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Student can substitute test as a reasonable accommodation

Most of the names in these stories have been changed to protect privacy.

A young man with a developmental disability, Stephan Lydon was in a healthcare technology certificate program at a community college. One of the requirements for the certificate is a general education math course. Due to his disability, Mr. Lydon feared he could not pass the math course.

Mr. Lydon had already passed a health-care statistics course that was more relevant to his program. He asked the Disabled Student Services office if he could substitute the statistics course for the math course. The answer was “No”.

When he called the San Diego office, attorneys there agreed to help him. In researching the college’s policies on reasonable accommodations, they found language allowing substitution of classes as an accommodation. The attorneys then helped Mr. Lydon write a reasonable accommodation request, attaching language from the college policies.

A short time later, Mr. Lydon called his attorneys to tell them that the college dean and the professor in charge of the degree program had agreed that he could substitute the statistics class for the math requirement.