Disability office says parents are not needed/welcomed at Acccomdation meeting?

[lakeswimr]

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.

[wackattack69]

 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.

[GoingNuts]

Good luck to you and DD.

[CMdeux]

 


I'll be thinking about you both today.   

[lakeswimr]

Good luck!

[wackattack69]

 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.

[yelloww]

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! 

[Macabre]

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.

[CMdeux]

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.

[wackattack69]

 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:)

[Macabre]

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