COVID-19 and College Accommodations
I’ve got COVID-19 on the brain! Like most of you I’m consumed by the news. I’ve been coming across articles/opinion pieces that deal with topics related to health conditions/disabilities, accommodations, college, and COVID-19. I’m starting what I’m calling a “Lit Review Lite,” to give a brief overview of these pieces. It occurs to me that the move to remote learning in order to protect health, could have impacts on the types of accommodations that college students with health conditions and disabilities may request and receive in the future. Currently, most colleges do not offer remote access to classes as an accommodation.
Update, 5/28/2020, The National Center for College Students with Disabilities (NCCSD) has created a “Preparing for Fall Semester 2020” page. This page will be updated and includes information for students, faculty, disability support service providers, and university staff.
1. Colleges Should Accommodate Students All Year – Not Just During the COVID-19 Outbreak
This piece discussed the personal experience of a student who had to drop out of college years ago because she was not able to receive an accommodation to attend class remotely. Now, she is giving advice on how to move to remote classes. The author contends that the coronavirus “paved a runway for disability rights.”
2. Coronavirus Telework Tests Disability Accommodation Defense (2)
This article talks about the fact that telework is not typically seen as a “reasonable accommodation” under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). However, this virus has forced employers to move to telework (note: employers and colleges are both covered by the ADA) and that could lead to more accommodations being granted for telework.
This article applies to the K-12 setting and considers the issues that schools are facing in serving students with disabilities. Students with disabilities are required to have equal access under the law, however students with disabilities are being left behind in the rush to online learning due to the coronavirus.
4. Disability Accommodations and Supports Can Help Everyone Prevent COVID-19
This article looks at how many of the infection prevention guidelines fail to acknowledge the needs of people with disabilities, and it outlines accommodations that can be made to support people with disabilities.
5. Accessibility and Online Education Materials
This article is written for a K-12 audience, but applies to colleges as well. It gives an overview of common issues in remote learning and provides solutions on how to fix them.
6. Disabled People React to Coronavirus Work From Home Accommodations
This article outlines how the transition to remote work in sitting with people with disabilities, many of whom have been asking to work remotely as an accommodation.
7. Disabled Community: We’ve Always Needed Today’s Flexible Work Arrangements. So Make Them Stick
This article discusses the need for the flexible work arrangements that are occurring based on the COVID 19 pandemic to become more common and for employers to consider remote work a reasonable accommodation.
This article outlines the challenges that students with a variety of disabilities are facing in college with the abrupt transition to online education. It highlights the experiences of graduate and undergraduate students with chronic health conditions, sensory disorders, hearing impairments, and visual impairments.
9. Accessibility Dissonance: The disability community’s overlooked fight for remote learning
This article from Arizona State University, highlights the fact that students with disabilities have been asking for remote access to courses for a long time, and the hope that this will stay as an option for students once campuses re-open.
10. Let COVID-19 expand awareness of disability tech
This article gives the perspective of a “multi-disabled” professor, who states that people with disabilities have been demanding accommodations, such as asynchronous courses, flexibility, and creative approaches to communication for ages. She makes the case that these accommodations should have been standard all along.
11. What’s Next: Changes in disability services could add more flexibility
This article explores the challenges facing universities that have been slow to adopt universal design and accessibility in online access. Two current Directors of disability services are interviewed and they provide examples of the changes we may see in how disability support offices provide accommodations and how online accommodations may become more universally available as a result of the pandemic.
12. Can Faculty Be Forced Back on Campus?
This article looks at state and federal disability law to determine if universities can force faculty back on campus for in-person classes. Since additional protections exist for people with disabilities, faculty with disabilities may be able to request remote work as an accommodation. Additionally, faculty without disabilities may be able to use other types of leave.
13. ‘Leaving us behind’: High-risk students ask, why can’t all college courses be offered online?
This article explores the issues that face students in high risk groups. It notes that students who have to take classes online because of their health condition are sometimes not being offered the same classes as their peers who are able to attend in person. The students are arguing that this violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
14. COVID-19 Challenges in College Reopening Plans for Students with Disabilities
This article explores the specific risks for students with disabilities and health conditions related to college re-opening plans that include hybrid and in person classes. It also looks at access challenges related to the virtual learning environment.
15. How to Navigate Going Back to College in the Age of COVID-19
This is a helpful resource for students with health conditions put together by the Health Advocacy Summit and The American College Health Association. It provides a template for the type of care plan a student with a health condition should have in place when going back.
16. Now What? Adding Accessibility Midstream
This article looks at how institutions can build in accessibility, and looks at how COVID19 has shined a light on digital access and equity. It explores the obstacles that students and faculty face when trying to access online education.
17. Proof of Concept
This article came out in March 2021. Students with disabilities are asking their universities if they will continue to be allowed to take classes remotely when students return to in-person classes. The students maintain that they now have “proof of concept,” that universities can accommodate students who are unable to attend in person.
I will continue to update this list of articles. If you have more articles that related to health conditions/disabilities, accommodations, college, and COVID-19, please send them to me: Annie Tulkin