Menlo College's mission is to educate and develop future leaders in a small, innovative, private residential college of management that integrates programs in business, mass communication and liberal arts.
Menlo College 1000 El Camino Real Atherton, CA 94027
Accommodation Adjustments made in course materials or instructional
methodology, which do not change the essential nature, or academic
and technical standards of the course.
Adjustments made in the physical attributes of a classroom such as
provision of tables and or chairs, which do not disrupt the essential
activities of the class or program.
Assistive technology made available to persons with disabilities
in College Learning Labs, the Library, Test Center or Classroom.
Documentation Verifying documents which verify a person’s mental
or physical impairment and which describe the impairment adequately
for the College to be able to determine the degree of resulting limitation
on a major life activity to aid in the design of reasonable accommodations.
The student must provide documentation. All disabilities
must be verified with documentation; a very few can be "documented"
by the Academic Resources Centers based upon observation in the office
or on campus, in which case that observation will be recorded as documentation
in the student’s file.
Disability Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with
Disabilities Act protects and considers a person disabled if he or
she:
1. Has a mental or physical impairment that substantially
limits one or more of the major life activities of hat person,
2. has a record of such impairment; or
3.who while not actually disabled, is regarded as having such impairment
4. has a record of being discriminated against because of being
regarded as
5. having a person with a disability dependent on him or her (associated
with a person who has a disability).
Essential Nature of a Course
This is language from applicable case law; ref. the Davis decision.
Colleges need to identify the essential elements of each course requirement
and curriculum program; elements that are identified as "essential"
after a student with disabilities has challenged or raised a question
about the element will not stand program review. Colleges are not
required to waive or substitute essential elements of programs.
Learning Disability The term "Learning Disability" is a general term
that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant
difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading,
writing reasoning, or mathematical abilities. These disorders are
intrinsic to the individual, presumed to be due to central nervous
system dysfunction, and may occur across the life span. Problems in
self-regulatory behaviors, social perception, and social interaction
may exist with learning disabilities but do not by themselves constitute
a learning disability. Although learning disabilities may occur concomitantly
with other handicapping conditions (for example, sensory impairment,
mental retardation, serious emotional disturbance) or with extrinsic
influences (such as cultural differences, insufficient or inappropriate
instruction), they are not the result of those conditions or influences.
(National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities, 1988).
Reasonable Reasonable is a term central to disability services and the
design of accommodations. Colleges must provide reasonable accommodations
to assure reasonable access to persons with disabilities for all institutional
programs and services.
A request for an accommodation which would waive an
essential element of a course would be determined to be unreasonable.
However, the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights has yet
to accept financial burden or cost as a reason for not providing a
reasonable accommodation. Public post secondary education institutions,
with the resources of a state behind them, have not succeeded in claiming
that cost factors have made accommodations unreasonable.
A request for accommodations, which would put the requesting
student or others in danger, would be considered an unreasonable accommodation.
A request to provide SIGN interpretation, provide books
on tape, multi-media resource materials or extended time for pencil
and paper testing situations, would most likely be considered a reasonable
accommodation request, if supported by verifying documentation.
The staff of the Academic Resources Center and Students
With Disabilities Program maintains binders that include guidelines
and Office of Civil Rights (OCR) or court decisions that aid in determining
the reasonableness of accommodation requests and services.
Substantial Impairment Rather than specifying particular disabilities, the Americans
with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act set
the criteria for an individual’s protections at the threshold
of a "mental or physical impairment" that substantially
limits any major life activity. It is terminology that is one central
aspect of the process of determining whether a person has a civil
right to accommodations for a disability. It is central language to
watch for in reading rulings by the Office of Civil Rights and court
decisions related to disability services.
In most cases, there is little dispute regarding whether
an individual student has a "substantial" limitation or
impairment. There is a large body of adjudication to aid colleges
in deciding individual cases, as decisions made under the 1973 Rehabilitation
Act in most cases reflect the same statutory language as included
in the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Verification That aspect of the documentation that is collected in a student’s
file which verifies the existence of a disability. (See also definition
of "documentation" above.)
