General Questions

Student Disruptions or Failing

Specific Accommodation Provision

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Answers

What are the rights and responsibilities of a UNT student with a disability?

Students with disabilities have the right to equal access to all courses, programs, activities, services, and facilities offered at the University of North Texas (UNT). UNT students are also entitled to reasonable accommodations. Students have the responsibility to provide documentation of their disability (or disabilities) according to the Office of Disability Access' (ODA) guidelines and to register with the ODA if they would like to receive accommodations. After registering with the ODA, if students would like to request accommodations in one or more of their classes, students have the responsibility of requesting their letters of accommodation via AIM. After the letter has been requested, ODA will send the letter of accommodation to their instructor and the student will be copied. Students then have the responsibility to meet with their instructor to confirm receipt of the letter of accommodation and discuss with their faculty how the accommodations will be met in that specific class.

Are students required to meet with their instructors or is the ODA the "go-between"?

Students are advised that they are required to meet with their faculty regarding their accommodations. This communication serves many purposes, including ensuring that the faculty have received the letter of accommodation and discussing how accommodations will be implemented. The faculty member and the student will also discuss various aspects of each accommodation, such as if the student can take their test in class or if it needs to be scheduled through the ODA Testing Center. This conversation between the faculty/student is encouraged to be in-person or on Zoom/Teams videoconferencing, but that does not work well for every student so students can also have this conversation via email.

With that being said, we all recognize that students are still learning to advocate for themselves in many capacities. We ask faculty to implement all accommodations upon receipt of the letter of accommodation if they can. However, there are some accommodations in which more discussion is necessary before implementation. The ODA recognizes that faculty may not be able to implement them in those cases, until they hear from the student. We do request that the faculty inform ODA of this so that we can support both the student and the faculty member.

With all of that being said, we also recognize that there is a power differential between the student and the faculty. We never want the student to feel like they cannot access their accommodations or cannot voice any concerns about implementation because of this power differential. So while we will encourage the student to contact the faculty directly, we may step in as well to help navigate the situation. The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has also made it very clear that students should never feel like they have to "negotiate" their accommodations with faculty. These accommodations have been approved by the ODA and if there are concerns, such as with fundamental alteration, the faculty should reach out to the ODA for discussion. This is in accordance with UNT policy, state, and federal law.

What are the rights and responsibilities of an instructor when working with students with disabilities?

An instructor has the right to confirm a student's request for accommodations and to ask for clarification about a specific accommodation with the Office of Disability Access. Instructors do not have the right to refuse to provide an accommodation or to review a student's documentation including diagnosis and private health information. Instructors have a responsibility to work with the Office of Disability Access in providing reasonable accommodations, keep all records and communications with students confidential, and to refer a student to the ODA who requests accommodations but is not currently registered. Instructors do not have to provide accommodations for students not registered with ODA.

After receiving the letter of accommodation, if the faculty member believes that the accommodation is a fundamental alteration to the course, per UNT Policy 16.001, faculty will need to consult with the student's ODA Coordinator. The Coordinator will work to support the faculty in discussing fundamental alterations according to federal law and if necessary, discuss alternative accommodations to meet the student's individual access barriers.

Why does an instructor have the responsibility to make reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities?

An instructor has the responsibility to make reasonable accommodations because accommodations make it possible for a student with a disability to overcome barriers enabling the student to communicate what he or she knows. At the University of North Texas, we strive to support all of our students and provide the most caring environment possible. This is in alignment with several of our Core Values as well, including We Care and Better Together. 

The instructor also has a legal responsibility to provide appropriate accommodations in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Can a faculty member say "no" to an accommodation"?

Faculty do have the right to say that they believe an accommodation is a fundamental alteration to the class, such as to the learning outcomes or the essential requirements of the class. According to current processes, UNT policy states that the faculty member must communicate with the ODA Coordinator in order to discuss if it is truly a fundamental alteration and if so, what alternative accommodations may be provided. Faculty do not have the right to unilaterally deny an accommodation and that could be considered discriminatory.

Based on recent responses from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) at other institutions, the Office of Disability Access is establishing a process to have multiple perspectives from the academic department involved to make these decisions. More information forthcoming!

How are appropriate accommodations for a student determined?

To determine appropriate accommodations for a student, the student must submit documentation (consistent with ODA guidelines) to the ODA. The student will be assigned a Coordinator within our office to review the student's application, documentation, and narrative provided by the student in their Registration Meeting. The Coordinator will then determine appropriate accommodations based upon the substantial limitations of the student. There are certain accommodations which our office refers to Case Management and Review Committee, an internal committee. This is to ensure that we are reviewing the accommodation request from all perspectives, especially accommodation requests that tend to be more time intensive or complex for faculty.

Can a student just pick and choose what accommodations they want?

Great question and this is a common myth. No, students cannot just pick and choose what accommodations they want. As a reminder, students submit their registration form, provide documentation of their disability, and then have a meeting with their Coordinator. Our Coordinators are specifically trained in accommodation provision and to approve reasonable accommodations which mitigate specific disability related barriers caused by the institutional environment. Once the student is approved for specific accommodations, they can choose which accommodations they want to use for a given class. However, they can only pick from a list of accommodations which their Coordinator has determined reasonable to reduce or remove disability related barriers. 

If an instructor feels that a particular student may have a disability, to where should he or she refer the student?

If an instructor feels that a particular student may have a disability, they should refer the student to the ODA. Faculty can simply give the student ODA's contact information or if they would like, they can email the ODA at Disability@unt.edu with a CC to the student to help with the virtual introduction.

How far in advance will ODA communicate with faculty regarding a significant accessibility need, such as Alt Text or captioning on audio/visual content? 

Our Digital Accessibility Specialist pulls a list regularly of classes which have a known accessibility need, such as Alt Text, Captioning, or Audio Description. She will then start notifying faculty soon after the student enrolls or after mid-terms of the previous semester. We send Courtesy Notifications out to faculty to let them know they have a student in their class with known accessibility needs. The purpose of this communication is to notify faculty as soon as possible that additional work/remediation may need to be completed. The ODA team knows that this kind of remediation can take time and can be challenging. These are simply Courtesy Notifications, however, and do not indicate the student has necessarily requested to use any accommodations in the class. If you would like to talk to the ODA about how we can partner together on accomplishing full accessibility to support all students and meet compliance regulations, we invite you to contact us at DigitalAccessibility.ODA@unt.edu. Please note that we cannot always send out advanced Courtesy Notifications, especially if the student enrolls in it late. We will always make our best attempt to support you, including perhaps splitting the actual remediation work.

At the beginning of a semester, what is an easy way to pull all of the accommodation letters that I have received?

AIM has many ways to do this and we have found that faculty have different preferences to do this. Some faculty will login to their AIM Instructor Portal and pull up their class. They can then easily find all of the accommodation letters sent for their class. Some faculty prefer to also login to the AIM Instructor Portal but then just download the Excel sheet of all of the students and their approved accommodations.

This works great at the beginning of the semester when faculty are more likely to receive several accommodation letters at once. However, students are able to request accommodation letters throughout the semester and also add accommodations to existing letters. Accommodations are not retroactive so even if they didn't send the letter until mid-terms, it will not impact anything from the first half of the semester. Since faculty may receive accommodation letters throughout the semester, if they do use an Excel sheet to track accommodations, they will need to update it when they receive an email with a new accommodation letter. Faculty can just login to the AIM Instructor Portal again and re-download the Excel sheet. 

If faculty need support on how to do either of these steps, please contact our office at disability@unt.edu. 

Are faculty required to acknowledge somehow that they have received the letter of accommodation?

As of now, faculty are not required to acknowledge to ODA staff or in our system, AIM, that they have received the letter of accommodation. AIM is upgrading to a new version, which does allow faculty to acknowledge that they have reviewed the letter of accommodation. The ODA team is still exploring this feature so right now it is optional, not required. 

Will students have access to accommodations "in the real world"?

Absolutely! Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), individuals with disabilities can request accommodations in the workforce. It is covered under a different section of the ADA, but they can absolutely request it. In fact, there are hundreds of employees within the UNT System who have disabilities and request accommodations. For more information on accommodations in the workplace, please visit askjan.org. 

What should faculty do if they notice students are not using accommodations that require a lot of faculty time, and faculty want to know if they need to still be spending time to arrange these accommodations? (Ex. Large-print handouts)

There may be times when students request their accommodation letters early, as we recommend they do, but then once they are in the class they realize that they may not need a specific accommodation. We encourage faculty to check in with their student if they see that is the case. If they find out from the student that they do not indeed need a certain accommodation, we encourage them to email the student for both the faculty record and the student record indicating that they do not need the accommodation. At that point, the faculty can then cease providing the accommodation if the student has indicated they no longer need it. 

If there are ever questions on this, the ODA staff are always happy to support the faculty in figuring this out as we understand faculty already have a lot on their plate. We encourage faculty to reach out at Disability@unt.edu. 

If we notice a student needing support beyond accommodations, how do we help them get that support?

Any campus faculty or staff member is able to help students get connected to other supports. This can look like the faculty member will refer the student to the specific office, such as The Learning Center or the First Generation Success Center, and the student can contact them, or many times we find it most helpful for faculty/staff to send an email to the other campus department with the student copied on the email to make a soft introduction. We also understand that many times faculty may not know what department to refer them to. As Student Affairs professionals, we are well connected to our colleagues throughout the Division and University. We always welcome faculty referring students to us and then we will help the student get connected with the appropriate office.

What are the various roles of the ODA staff and how do we know who to contact in specific situations?

Great question. As long as faculty/staff initiate contact with any of our team members, we will ensure the student, parent, faculty, staff, or community member reach the right person. If the student is assigned to a Coordinator, that is often the easiest first person to contact.

ODA not only meets with students to approve accommodations and support them with the accommodation provision, but we also have several service areas to support faculty and staff in providing these accommodations such as Alternative Testing (our Testing Center), Alternative Formats (converting textbooks and course materials), Notetaking Services (helping faculty with how Access to Lecture accommodations will be implemented), Furniture Modification (placing adaptive furniture in classrooms), and more!

On our Leadership team, we have Jessica Stone (Director), Randi Johnson (Associate Director), and Febe Moss (Administrative Coordinator). These leadership team members do not carry a caseload due to their administrative responsibilities. Also on our Leadership team, we have Devin Axtman (Assistant Director of Assistive Technology and Accessible Instruction), LaShaundria Lawson (Assistant Director of Student Access), and Steven Harris (Assistant Director of Accommodated Testing Services). Devin, LaShaundria, and Steven also carry a caseload of students with disabilities.

Our amazing Access Coordinator team consists of Kevan Johnson, Courtney Gibson, Justin Rogers, Natalie Vinzant, Keeley Glogau, and Katy Sutton. Natalie also serves as the Alternative Formats Lab Supervisor, and Keeley Glogau also serves as our Digital Accessibility Specialist. 

We have two incredible American Sign Language Interpreters on staff, Kayli Floyd and Shaina Pickering.

Finally, we have a wonderful Testing Center Specialist, assisting with the Testing Center operations, Mia Perkins. 

For more information on who to contact, please visit our Who to Contact page. 

Why are faculty seeing more accommodation letters than in previous years?

Over the last several years, ODA has seen an increase in students requesting accommodations. This is great news because that means UNT is better serving our students. Still, our registration numbers are still well below what the national average tells us for students with disabilities on a college campus. (The average is 19% of the student population.) The increase in students requesting accommodations at UNT is due to many factors, including the long-term impacts of COVID on physical/mental health, but also how it impacted the education system, ODA modifying their practices and procedures to break down barriers for students with disabilities getting registered with our office, and more. 

Our team continues to work diligently to review accommodation requests for what accommodations are required for access and reasonable. We are very aware of only approving what is needed for access. 

We understand that faculty have a lot on their plate, and the Office of Disability Access team have daily conversations with faculty on how to manage the increase of accommodations in their classes. 

What should faculty do if they feel a specific accommodation is disruptive to the rest of the class?

Accommodations should not be disruptive to the rest of the class. There may be cases where it makes the faculty member a little uncomfortable because they do not know how to explain to other students why they may not be able to do something that the student with the accommodation can do. We would encourage faculty to reach out to us in these situations to discuss the specific accommodation and we would be happy to brainstorm the classroom management piece. However, they should not be truly disruptive. If they are, our office is happy to figure out what is going on if you reach out to us.

What if a student with a disability is disruptive in class?

A student with a disability who is disruptive in class should be treated as an instructor would treat any student who is disruptive in class.  If an instructor feels that there is a disability-related reason for the student's behavior, the instructor can discuss this with the student's Coordinator in the Office of Disability Access to determine if there is a solution to the problem or strategies for addressing the behavior. The Dean of Students (DOS) office also has a reporting mechanism via report.unt.edu to aid in addressing disruptive students. The DOS and ODA offices work together closely to support both students and faculty in these situations.

Sometimes faculty experience "verbal abuse" from students and it may or may not be connected with their disability. How can faculty navigate these situations in support of the student but also not continuing to allow themselves to be verbally abused? 

Faculty do have the right to be able to teach without being the recipient of any kind of harrasment. If a student registered with ODA is being disruptive with their verbal remarks or otherwise, we invite the faculty to contact our office. We can then look more into the student's diagnosis/history. While we cannot disclose this to faculty, we can brainstorm how we may be able to coach the student on their behavior. In many of these situations, we find that the student just isn't simply aware of how their behavior is impacting others, or they need more supports for emotional regulation/behavior management. We can provide some coaching and then also help refer them to campus and community resources.

We also always inform faculty that they have the right to refer the situation to the Dean of Students Conduct team. The Conduct team approaches conduct issues typically as educational moments and will try to help the student understand their behavior and the impact. They may also impose sanctions but the purpose is to educate the student and keep the campus community safe. More information can be found on their website. 

What if a student with a disability is failing?

It is important for instructors to remember that providing reasonable accommodations to a student with a disability does not guarantee success in the course. Our role is to provide access. Students with disabilities may not master the course material, just like any other student. Students with disabilities have the same right as other students to fail as part of their educational experience.

What are the differences in the accommodation descriptions among the different Faculty and Student communications?

Upon successful registration for accommodations, the student will receive an Eligibility Letter via email. This letter states all of the accommodations which the student has been approved for. It is then the responsibility for the student to go into AIM and specify which accommodations they feel are necessary for each individual class they desire accommodations in. However, before the student is able to request their letters of accommodation each semester, the student is required to sign one or more e-agreements on AIM which state they understand their rights and responsibilities for receiving accommodations. If the student is approved for specific accommodations, such as Alternative Testing or Communication Access services, they will also have a specific e-agreement for these accommodations.

Faculty will receive the letter of accommodation (also known as the Faculty Notification Letter) for each class in which the student requests accommodations. This letter will detail all of the accommodations the student is requesting for that specific class. The descriptions on the accommodation letter the faculty receive are identical to the descriptions on the Eligibility Letter which the student receives upon registration with the ODA.

If faculty would like to review the e-agreements which students fill out, based on the individual accommodations the student is approved for, faculty may review them here (hyperlinked).

If a student requests to change their test date/time to another time, will faculty be asked to approve this? 

When a student enters a request to change the date/time from what the faculty have specified, the ODA Testing Center team will reach out to the faculty to express their approal. Many times, students will initially do this and then forward us their email confirmation from the faculty. Once the faculty member approves, the student and faculty will also receive confirmations of this new request.

What happens if a student doesn't request their test in the Testing Center on time and faculty are physically unable to provide the approved accommodations, such as a distraction-reduced testing environment?

Students are responsible for following reasonable processes that the University establishes. In order to provide the highest level of service to both students and faculty, the ODA has established deadlines for students to schedule their tests within. For example, for traditional tests throughout the semester (not Finals), students are required to schedule at minimum one week ahead of their scheduled test date. However, we also know that our students have additional barriers they navigate daily due to their disability and they also lead busy lives. Therefore, in order to support both the student and the faculty, we do try and honor late requests whenever possible. This becomes more challenging for Finals because we are proctoring tests all over campus in multiple buildings due to the number of tests we administer that week.  Therefore, our deadline is three weeks from the scheduled Final date and we are less able to honor late requests than throughout the rest of the semester.

We will not deny a student purely for capacity reasons. If a student schedules by the established deadline, we will find a place for them to test.

If a student does not request by the deadline and we deny the test request, students are encouraged to reach out to their faculty to see how their accommodations may be able to be implemented. We encourage faculty to explore other options, such as using a departmental office or conference room. Many departments will have the front desk staff casually proctor the exam in these situations. Some departments will also use a departmental Help Center, Lab, or Learning Center to proctor these tests. In the case that the department is unable to meet the student's accommodations because the student didn't schedule according to processes, students are informed that they may not be able to have their accommodations for the test. They also sign an e-agreement which states the same thing. 

The Office of Disability Access is always available to assist in these situations so we encourage faculty to reach out. 

Is there a way to tailor an accommodation letter for online classes, so that faculty don't receive an accommodation letter with accommodations geared toward in-person learning?

Unfortunately, our system doesn't currently allow us to do this based on how UNT's system interacts with our system. Each semester, students review the list of accommodations that they have been approved for and select which accommodations they wish to use in each class. If a student is enrolled in any online class, the student may only request the accommodations which apply to online learning. However, many students will just click and request all of the approved accommodations for all of their classes without differentiating between online classes and in-person classes. In those situations, we encourage faculty to just email the student to let them know the accommodations don't apply to make sure that both the student and faculty are on the same page.

If a faculty member has feedback for the ODA, what is the best way to communicate that?

The ODA always welcomes feedback from all UNT community members! Each academic year, the ODA has an open Faculty Survey (2023-2024 hyperlinked) via Qualtrics, which we encourage faculty to complete. These results are reviewed about once or twice per month. Faculty are also encouraged to reach out to the student's ODA Coordinator. Finally, Jessica Stone (Director) and Randi Johnson (Associate Director) always welcome the opportunity to meet in person, via phone, or via Zoom/Teams to learn from faculty regarding their experiences, questions, or concerns. We take faculty feedback seriously as they are an absolutely essential partner. While we are a Student Affairs office, we serve faculty just as much in this role and look forward to partnering with them each day.

Where can I get forms and publications provided by the ODA?

Visit the ODA Forms page for downloadable copies of common forms and guides.  Instructors may also want to review the online Faculty Resource Guide.