2E question: College Board accommodations

[4KookieKids]

I seriously thought I had covered all my bases. I have a kiddo with dyslexia, adhd, autism, and dysgraphia. I did my paper trail: I have multiple neuropsych evals, dyslexia assessments, etc. I have notes from a multiple psychologists recommending educational accommodations, particularly extra time on tests (for the dyslexia and adhd) and a testing environment with fewer distractions (for the adhd and autism). I submitted all of it to the College Board, even highlighting the relevant recommendations, and they wrote me back saying it was insufficient to qualify for the requested accommodations, and what I NEED to submit is timed academic scores in different subjects, RTI reports, detailed teacher evaluations or surveys, performance reports, etc. 

It feels almost like they want to deny him because he's bright and he's not "failing" his IQ testing, despite having very clear deficits in attention and phonological stuff related to the dyslexia. And I don't have the requested  reports and tests from schools or teachers, of course, because we homeschool. I worked hard to get all my ducks in a row for the last ten years, and I confess I'm pretty discouraged at feeling like he won't actually have a fair shot at performing to his potential. I've no doubt he'll still do "well enough" without any accommodations, but it doesn't seem fair. 

Any suggestions for what we can submit in order to argue our case?

[KSera]

Do you have testing that shows more than two standard deviations between his processing speed and his scores on other submeasures? That may be helpful. 

[EKS]

I have a grown HGish son with dyslexia, adhd, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia diagnoses.  We applied for CB accommodations for him as a homeschooler back in 2012 (I believe it was).  So this was before they changed things.

We were told that it was going to be difficult to get accommodations as homeschoolers, and that we needed a paper trail that included showing a history of disability as well as accommodation, preferably in an official setting, such as a school.  He was in fifth grade when he was diagnosed with dyslexia, and we used that to get him a 504 plan with the local district.  We then had him take a standardized test each year using those 504 accommodations.

About six months before we needed to apply for CB accommodations, we had him reevaluated by a team of doctors who specialized in dyslexia, giftedness, and had ample experience with the CB.  One of the things the CB was looking for was evidence that the student actually needed extended time.  This was done in several ways.  The first was straight processing speed on the WISC.  Apparently they were looking for a score below the 2nd percentile.  They also wanted to see a discrepancy between achievement and fluency.  So, for example, my son's WJ math problem solving score was at the 99+th percentile, while his math fluency was at the 5th percentile.   

Another thing they did was to give a reading comprehension test under both regular timing conditions and with extended time.  Because he is gifted, they had to use a test that was hard enough so that there would be a discrepancy between the two.  The test they used was the Nelson Denny, which contains college level material.  He was at the 50th percentile timed and 97th percentile with extended time.

It was also suggested to us not to have him take any CB tests without accommodations prior to asking for them because if the CB saw that he was able to score in the average range without accommodations, they would probably deny our request.

Edited April 23 by EKS

[8filltheheart]

I got accommodations for my dd last yr.   It was a very simple process for us, but I took a very deliberate approach.  I submitted the letter from the psy stating the accommodations that were recommended and what I was requesting. (It was literally like 3 sentences long.) Then, i submitted the psy report with all unrelated content redacted. (It was mostly blacked out pages with only individual lines left readable.)  I only left the exact specific deficits that were related to the requested accommodations.  I didn't know if they would accept the redacted content or not, but from my perspective, they didn't need to know the majority of the information or familial history information, etc.  All they needed to see were the deficits that impacted the timed testing/distractable environment.  They accepted it.  So, perhaps less information is more.  If you psy hasn't written a condensed summation of requested accommodations, I would request one.

[saw]

If you can get a 504 from your local school district, this will help and may be dispositive as I think it is for the ACT. Similar situation here, although DS was given accommodations. Another point that I have been told will help is making a big deal of how long ago a diagnosis was made and describing DC's normal way of working to show that accommodations are already in place (not easy to do with homeschooling admittedly). 

Not sure if this is relevant, but we recently applied for DS to get accoms on the IB exams. From what I could figure out, the IB accommodations have two routes. First is to show discrepancies in the subtest scores, which would have entailed additional testing. Second is to show a need based on a condition like ADHD, which can't really be put into numbers. We didn't need test scores for this, only D's psychiatrist's report. I wonder whether getting extra time on the basis of ADHD may require less testing for the College Board than getting extra time on the basis of other diagnoses. FWIW, DS has ADHD and hearing loss and the request for accommodations was based on that. We don't know whether the IB will grant the accommodations though, and they follow their own rules, not US law. 

We did run into issues with his AP French exam last year, which was send over the office for academic honesty and evaluated. I think it's because no one could believe a kid with extra time and hearing loss could score a 5. Took me weeks of emailing and calling and fussing to get the score released. The joys of 2E.

 

[4KookieKids]

Thank you all. I will look into these other ideas.

 

On 4/23/2024 at 9:53 AM, 8filltheheart said:

I got accommodations for my dd last yr.   It was a very simple process for us, but I took a very deliberate approach.  I submitted the letter from the psy stating the accommodations that were recommended and what I was requesting. (It was literally like 3 sentences long.) Then, i submitted the psy report with all unrelated content redacted. (It was mostly blacked out pages with only individual lines left readable.)  I only left the exact specific deficits that were related to the requested accommodations.  I didn't know if they would accept the redacted content or not, but from my perspective, they didn't need to know the majority of the information or familial history information, etc.  All they needed to see were the deficits that impacted the timed testing/distractable environment.  They accepted it.  So, perhaps less information is more.  If you psy hasn't written a condensed summation of requested accommodations, I would request one.

Maybe this was my problem - that I sent in every piece of documentation I'd ever gotten with nothing redacted and gave too much information by leaving all "gifted" portions in and so now they think I'm just bluffing about needing the accommodations. 

[EKS]

2 hours ago, 4KookieKids said:

Maybe this was my problem - that I sent in every piece of documentation I'd ever gotten with nothing redacted and gave too much information by leaving all "gifted" portions in and so now they think I'm just bluffing about needing the accommodations. 

Could you get your evaluator to write a report specific for this purpose?  That's what we did and it was only that report that we sent in.

[Dmmetler]

I wish I had better experiences-we had such issues with getting accommodations for M that they ended up just applying test optional everywhere. It worked out, since there were enough schools that still were to have some good options, but it knocked all the in-state public schools off the list. 

 

It hasn't been a problem at all for colleges to accept the SAME documentation that College board said was insufficient.  But maybe that's because what M really needs for college is a housing assignment close to most classes and priority registration (with a goal of getting a mix of in person and online classes to minimize walking and physical stress). 

[4KookieKids]

On 4/24/2024 at 4:04 PM, EKS said:

Could you get your evaluator to write a report specific for this purpose?  That's what we did and it was only that report that we sent in.

Yes, I just heard back from the evaluator this morning saying that they are willing to do that. I just have to decide how to proceed, because they want to charge me $200 and I don't even know for sure if college board will accept it. 😛

I may also punt it for a year. I'd planned on having this kiddo take the SAT early this year, but I may just go with the accuplacer for now. Yesterday he got accepted into a hybrid program (public charter school that has a part-time homeschool option with vouchers for CC courses) that will help us create an IEP. I was talking with them last night and it seems that they may be able to advocate for us with college board down the road, providing some of the suggested documentation.

Edited April 26 by 4KookieKids