Heading to college is an exciting time, especially for students with disabilities who worked extra hard to get to this point, but parents of new students need to know that there will be many things that your child needs to do before those classes even begin!! In today's episode, you will hear about 15 steps that you and your child need to do or check on before starting classes in the fall. You will learn about residency paperwork, visiting Disability Services at least 3 times, building an academic plan, dealing with accommodation memos, and many other steps along the way. You will also have access to a FREE checklist to make sure you don't forget anything!
FREE Checklist: Summer Prep for New College Students
College & Disabilities: 9 Changes from High School that Every Parent Should Know
Mickie Teaches website
mickieteaches@gmail.com
Send me your podcast idea!!
Heading to college is an exciting time, especially for students with disabilities who worked extra hard to get to this point, but parents of new students need to know that there will be many things that your child needs to do before those classes even begin!! In today's episode, you will hear about 15 steps that you and your child need to do or check on before starting classes in the fall. You will learn about residency paperwork, visiting Disability Services at least 3 times, building an academic plan, dealing with accommodation memos, and many other steps along the way. You will also have access to a FREE checklist to make sure you don't forget anything!
FREE Checklist: Summer Prep for New College Students
College & Disabilities: 9 Changes from High School that Every Parent Should Know
Mickie Teaches website
mickieteaches@gmail.com
Send me your podcast idea!!
Mickie 0:00
Do you know a child or have a child with a disability who just graduated from high school and is planning to head to college, they probably have big plans for the summer of sleeping in heading to the beach, hanging out with friends seeing a lot of movies, but I help when they're making those plans. They also include time for actually preparing for college because there are several things that your child will need to do before the fall and summer is the perfect time for taking care of business. Because what will happen is, the longer your child waits to get these things taken care of before classes start, the harder it is to get things done before classes start. The lines get longer, the crowds get bigger, the demands get greater, and the stress level goes up like crazy, because everybody is waiting to talk to somebody at the college. So today I'm going to talk about 15 things that your child needs to do before classes start. And these are things that need to be taken care of as soon as possible in the summer, the sooner the better just to simplify your life and your child's life. So welcome to college disabilities, and success episode 68 Summer prep for new college students with Mickie Hayes. The opinions in this podcast are my own, please reach out to your college physician or legal services for additional information. When I was planning
Mickie 1:38
for today's podcast, I put together a checklist because I decided that was the easiest way to make sure that I covered all the information that I needed to cover to help you and your child have a smooth transition to fall classes. So the things that I'm talking about today will be available to you for free in a summer prep for new college students checklist that will be linked in the shownotes. So obviously, the first thing your child should have already done is submitted application and be accepted into the college of their choice. Now, sometimes kids don't do this right away, especially if they decided the last minute to go to their local community college. So it's not too late to put in an application for fall classes. It just delays things a little bit. But even if your child has been thinking about it has decided to go to college. Usually for junior colleges and community colleges, your child can still put in an application, just look for the application deadline in your college catalog. Now when we're talking about students with disabilities heading to college, we are talking about all students with any kind of disability. So whether we're talking learning disabilities, dyslexia, ADHD, a child who's on the autism spectrum, or who has medical conditions or physical needs, you might have a child with a mental health diagnosis, there could be a child with a visual disability, or hearing disability, your child could have an issue with traumatic brain injury, or post traumatic stress disorder, these are all disabilities that can actually be accommodated at the college level. And there are plenty, plenty more. These are just some few examples. But any of these disabilities that I mentioned can with the proper documentation, get accommodations at college. So as I said, the first thing you have to do is have that application in and have been accepted by the college. Now once a student applies and has been accepted to college, they need to go into the computer system get their student ID create a college login, because most everything that they're going to do preparing for college is going to involve the computer at one point or another. Now one of the things that you want to make sure is in order is your child's residency paperwork. Residency paperwork is important to the college because that will have a bearing on the tuition that your child pays for college there are in state and out of state fees, depending on the residency requirements. So you want to make sure those are taken care of. If your student has a disability, then you need to also see that your child makes an appointment for disability services because at the college level, nobody knows what's going on. Nobody knows about your child's disability. It does not come through on a transcript. There's no way the college would know ahead of time they get no lists, nothing like that so that the only way that the college knows that your child has a disability is if your child goes to the disability services office and self identifies and once they are there they will have to complete some paperwork for the disability services office and either Meet with disability services counselor or set up that appointment to meet with a disability services counselor. Now, besides the disability services counselor, your child may also have a new student orientation. Most colleges prepare some sort of new student orientation, so that all of the new students who are starting really know what their ducks are, and how they need to get them in a row. Now, if your child needs accommodations for the new student orientation, then by all means, speak to the Disability Services first, and make sure that accommodation is in place before the student gets to orientation. Students in particular who need to make arrangements would be students who need interpreters at the orientation, someone who was doing the sign language interpreting for them, but you may have other reasons that your child needs an accommodation at the meeting. So get those arrangements taken care of beforehand. Your child should make sure that all of the high school transcripts have been submitted and that proof of graduation has been sent to the college what happens is your child will be accepted into college before those documents have been sent in most cases, so they will come at some point during the summer, but you need to talk to admissions and records to find out exactly what they need in terms of transcripts and diploma status, because they will need that to start the process. You may find also that your child needs to submit SATs or a CT scores and the SATs or AC T scores will determine what classes your child can take going into the fall. In other words, if your child's SATs scores or a CT scores are not high enough, then your child is going to have to possibly take another placement test that could possibly be provided by the college. Now this placement tests that the college gives can also be accommodated. So again, if you have a child with a disability who has to take a placement test with their college, then those accommodations should be arranged ahead of time. As I said a few minutes ago, the placement test determines what classes you're going to go into. If the scores in a placement test are not high enough to go into freshman English or beginning algebra, then your child is likely going to have to take some sort of a remediation course or remedial course, in order to get the knowledge they need to head into credit bearing classes. So placement tests are indeed very, very important. And they determined the path your child is going to start on when college begins and the courses that they're allowed to sign up for when college begins. Now your child also needs to make sure that all the financial aid paperwork ducks are in a row. If you submitted the financial aid paperwork for your child and you know that financial aid was awarded, you need to follow up and make sure that you understand how much financial aid was awarded, what kind of financial aid it was,
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how the money will be dispensed? Do you have to come pick it up? Will it be sent to you? Will it be sent straight to the college who gets the check, so to speak? How do you get your books? Can you use your financial aid money for your books? Can you use your financial aid money for something else? What are the parameters and the limits of your financial aid money? These are all questions you should already know the answers to but if you don't, you need to set up an appointment with the financial aid counselor financial aid take my word for it is one of those very, very crowded places. Some financial aid offices won't even take walk in visitors. Some require an appointment, some will only take walk in visitors and then you go and you wait in a very, very long line. Our financial aid lines used to shut down usually two or three hours before the office closed. And so students who got there early afternoon oftentimes couldn't even see the financial aid people would have to come back the following day. So if you're ready for long lines, take your time getting there. But if you want to avoid the long lines, you might want to take care of financial aid business as soon as possible. The important thing is to know the deadlines know the due dates and know the expectations and it will just uncomplicate your life so much. Now you may be surprised to find out that after you met with the disability services office, the disability services counselor is not necessarily the one that's going to be making out or helping your child with the schedule. Your child will also probably need to meet with an advisor or a counselor to figure that out and the advisor and counselors job is to make sure that your child has a plan for the fall and knows that exactly where they're headed in the next few years, what major they've chosen, what courses they need to take, how those placement scores impact the courses they're going to take. And your advisor and or counselor can help give guidance to the courses that you choose the required courses, the courses that have prerequisites, the courses that are optional, these are all things that the advisor can address. Eventually, your child is going to be able to register for classes. And once that schedule is in place, Once your child has a schedule that they're happy with, then they will need to take that schedule back to disability services. Now think about it for a minute that makes sense. Disability Services cannot plan accommodations for your classes, until they know what your classes are. Now you went to Disability Services beforehand, so that disability services can talk to you about the documentation you need and the paperwork that you need to have in place. And Disability Services can explain to you and your child the protocols that are in place for getting those accommodations from disability services to the student, and then ultimately to the faculty member. So one of the steps in that process is for Disability Services, to actually know the schedule. So oftentimes, what your child will have to do is go back to Disability Services with the completed schedule and talk to them about the specific accommodations that they will need for each one of their classes. And then remember, as I've said, so many times before, combinations are there for equal access, the whole mission of college accommodations, is to provide equal access to mitigate the impact of the disability on your classes. And so the disability services, people are going to look very closely at the documentation that your child provides to them, so that they can determine what accommodations your child is qualified for. Now, here's a case in point. Usually in high school, pretty much if a student with a disability needs and needs a calculator, they get a calculator, nobody looks specifically to see if they have a math disability or not will Disability Services in the colleges don't work that way. If your child is going to have access to a calculator, that child is going to have to show proof that they actually have a disability and math that will require them to use a calculator. So you really need to talk to Disability Services, to find out what the classes are that you are taking, and what the accommodations are that you can use for those classes. For Disability Services
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to prepare those accommodation memos, it takes time, they're not going to do it right then and there. While you're sitting in the office, those accommodation memos will be prepared. And then again, your child will need to return to get them if that's the protocol that your college has in place for accommodation, memos, memorandums, a lot of colleges will require the student to come get the paperwork. And the reason for that is very simple under FERPA, it's the young adults right to have those accommodations and give them to the faculty. But it isn't necessarily the responsibility of Disability Services, because the adult who requested the accommodation is the one that will share those accommodations with the faculty member in many cases. So you need to find out how your college handles that. Are they going to give the accommodations to the faculty? Or will your child be required to get them to the faculty, because remember, if those accommodations don't make it to the faculty, nothing happens, nothing happens. They have to have that paperwork from the disability services in order to have any kind of accommodation support. So let's say at this point, your child has done everything they have gone to their orientation, they met with Disability Services, they have their schedule in place, they've arranged their accommodations, all of their ducks are in a row, their financial aid has been taken care of everything is there and ready to go. Well, there's one more important piece of information your child needs to know many times colleges take attendance, that very first day of class and if your child does not appear in class to be part of that attendance roll, they will be dropped from the class. Now not every college does this but some colleges do very often. There's a whole herd of people behind that student just waiting stocking waiting for an opening in a class. And so they're watching classes very, very closely after they start that first day because that's When students who don't appear, get dropped from the class, somebody else goes in and grabs that spot, you do not want to find out that your child is dropped from class because they miss the first day of school, you've done all this preparation. And then if that happens, now everything gets turned upside down. Because they're going to have to find a different class, they may not even have a class option that they can sign up for, that's going to impact following classes, especially if it was a prerequisite class for something else, things can get very complicated if your child doesn't appear for that first day of class. Now, not every school does this, but some do. That's another question you need to ask the advisor or counselor, what happens if you are absent that first day of class, besides the fact it's not a good way to start a class to begin with, but sometimes it's unavoidable. So if that were the case, how would that impact you? Because it could make a huge, huge problem for you and your child. So let's say everything's there, your child has gone the first day, no problem there, they have this accommodation memo in their hand, any student who has an accommodation memo should not just drop it on the teacher's desk. It's just not the way it works. Take some time privately to talk to the faculty member about the accommodation memo, maybe during office hours, maybe after class, after everybody leaves, maybe before school even starts if the faculty members available. But the point is, the young adult who has an accommodation memo should not just drop it and run they should take a minute to talk to the professor introduce themselves, possibly explain a little bit about their accommodations, if that's the case, and find out how the professor is going to handle the accommodations. For example, if your child is getting extended time for tests, well, how does that work? Do they take it in class with everybody else? Because that won't work? Not with extra time. So where do they go? Do they go to a test center? Do they go to a special center?
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Do they go to the professor's office? Do they go to an empty classroom? How do they get their test? How do they turn the tests back in? These are questions that your child should be asking the faculty member when they're talking accommodations. So keep that in mind. That's why you don't drop the accommodation memo. And just leave but take a few minutes to talk to faculty and let them know a little bit about yourself and about your needs. And Mom and Dad, you cannot have any part in this. This is all on your child. So what you do behind the scenes to remind your child is between you and your kid, but you cannot talk to the faculty member you cannot deliver the accommodation memo, you cannot check to see if it got there. You cannot talk to disability services to see if your kid picked things up. These are all things that change once you get to college. So you really need to have good communication with your children with a disability as they head to college. Your child will also get a syllabus from every single faculty member. And if it's not on the first day of school, it's going to be very close to the first day of school. So it might be within that first week of classes. So check on that make sure your child has the syllabus has read the syllabus understands the syllabus, because every professor is going to do things differently. And your child needs to know how their grade is going to be calculated, how they're going to be held responsible if they miss a class, what their assignments are, when they are due. All of these things are in the syllabus. And if your child ends up having a problem with the faculty member, at some point because of accommodations that they didn't get, or for any reason, the first question that disability services and the dean's office are going to ask is What does it say in the syllabus. So you really need to be aware of the syllabus and understand the importance of the syllabus. And finally, and this is just because I always, always, always remind parents and students that you need to pay attention to any deadlines and due dates, especially especially the course drop add and withdrawal dates because if you do not follow those deadlines closely and you drop a class at the wrong time, or withdraw from a class at the wrong time, it could end up costing you a payback of 1000s of dollars in tuition when a student gets tuition money, Pell grant money if they don't follow through and use the money as required. If they drop a class or with withdraw from a class at the wrong time. They could end up having to pay back that tuition. I have to Are slowly known students who couldn't go back to college because they owed 1000s of dollars in tuition that they lost and had to pay back because they dropped at the wrong time. Don't make that mistake, because it will cost you.
Mickie 20:15
Now the information that I gave you today is all in a free handout, I gave you a one page checklist, where you can go through and just literally check off all of these steps to make sure your child is ready to start classes in the fall. So I will have the link to that free checklist in my show notes. And I also have included some information about a course that I have. If you have a child with a disability, there are changes that are going to take place from high school to college huge changes, you're going from ide a to ADA, the laws are going to change does your child and do you understand those differences? Do you understand FERPA laws, and the rights that you have and don't have based on your child's age, those are going to change? Do you know the financial aid impact and regulations? Do you know what you need to know when you meet with Disability Services? Do you understand how documentation and accommodations are determined? Do you understand how the faculty works? And their point of view and how things work with them? Do you understand accommodations for online classes, if your child has to take online classes, and above all, can your child self advocate because that is critical when you get to the college. Now the course that I put together is called College and disabilities. Nine changes from high school every parent should know is composed of easy access videos that both you and your child can watch as many times as you need to watch, there's about a total of three hours worth of videos, there is an introduction and nine chapters of videos ranging from eight to 10 minutes per video to I think the longest is 39 minutes. So they're quick to watch. You can sit down and watch them as often as you need. And they're good reminders for the changes that your child is going to face. So if you're really new to college and new to this system of ADA, FERPA and the regulations that are required by colleges, then check out this course the link will be in the show notes as well. But it explains all of those changes. And it gives you the advantage of not learning about the expectations of college the hard way. Because you don't really want to learn this by your mistakes, you're much better off if you know what's coming down the road. And this course is a nice transition piece that will help your child get to college. If you are a teacher, a transition teacher and you're not sure what to expect when the child gets to college. This course will also help you because you'll be able to share the information with your students as well. So whenever you get a chance, take a look at that. I want to thank you for joining me today. Congratulations again for your high school graduation. And the new path and adventure that you're on as college starts in the fall and have a great summer. But don't forget summer prep is important for new college students. I hope you found value today and as always have a great rest of the day. Bye. Information contained throughout this podcast has been gleaned from my own personal experiences, but to ensure accuracy, please contact the Disability Services at the college of your choice to have firsthand information and the most up to date policies and procedures followed for your particular institution of higher education. The content in any of these podcasts is not intended as a substitute for information from legal, educational or medical professionals. Always seek the advice of your attorney or qualified health care provider with any questions you may have with regards to illegal educational or medical concerns.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai