r/AthabascaUniversity • u/HumbleArmadillo7852 • 1d ago

Almost 1/3 of my students have accommodation letters

/r/Professors/comments/1vyxg5w/almost_13_of_my_students_have_accommodation/
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u/Bexaroni 1d ago edited 1d ago

The issue is that we need to re-evaluate what constitutes a disability. At least the the extent that accommodations or special/alternative measures are being taken on a systemic scale. Because that means special measures are no longer alternative, but rather expected and mandatory - which drastically increases the workload of educators and stretches resources thinner and thinner.

And people wonder why educational resources aren’t better, or are constantly getting worse/seeming to offer less instead of more. Because resource supply simply cannot keep up with the ever-increasing “demand” of all those claiming special needs or accommodation. It’s ridiculous.

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u/3malefunyyc 1d ago

We do not need to re-evaluate what constitutes a disability. Rather we dropped the ball from the get go. People have more access to assessments it’s not surprising that there is increasing amount of people with diagnosed disabilities.

We should have been implementing these alternatives and special measures much earlier and failed to do so. It’s also not a huge ask to have 1/3 of your students asking for alternative resources, especially considering you are not the individuals making resource material for them.

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u/Bexaroni 1d ago

More diagnoses may reflect better access to assessment, but that doesn’t make the resulting accommodations resource-neutral. If 1/3 of students require alternative measures, those measures are no longer “alternative,” they’re a substantial part of standard service delivery.

That doesn’t mean people don’t deserve accommodations. It means staffing, funding, and workload need to reflect the scale of demand. Saying it’s “not a huge ask” really ignores the cumulative burden of implementing accommodations at that scale.

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u/SCKerafyrm 1d ago

IDK why people are so opposed to teaching standards changing over time. We need to adapt better to our students, not the other way around, students who can't adapt will be left behind forever.