[nabs-l] Is providing tutors or aids under the ADA for publiccolleges?

Sat Dec 7 07:17:47 UTC 2013

Brandon,
As to the first question, the ADA is a tricky animal. You'd need to ask a 
lawyer or disability advocate.
For the second about the discrepancy in services, its simple.
Some colleges provide more support than others. Just because your last 
school provided aids, which I assume were notetakers, for you does not mean 
all schools will. You shouldn't assume that. All schools are different. As 
for them telling you the ADA does not require aides, that is not true if the 
aide gives you equalivelant information.

I'd suggest working with your professor in office hours or make appointments 
with him or her to go over material. Of course, they cannot repeat 
everything, but just some odds and ends and specific questions. I found it 
very helpful to use professor's office hours in school. I cannot imagine 
taking a language in college as its heavily visual. I did not do this, but I 
assume you have to. They teach by pointing to pictures and the foreign 
language word is under it. I took spanish in high school and even with 
support from my vision teacher it was hard; I had the text and handouts in 
braille, and in college you don't get this. For the various pictures, my 
vision teacher would describe them in english braille so I knew what they 
were. My spanish teachers rarely translated items.
Oh, and I know about the spelling too fast thing! They spelled too fast in 
class for me as well! I can hardly copy spellings in english, let alone 
another language.

If seeing your professor isn't enough, get a tutor. All students need tutors 
if they struggle, so a tutor is not a blindness thing.
The ADA does not talk about tutors. Aides, however, can be an accomodation.
You should check if your school offers free tutoring. My school did, but it 
was limited; like one session per week, but it was something. All student 
tutors had to have taken the subject they tutored in and gotten a high 
grade. You might also be able to hire a language student, meaning someone in 
that major as well.
There are always outside firms, but they are very expensive.

I believe you quoted the right passages of the law; it sounds right. But I'm 
not a lawyer.
I think you should approach your disability office explaining why you need 
an aid and see if they can work something out; if they say no, go up the 
chain. But this may take a while to work out. Meanwhile,
try and get the info you need. I'm not sure what this is other than 
spellings of words. Could you record class to get some of this? Could you 
ask another student or two for their notes?
Maybe the professor could give you a copy of vocabulary and other key stuff 
she / he writes on the board.
Also, the professor could describe the pictures in english before class, 
perhaps.

I definitely recall a lot of pictures and pointing to things in class. I was 
so easily
lost. I believe blind people can learn languages, but the way its taught is 
way not, not suited to us.

A final thing is do not tell the disability office you need a tutor because 
that's not their responsibility.
They deal with accomodations. What you need is an assistant to describe what 
is in class and take notes; this person needs to know some of the language 
to do this job.
Perhaps, your disability office is reacting this way because you use the 
word tutor.
A tutor is different than accomodations. You need an accomodation in class. 
You are on your own for the tutor thing.

If you have money of your own or use your families' money, you could hire 
your own readers.
But I guess you are looking for an aid in class. Anyway, if you need  a 
reader outside class, its great to go do it yourself.
This is a great option, IMO, because you have lots of control over the 
reader then; like the quality of the reader, when and where you meet, and 
length of sessions.
Oh, my state paid very low for readers and here students want high wages and 
money quickly; the state is very slow in issuing checks, so I did not use 
them. Keep in mind, students can go get campus jobs or go sell merchandise 
and be paid minimum wage. I had to pay well to compete with these jobs that 
were so abundantly around.

Its real difficult to draw a line between tutoring and reading sometimes.
But you have to stick to in class access to get accomodations. So leave the 
tutors out of the disability discussion.
My readers seemed to want to help more than just read and I let them.
I found this out when working with some readers; in reading, they naturally 
fell into the position of helping me; they would paraphrase or reread 
unclear passages.
I found they  also stopped to add examples of their own and sometimes we 
would have a quick side conversation.
Also, my readers would read charts and describe pictures.
So, they ended up helping me understand the material, not just strictly 
reading.
I found that we both would learn the material through reading, so it just 
made sense to sort of discuss it too.
For instance, in reading my intro to business text, they had examples of 
management styles. We read that and came up with our own. In some psychology 
texts, they had pages about stage theories, but the book gave you summary 
tables of the major points.
So, my reader read through the table, but she had to understand it herself 
to some extent to read it to me.

Anyway, what I'm saying is if you hire your own readers, they can tutor you 
too, but you probably want to hire separate people.
Even if your reader does sort of informally tutor you, as mine did 
sometimes, it won't matter if you hire them.
However, it most definitely will matter if the school hires you one.

something

-----Original Message----- 
From: Brandon Keith Biggs
Sent: Saturday, December 07, 2013 12:50 AM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list ; NFB of California 
List
Subject: [nabs-l] Is providing tutors or aids under the ADA for 
publiccolleges?

Hello,
I am taking a class at my college and the Accessibility services
department insists the ADA doesn't say they need to provide an aid or
tutor for me in a language class. In my last college I had aids for all
my math and science classes. At this new college, language is just as
hard and both colleges are state colleges.
I am wondering what is the deal with one giving aid and tutoring and the
other firmly saying they don't need to?
I believe section 504 of the ADA is where all this is talked about.
This is from:
http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/section504.ada.peer.htm

"no qualified individual with a disability in the United States shall be
excluded from, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination
under" any program or activity that either receives Federal financial
assistance"

Isn't not providing eyes for a class that is focused on pictures
discrimination? Then isn't not providing eyes for notes with pictures
discrimination?

"providing an opportunity to participate or benefit that is unequal to
that provided others,"

Despite the improper English, That means that I need to be able to be
equal with my class mates in and out of class. In order for me to be
able to ask the teacher questions, I need to be able to understand the
materiel enough to ask questions.

"providing different or separate benefits or services, unless it is
necessary to provide benefits or services that are as effective as those
provided to others."

In this case it is necessary to provide a tutor so that I am able to
completely understand lectures and complete assignments in a timely
manor that helps me understand, like the assignments are supposed to do.

"For benefits or services provided to be "equally effective," they must
afford students with disabilities an equal opportunity to obtain the
same result, gain the same benefit, or reach the same level of
achievement as other students."

Without a tutor and an aid, the class that I am in is not providing me
with enough materials for me to succeed. I must have a tutor and an aid
to both grasp what is talked about in class partly and to go over
materiel after class to bridge any gaps I miss-understood or recorded
wrong because the teacher was spelling too fast on the board.

"have the effect of defeating or impairing accomplishment of the
objectives of the education program"

I am not learning my language, so I need help!

"Examples of accommodations and modifications include modifying rules,
policies or practices; removing architectural or communication barriers;
or providing aids, services, or assistive technology."

HM, says I need an "Aid" right there... Not tutor though.

http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/section504.ada.peer.htm

If that is not the section state colleges fall under, please let me
know. Or if there are any other laws that I should know about, please
let me know. Otherwise I will send this email to my counselors and their
boss so they can see the quotes from the ADA.
Thanks,

-- 
Brandon Keith Biggs

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