February 16, 1999
Members Present: Paulette Fleming, Elizabeth Baker, Tony Costa, John Elmer, Dale Zeretzke.
Absent: Kim Thompson, Claire Ball, Jim Perez, Alan Feldman
Note taker: Tony Costa
Draft Polices for Reasonable Accommodation: The review is on-going. The members present reviewed recommended changes submitted and discussed from the January meeting. A quorum of committee membership was not in attendance. This led to no vote on accepting the changes. The changes will be forwarded to members for review and a vote will hopefully take place at the next meeting. The following is a portion of the changes/ recommendations discussed:
Reasonable Accommodations Of Students With Disabilities:
PG 1 paragraph #1: add “Washington Core Services;” 1st bullet - delete “of
academic requirements,” and wording of last underlined capitalized line will be reviewed by Paulette at area meeting week of Feb 15th. Wording came from
original 1992 policy from the AAG’s office.
PG 5 There is a difference of opinion between Kim and John with Section IV,
2nd & 5th bullets: flexibility in credits required to satisfy institutional eligibility for financial aide. Paulette will review with AG this week. John will discuss with Director of Financial Aide for SCC policy and Federal guidelines.
Kim will continue to work on internal grievance procedure.
***
John brought up discussion as to the ADA and the Internet, Accommodation of
the General Public, Recent Ebb Tide articles, and Facilities Planning.
ADA and the Internet: No policy in place as yet. Comment institutions being sued for not providing accommodations, such as audio & video for hearing and
sight impaired students. TSS needs to be brought onboard--possible TSS staff member dedicated to students with disabilities to update and provide technology support in all areas.
Library e-mail lab not readily accessible to students with disabilities--no one had contact the committee members for information or recommendations as to the needs of students with disabilities and/or special needs.
Accommodation of the General Public: This discussion concerned the use of the general public to campus facilities and we (the campus) not providing interpreters, etc.
Paulette brought the over-all cost of Shoreline Community College getting the reputation of being "user" friendly and the cost was very prohibitive. However, the possibility of sharing the expense of and hiring an interpreter (nine-month, 3/4 time) as a member of classified staff was not totally out of the realm of possibility. There are many functions held on campus at various times, finding an interpreter is very time consuming, and having a staff member would alleviate some of the burden. The topic will be discussed again at later meetings.
Ebb Tide Articles: Recently EBBTIDE, the campus newspaper, printed articles
discussing "MR Disability" not providing quick service. This was out of line and an additional story was printed in the next issue still leaving many misinformed. Recommendation: prepare article for the paper and basically be pro-active vs. reactive. The article and other information to be provided as a monthly input.
Facilities Planning: John brought up this topic to insure the committee is consulted on capital improvements, etc. so that computer labs and such are not put into use without ADA requirements being reviewed. Facilities Planning is no longer a committee on campus. It has been incorporated into another committee. Elizabeth for action.
Other: Student government needs to be contacted concerning attendance of their representative to the committee.
Next meeting: March 16, 3pm.