Coming Events

Salome Heyward, one of the leading legal experts in the field, will continue offering our popular Best Practice Series. In Series 10, we will discuss significant OCR and DOJ pronouncements regarding the policies and procedures colleges and universities should have in place to implement their ADA/Section 504 compliance strategies, measures and programs. Replays are available!

All webinars and webinar replays areclosed captioned.  All Webinars are offered Live and then are available on demand Replay.  Your registration gives you the option of either participating in the Live presentation or receiving the replay of the webinar.  All webinars are scheduled at 1:30 EST and are two hours long.  Webinar materials are available 24 hours before each live presentation.  

We continue our popular Best Practice Series. In our new series of webinars we will again tackle the difficult disability access and accommodation compliance issues faced in postsecondary education. Salome Heyward will lead the legal compliance discussion during each webinar.

Webinar 1: Beyond Basic Academic Adjustments... It's not just about notetakers and extended time (November 13, 2018 (1:30 EST))
 

• A student contests disciplinary sanctions based upon a diagnoses post-traumatic stress condition;
• Faculty members complain that an approved accommodation that permits a student with a spectrum disorder to leave class when necessary would be disruptive and violate attendance reqquirements;
• Administrators of a clinical program argue that a student who is HIV positive must be dismissed as a health and safety risk, and
• A medical student argues that should be permitted to retaked failed courses because her performance was negatively impacted by her treatment for drug addition associated with pain medication prescribed following a car accident.

Students with psychiatric disabilities, spectrum disorders, contagious diseases and addiction disorders have conditions that present difficult challenges for colleges and universities. While these conditions certainly can and do impact academic performance, in many instances, they require that institutions adopt different approaches to both ensure that students are qualified and are provided meaningful access to educational programs and services. During this webinar we will discuss important compliance imperatives regarding:

• Fashioning unique accommodations
• Determining whether students are qualified to participate
• Making health and safety determinations
• Controlling disruptive behavior
• Responding to emergencies

Webinar 2: Documentation Nightmares: Combating false claims, over-stated needs and unreasonable requests (February 12, 2019 (1:30 EST))
  In the face of an ever-increasing number of students who are requesting accommodations, colleges and universities are struggling to deal with a significant percentage of those requests which they know to be false, exaggerated and/or unreasonable. In addition to consuming an enormous amount of staff time and energy, there are a disturbing number of these cases in which institutions are found to have violated the rights of the students and/or parents making such requests. What must be understood regarding these cases is that righteous indignation will not carry the day. Often colleges and universities suffer defeat not because they are wrong but because they address the suspect submissions and extreme demands using the wrong approach. The manner in which these requests are challenged and how decisions are made are key to whether an institution will prevail when faced with one of these cases.

In this webinar we will discuss the strategies and approaches that must be employed to satisfy an institution’s compliance obligations. Topics that will be discussed include:

• The proper manner in which to support a determination that documentation is insufficient.
• How disputes or conflicts regarding documentation must be addressed.
• The circumstances under which an institution is obligated to seek the input of medical experts or evaluators.
• Key elements to include in any denial decision.
• What OCR says is the proper way to question and ultimately place restrictions on the use of a service animal.

Webinar 3: Legal Updates (April 2, 2019 (1:30 EST))
This session will include a review of the important court decisions, settlement agreements and agency rulings of the year. We will focus on the issues and concerns that continue to generate the majority of complaints and lawsuits, i.e., the proper role of faculty, the responsibility of students, identifying essential academic requirements, and the adoption of compliant grievance policies and procedures. We will also discuss significant OCR and DOJ pronouncements regarding accommodation practices and procedures.

(To receive a volume discount, be sure to select the appropriate number of courses before you check out.)

(To receive a volume discount, be sure to select the appropriate number of courses before you check out.)