but also from the College counselors not understanding where the students come from when they are in high school. That their College counselors is maybe making certain assumptions that the students know how to ask for certain procedures that they've never had to do before. So there is sort of a lack of communication, I think, and certainly here locally we work with the high schools as much as possible. I do go into high schools and do presentations and that sort of thing, but I know that's not happening everywhere, so the forecast is not to put blame on anyone, but to say the bottom line is it's different. We all need to understand the differences so we can help the student through what is often a confusing time anyway, and I do want to -- I will make sure when all this stuff is posted on the website, make sure my E-mail is up there, Rachel, if people want to E-mail me with questions later, I will be glad to see what I can do to help. RACHEL: Okay, great. Thank you. Well, I really want to thank you over all, Beth. I think you've done a great job, hand set to speaker phone, of really introducing these difficult concepts and hopefully for a lot of people, you know, providing some clarity and for some starting the process. And I want to let people know that today's Web Cast will be archived, which means you will be able to go back and listen as well as go back and read a transcript. And I do hope that you will join us next month when Beth will continue our conversation about students with disabilities in College. At that point we will really focus on appropriate services for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. And we look forward to that, Beth. BETH: Thank you. RACHEL: and I would like to ask people to please fill out our evaluation form. There is a link to it on the web page. We would love your feedback so that we know if there are additional topics you would like to hear, and how we might improve. I also need to acknowledge a few other people before we sign off. First I'd like to acknowledge NIDRR who funds the host for today's program, which is the Disability Law Resource Project. And there are others here who have also made today possible, certainly Beth and thank you, Beth. Thank you, we really appreciate everything that you've done and all the knowledge that you were able to squeeze in and share with us in an hour and a half. And then for others here at ILRU, I'd like to acknowledge Marj Gordon, Sharon Finney, Dawn Heinsohn, Vinh Nguyen, also on our team are Rob Dickehuth and Marie Bryant, our realtime captioner. So thanks for tuning in today, everybody, and we look forward to connecting with you again in the near future. Have a great afternoon everyone. BETH: Thank you all. RACHEL: Bye-bye