WNY Collegiate Consortium and Disability Advocates

Kathy Hoffman tells the following story:

I was doing some training with secondary professionals recently on the topic of transition and using one of my favorite analogies: the politically inappropriate Chinese fire drill that many of us remember (although WE never participated in one of course!). This was the drill where a car full of young folks stopped at a red light, flew out of the car, changed seats and a new driver took the wheel before the light turned green. In my scenario, the vehicle is a school bus and the bus driver has been replaced by the student, the navigator in the passenger front seat, the school representative, has been ejected and replaced by the college service provider. “Okay,” I asked, “Where are the parents?” A woman directly in front of me promptly responded, “Over head in a helicopter!”

Parents have always viewed sending their sons and daughters off to college as a rite of passage into adulthood but they sent them with the confidence that two to four years in the halls of academia would allow them to grow and mature into independent adults. The world has changed dramatically since 9/11. Our sense of safety has been rocked and it continues to be shaken by news reports from campuses such as Virginia Tech and SUNY’s Binghamton University. With the advent of cell phone technology college students who in previous generations would call home once a week are now talking to Mom and Dad two or more times everyday—and those are NOT students with disabilities! A colleague tells the story of a Mom who was incensed that her son’s college would not allow her to move into the dorm to take care of him. So we now have that phenomenon known in education as helicopter parents—those always hovering nearby to step in at a moment’s notice.

I am not a parent, but I have been an educator for almost 40 years. College is still a rite of passage to adulthood and the best advice I can give parents is to allow their sons and daughters to develop personal responsibility while they are still at home. In the long term, we are all responsible for ourselves whether it be our health, our futures, or our personal safety. Parents, you cannot move to the campus with your students, but you CAN and MUST instill in them the confidence that they can take these steps independently. You will always be there in the background, but this is the time for them to begin to assert their independence. As frightening as we find the world today, so different from the world we knew growing up, it is THEIR world and they must be prepared to live in it.

The most important thing to understand about self advocacy is that it needs to begin while the student is still in high school. In the relationship with the K-12 educational system, the parent has been the spokesperson and advocate for her child, but that is not true in college. The courts recognize an 18 year old as an adult. In terms of the postsecondary environment unless the student is cognitively unable to manage her own affairs and therefore has a court appointed guardian, as soon as the student receives that Regents or local diploma, all the rules that shaped his or her education change.

Legally at age 18, the student is an adult which is why at the college level the relationship is college-student not college-parent. As increasing numbers of students with cognitive impairments such as Asperger’s Syndome are matriculating in college programs, postsecondary service providers are being forced to rethink the role of the parent for some students who may not be able to self-advocate.

It is safe to say that the primary relationship will always be college-student but the parent may have more input than was historically true. It is also safe to say that parents will NOT have the same level of input that they had with the K-12 system.

Legal Differences: Parents take note!

It is essential that parents and students understand that the transition from high school to college is more than a move from one educational setting to another. Exiting the K-12 system and embarking on the postsecondary is a move that reflects a change in the student’s legal status and a change in the legal charge to the institution. Under IDEA, which covers education from Kindergarten through grade 12, districts have a legal responsibility to seek out and identify students with disabilities, and to provide an appropriate free public education in the least restrictive environment. Each child is entitled to that education by law. That is not true of college. For most parents the most difficult change between high school and college is the recognition that the laws of the United States recognize an 18 year old as an adult, unless the parents or someone else has legal guardianship. At the college level, this change in legal status impacts parents and students from admission to graduation. The student must meet the eligibility requirements of the institution, parents have limited rights to information—even the student’s grades. The difference between entitlement and eligibility will be discussed in depth in the next section.

Under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504, (Section 504) the student must be a a qualified person with a disability’. That means that the student must self-identify as a person with a disability, provide appropriate documentation of that disability and assist in the process of determining what accommodations would be effective in meeting his or her needs. It also means that the student must be able to act appropriately in a college setting.

The student must self-identify . . . means that checking a box on the application form, sending information to the admissions office, or Mom or Dad calling the disability services office does not get the student accommodations. The student must contact the disability service provider each time he needs a notetaker, needs to schedule an accommodated test or requests a book in alternate format, etc.

Under the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act (FERPA) no person from the college can discuss confidential information, which includes anything related to grades or disabilities, with parents, without permission from the student. It bears stating again: At the high school level, the relationship is between the school district and the parents; at the college level, the relationship is between the college and the student.