DSP serves students with disabilities. Short-term illnesses such as colds and flu, COVID, or mono are not in themselves disabilities.
Additionally, accommodations are not retroactive, and any approved accommodations would be valid from the issuance of a student’s Letter of Accommodation forward.
If a student has experienced a short-term illness that has resulted in a disability (such as long COVID), DSP is an appropriate office to determine any needed accommodations. However, if the short-term illness simply takes...
If you have a significant concern about the well-being of any student in your class, please file a Care Report with the campus’s Center for Support and Intervention (CSI). Filing a Care Report allows a CSI Case Manager to evaluate the concern and to offer appropriate support to the student.
The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) notes that "reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures shall be required, unless an entity can demonstrate that making such modifications in policies, practices, or procedures, including academic requirements in postsecondary education, would fundamentally alter the nature of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations involved."
Faculty are responsible for making their own websites accessible and providing accommodations for students with disabilities in an online course. There are many campus resources to assist faculty with this.
UC Berkeley is required to ensure that anything posted in public forums (for example, University websites or YouTube Channels) is fully accessible to persons with disabilities and can be accessed using assistive technology ( i.e. screen readers) and also includes video captions. Any information that is posted in your official university capacity that is visible to any member of the public must meet this accessibility standard.
Online courses or websites that are only accessible to registered students must provide accommodations as described in...
All accommodations are approved to address barriers that students experience based on the impact of their disability in the context of a particular academic space, task, or requirement.
In order to determine the appropriate amount of extended exam time a student may be approved for, a Disability Specialist will review the student’s medical documentation to understand how the student’s disability may impact them in a typical timed exam setting. In addition, Disability Specialists interview students about their own experiences when taking exams...
When a student requests the accommodation of remote participation, the Disability Specialist reviews the student’s medical information and self-report of their disability impacts to determine whether or not it is appropriate for the student to attend one or more of their classes remotely.
If the student’s medical documentation and experience do not indicate that the student cannot attend a course in person due to the impact of their disability, the Disability Specialist may request additional medical documentation and may also contact (with the student’s...
Yes. The outcome of a student and their Disability Specialist’s engagement in the interactive process may be a denial of the accommodation that the student requested.
Reasons for denying a student’s request for a specific accommodation include:
The Disability Specialist has not identified a disability-related need for the requested accommodation.
The Disability Specialist has identified a more appropriate way to address the disability-related barrier that the student’s request is...
UC Policy PACAOS 140 "Guidelines Applying to Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability" describes the University’s responsibility to ensure that students do not experience discrimination on the basis of their disabilities and provides definitions and and policy and procedural guidance on a number of topics related to academic, employment, and campus access.
