by Danielle Tobb ‘17

A 504 plan is intended to level the playing field for students with documented disabilities and is analogous to the school providing ramps for wheelchairs. However, an issue with these 504 plans is that it is difficult to prove that a student needs access to additional aids to learn in the same manner that his or her peers do. The plan often requires parents who may not even be aware that 504s exist to initiate the process. Even then, the process is lengthy and sometimes costly.

The plan provides an outline as to what specific accommodations a student needs in order to remove the barriers he or she faces in learning. The time it takes to put a 504 in place for a student depends on the completeness of certain paperwork, the extent of time that a student has had the difficulty, and the overall impact that a student’s impairment has on his or her learning ability. According to Section 504 (a part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that prohibits discrimination based upon disability), in order to qualify for a 504, a student must “have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity and have a record of impairment.”

“The process [to get a 504 plan] is not as involved as obtaining an Individualized Educational Program (IEP), but there is still a team that meets to decide whether or not a 504 would be appropriate,” said Elizabeth Al-Atrash, the head of the Counseling Department.

A father of a sophomore female at Sherwood with severe anxiety explained the process that his family went though to get a 504 plan for their daughter. He said that the school required that the basis for the plan be an evaluation by a psychologist—a comprehensive, expensive psych educational test. After this, he explained that they went to her guidance counselor to request a 504 meeting. A formal process ensued in which the counselor obtained intake information such as why their daughter needed the 504, and then their counselor surveyed some of her teachers to determine if they saw the same problem that her parents claimed she had. The counselor also considered past grades, attendance records, and other behavioral information to decide if a 504 was necessary. After the whole process, the counselor, teacher, and school psychologist came together to confirm that a 504 was pertinent to the student’s success.

Teachers are involved in the beginning of the process by completing reports on a student’s behavior in class. She said that when they hold the actual 504 meeting, only one teacher often is in attendance because other teachers are busy teaching their classes. When the 504 plans are reviewed, “counselors ask the teachers to complete a report to determine whether the student has been using the accommodations,” explained Al-Atrash.

English resource teacher Shelley Jackson thinks that teachers should be involved in providing input on accommodations a student receives. She explains that individuals who don’t know the curricula typically give accommodations, thus a certain accommodation may not work in a certain class. Additionally, Jackson said when teachers fill out quarterly reports, there is no place on the form for a teacher to suggest whether or not an accommodation is beneficial to a student.