It seems to me this woman has a lot of emotional issues.

 Macabre, I also struggled with mentioning her weight in this discussion. I don't believe it is remotely the same as mentioning her color/race. I would venture to say that this woman has some disability due to her weight.  I am overweight myself, FWIW. I was trying to convey, that the office is full of food and candy, which she is always eating...at least whenever we have been present (twice now). Her "tantrum" of throwing the Reese's has nothing to do with her skin color. It has everything to do with the fact that there is FOOD everywhere, all of the time and DD is obviously inconveniencing her by forcing her not to eat Reese's when DD is there. It was not about  DD's disability with this woman, it was about HER and her food. Can you even imagine how DD felt when that woman rolled her eyes and threw that Reese's??? I'd venture to say she felt like a burden..a piece of crap.
At her college in Texas, they had trail mix in the office and at our initial meeting, jumped up and took it out. Both women washed their hands and came back in. They mentioned that one was diabetic and usually had the trail mix at her desk (which was not the one we were at). They just handled it with efficiency and professionalism. No eyerolls or flinging of the food. And both women there were also overweight.
Oh, and these were not study carrels....google audiology Whisper Rooms. That is exactly what their testing rooms were:)

Focus on what was RIGHT about the scenario-- for example, she recognized that this was not an appropriate testing environment for your DD.

This took us about a year with my DD's four year uni, btw, because their
"testing center" was similarly a cube farm with higher walls and doors-- but it still allowed FOOD in that setting, which meant that it was no better (and in some ways worse) than a classroom setting. DD tried it a total of.... once--

before she realized that it wasn't workable.

She's had great luck making arrangements with individual professors for testing more safely.  Her tips and mine:

1.  Ask well in advance of testing-- that is, get it onto the radar early.

2.  Apologize for the inconvenience, and explain that rather than handling it through disability, you'd prefer to work out something convenient for both you (the student) and the professor.

3.  Offer to take the exam in the professor's office/lab space-- the hour BEFORE it is offered to the class at large.  That way it's clear that you're on the up-and-up, you're not looking to take advantage of anything, and you're genuinely trying to make the faculty member's life easier, too.  If you need extra time, this is also a good way to manage that-- offer to START the exam that way, and finish it in class (if you get 200% time) or finish it in the half hour following class time.  Why do faculty prefer this?  Well, because it allows THEM to proctor, and yes-- as you've seen for yourself, there are questions about integrity at academic testing centers, and faculty KNOW it, and it MIGHTILY peeves them... and because for faculty that write de novo assessments, it means less lead time-- important in a class where they may not know until Wednesday what should be covered on Friday's midterm.

I agree with yellow. Begin documentation.

The cubicles are called study carrells, btw.





An aside--kind of:  the woman's weight has absolutely nothing to do with this. It would be like saying she was black. It's a physical trait that is highly irrelevant, and frankly makes me a lot more unsympathetic. I was struggling when reading your post to try to come up what might be a helpful response but was having a really tough time. Fortunately yellow said what was needed.

It sounds like a productive and yet eye opening meeting.

I'd have dd report it. Bet you $1 there's already something else in that woman's file with HR. Document document document. Especially if for some reason the nice lady is absent the day your dd has to take an exam. It could become "she said" but your dd will have already started a paper trail...

I'd also have her note in that letter that the meeting was NOT private and that she questions her HIPPA privacy when students were poping in and out.

As for the lack of academic integrity, I wouldn't touch that. However, it makes me question the school itself. Is this a 4 year college? Or community college? Giving answers? Really?!!

Welcome back, btw- I remember you from before! 

 Okay. We arrived early and our "plan" worked. The other, quiet lady did our "intake". She has a niece with a life threatening peanut allergy!!! I wanted to leap out of my chair and hug her. The paperwork was rather long, compared to her other college. It included her ADA rights and who to complain to if she had a grievance with either of the "specialists" at this college. I kept my mouth shut A LOT, and only added what DD had forgotten, which was not a lot.
DD sauntered right in and eyed that Jar of Jif and told the lady how severe her allergy was, to please wash her hands and to please clean off the table where we were having our meeting. This meeting was constantly interrupted by teachers and students who were testing...it was not in a private room AT ALL.  This room also houses the testing center...little cubicles like you would have a hearing test taken in. I thought that was weird, and hey, what about PRIVACY?!?!?
DD has to inform her professors of her accommodations herself, which I thought was kind of odd. At her other college, she had to hand them a paper to sign, saying that they had received her accommodations and it was to be returned to the Disability office. All of the paperwork is to be sent to the main office and an email of "approval" or not, will be sent to DD. The woman stressed that DD was to immediately contact her or the other lady who shall not be named if any professor did not honor her accommodations. So, overall it went much better than we had anticipated. Now, here is the bizarre thing that happened toward the end of the meeting...
The evil lady arrived with a huge bag of food from a fast food place (no biggie there). She must weigh 350 pounds and she was breathing so heavily just from walking, I thought she would need some assistance ..and I am serious. (my nursing instincts kicked in) She sat down and out came a girl from the testing cubicle with some questions about her math test??!!! She came out about 3 times and the ladies both gave her answers..which I thought really odd. Most testing centers are like a prison type environment. Very strict rules, etc. She also came out for candy?? While....all of a sudden the bigger lady grabbed a KitKat and inhaled it (processed in same facility as peanuts) she then grabbed a Reeses peanut butter cup..DD stood up and the nice lady stood up and said "no!" "she cannot be around or smell peanut butter!" "She has a life threatening allergy." Well, oh my God, the big lady rolled her eyes and I swear on my daughter's life THREW that Reeses across her desk in anger. I could not believe it. She was pissed .She was only about 1 1/2 feet from us. She then said "well how is this gonna work, she can't test in here!" I was, for once, speechless. This grown woman,who was in charge, threw a tantrum over her candy. The nice lady then offered DD a room (not a black cubicle) to test in instead of the usual and customary testing rooms. DD was fine with that, she just wanted to get away from the candy fiend. The nice lady then said "there will always be Reeses's in this office, just call ahead and we will clean up.".
So, now what. This large lady will obviously have an issue with DD and I cannot tell you how much of a weird position this puts DD in. I would LOVE to report her--I have rarely seen someone act so unprofessionally in my life. But then what? What if nothing happens? Then she will "have it in" for DD even more. Don't know where to go from here.
I was immensely proud of DD today, she was so scared of the bigger lady and we did not have to do the intake with her...but then the tantrum happened.
Sigh.

Good luck!

 


I'll be thinking about you both today.   

Good luck to you and DD.

 Well, we meet at 3pm this afternoon. DD is scared of this woman..seriously. She is, and excuse me if I am politically or otherwise incorrect,  quite large and quite not womanly. She had a large container of Jif on her desk, along with other foods and was actually dirty! I mean crumbs on your shirt and pants, dirty. She was gruff.
  DD was a 4.00 student her first year in college, so she is absolutely ready for the college experience, but that is because she felt SAFE and HEARD. I reminded her that, actually, the woman works for her...DD is paying to attend this college.  DD did already sign papers at her other college so that I was able to call with any questions or concerns. I really rarely had to. DD became quite independent her first year and we are proud of her.
  I am just going to go into this with a positive attitude and see what happens. This woman is actually a disability "specialist" and not THE lady in charge of the entire program at the college. I just want it to go well and I really thought by bringing in her 504 papers from high school and her accommodation plan from her previous college, that she would be somewhat appreciative. Wrong.
DD is already aware that she will have to have this woman wash her hands before any paperwork is passed to her or signed, due to the Jif on the woman's desk. That is probably not a great way to start the meeting, but it has to be brought up and DD knows this.
I'll let you know how it goes.

Wackattack, the letter you posted is scary to me.  It lumps FAs, which are potentially life threatening, in with all other disabilities.  I hope that over the next 4 years my son will grow into the person who could handle a meeting with the disability office at college by himself without me but as of now he isn't anywhere close to that.  The attitude of the person who wrote the letter was a real know it all, at least how it sounds to me.  Pushing a 504 back to parents and saying, "don't need it" would not be something to which I would react well.  The disability officer would first have to actually *listen* well to either my son or to me or a doctor's letter or something so my son and our family would know the officer understood his particular needs.  A cookie cutter approach to FAs won't work for all, as CM's daughter and others show.  I will only send DS to a school that I will trust to take good care of him.  Thankfully there are all these young adults (and their parents) paving the way for us so I expect by the time DS gets there, things will be much, much easier for him than it has been. 

The willingness to listen and learn and have the awareness that one might not know all there is to know on a topic is what I find missing in the things you posted about the disability officer, and that would worry me a great deal.  I hope it all goes smoothly.  I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you and didn't read all the responses so don't know what your last post even meant. 

Thanks for posting this, though. It is good to know at this point that that type of attitude exists among disability officers.

One last thing, in general I think that once kids go to college, they should take care of themselves.  This is just one topic where I don't think that fully applies, at least until procedures for how the child will get safe food and stay safe are established.

[/quote]

I apologize if I misinterpreted what you were saying.

Since you've made it clear the only input you want is from those who agree with you, I'll respectfully bow out of this conversation now.
[/quote]
I have never said, nor insinuated, that I only wanted input from those who agree with me. I wanted guidance, some personal experiences, etc. That is all. If we only get input from those who agree with us, we never learn...and this group is for-in my opinion-learning and sharing.
Now! THANK YOU for those who have commented of late. DD does have preferential seating and the ability to test in the testing center. (her anxiety goes up as well, so that is a HUGE deal for her).
She came to me yesterday and said "if I am an adult and in charge of myself and my studies, then I can choose to have you in the meeting with me. I thought that was pretty smart. We shall see how it goes over. I am anxious to see how she does, in spite of her medical issues of late.
We did bring the 504 from high school and the accommodation plan from her college in  Texas with us...the lady literally shoved them back at us and said, "don't need em". That could be good or bad, we will see.
So, thank you all for the opinions and experiences....GET OUT FROM UNDER THAT CHAIR

^   


exactly.

Though we've been (over the past few months) treated as though this is DD's parents "coddling" her, or "enabling" her to avoid "growing up" and dealing with things for herself.  {sigh}

It's a no-win situation in some ways.  That's why I make them OBJECT in person, and to my DD's face.  Honestly-- I go if it's a thing that I'd be comfortable doing if DD were, say-- 25 years old and not 16.  Most of the meetings I've attended have been that type.  It angers me that some uni staffers have framed that as immaturity on the part of my 16yo for wanting someone else there.

Another option is to retain a legal advisor to attend those meetings.  That way, it isn't mom or dad.  It's just expensive.  (We've taken that approach as well, btw.)

DD's university is full of kids with helicopter parents.  It seems to be expected, an ingrained part of the culture, there.  I am not a helicopter parent by any means.  But I spent a grid deal of time of the phone with everyone who might be somewhat involved in the situation when DD almost died on a school trip to a foreign country almost two years ago.  Trying to get her the best possible care, and keep up to date on the situation. 

And then last month she actually asked me to step in (first time since she was maybe 5 years old).  She had repeatedly emailed the person she needed info from at her school, and being overseas, could not call from where she was.  She had dealt with this person once before.  He had to sign something for her to go abroad for this semester.  She first asked about three months before the form with his signature was due.  Asked periodically over the months.  Then spent about two full days on the phone the week it was due, trying to get him to sign it and then fax it.  So she asked me to call.  I did, got the right person in under 30 seconds, and within five minutes she ecru end an email from him with everything she needed. 

So basically what I am saying, is that I am not a helicopter parent, nor do I particularly care for that style of parenting.  But there are times when the parent, even of a young adult, not a child, might need to step in. 

Also, as your DD is a young adult, would it not be her right and her decision to ask for someone to accompany her?  If you or I wanted to bring someone to a meeting, it would usually be seen as our decision.  So why not in her case?

One thing that we did which I think has been (and continues to be) extremely useful in getting DD the accommodations that she in particular needs (as opposed to choosing from a menu of options that don't really fit her in particular, I mean)-- was to consider carefully what "standard" looks like at any particular institution-- and then decide what it needed to look like for DD in particular.  That is, are freshman MANDATED to live in group dorm settings on campus?  and then figure out if there is any reasonable way that such a thing can be made to work for or not.

In DD's case, for example, we didn't really need to fight this one, but we learned that there would be NO decoupling of housing and dining plans.  They insisted that THEY were going to "work with" her to "find safe choices."  Even if we were not comfortable that ANY food they prepped in shared spaces could be "safe" for her to eat.  For us, that violates a primary rule of management-- that DD always gets the decision-making power of what constitutes "safe enough" for her to eat.  SHE decides-- because the consequences are hers, too.  Not some dietician from university housing and dining.
  Now, DD also isn't most people, even most people with food allergies.  So for 95% or people with food allergies, working with the dining staff probably WILL work.  But this is why individual accommodations are-- um-- individual.

We went in with DD's 504 plan, which had been tweaked during her junior year so that it was prepared to make the hop to higher ed.  Our allergist also went to bat with explanations of more unusual accommodations-- like individual testing.  DD is aerosol sensitive, and that being said, smelling her allergens makes her VERY anxious (gee, I wonder why?  ) and impairs her exam performance in a big way.  In a small class, she doesn't use that accommodation, mostly-- she prefers to be low key and use preferential seating (another accommodation) instead.

She also has priority registration-- and I cannot begin to tell you how important THAT has proven.  She has the ability to make sure that she can select classes that allow her enough time to eat properly, those that don't virtually INVITE other students to be bringing food into lecture, and those which are smaller (and therefore easier to exert some control over the environment and her own safety).    It also means that she can (with careful planning) stick with professors that have demonstrated a willingness to cooperate gladly. 

I really recommend going in with a 504 plan in hand-- or at least the previous school's plan.  Then, allow at least 4-6 weeks for the process to work and generate a university-specific plan.

Also, talk to your child about what s/he feels is TRULY necessary.  I had to convince DD that the testing accommodation was a good idea.  She didn't really understand just how prevalent food consumption would be around her in college.  She does now, of course-- but going in with more accommodations than you think you will want EVERY day is not necessarily a bad thing in higher ed.  They are there if the student CHOOSES to access them.

This is another big difference-- if the student chooses to, s/he can ignore the fact that the plan is on file with disability at all.  There is no mandate to use the accommodations in any class-- much less EVERY class.  It's an individual judgment call for the student.  So a class where nobody ever eats-- no announcement, no food controls are needed.  Ever.  A situation where it's a tiny class and everyone knows you, similarly-- just last night, in fact, peanut butter snacks showed up backstage at the food table-- and the stage manager simply gathered up the unsafe stuff and took it up to the tech booth instead.  No big deal.


The single hardest thing for me has been accepting that NOBODY but my DD is obligated to be responsible for her autoinjector use.  NOBODY else has to be trained, and SHE has to be pretty assertive. 


I know that there are a lot of threads about this in the past four or five years.  Mac, Rebekah, and myself have all recently navigated it-- having kids travel without us, live without us, and navigate the open and chaotic setting of a college campus without us.    Some of the most useful threads may not be in schools, but in Teens instead-- the law is different from K-12 to higher ed, after all.




Honestly-- I wouldn't assume that the person that gave you such a nasty vibe at the office necessarily sets the tone for the entire office, either.  Could have just been a bad day, could be that she's kind of a troll...  you never know.  I've also decided that I'm completely comfortable being Bad Cop to DD's Good Cop with her university, too-- so I may ask "rude" questions, or be pushier than she is... and that's just fine.

The other technique that I recommend is that we BOTH show up for a meeting, and when she's called into said meeting, I ask if she would like me to come in or not-- right there in front of whoever she's meeting with.  That way they KNOW that it's her driving my being there or not-- not me.