Facility Transfers Doubly Affect Disabled Students

 

Hi everyone! I am in Alaska right now, enjoying the beauty of the Last Frontier. In the meantime, I want to feature a guest blog post from none other than Dr. Jenifer Montag. This post is especially important in states like Alaska, where individuals live in remote areas and are transferred many hours away from their families. 

Ben has doing an amazing job highlighting all that we have been learning about

disability access in prison education programs through the grant that he has received.

There is still a lot more left to learn, I’m sure.

One of the points that Ben has discussed with me is the impact that prison site transfers

have on students enrolled in prison education programs. There are many ways students

are impacted, especially the college students. Generally speaking, unless there are

transfer agreements or compacts between colleges, students may “lose” earned credits

when they transfer between prison sites, if the same college is not teaching inside the

new prison. Additionally, students may have to change majors if college change when

moved between prisons. Or students may no longer have access to college education

because the new prison does not have a prison education program. And vocational

training programs vary across all the sites of a state’s prison system – not every prison

offers HVAC, or plumbing, or welding, or automotive maintenance.

While those speed bumps on the pathway to postsecondary education and training can

be very disruptive to any student seeking education, there are additional gaps, almost

like sinkholes, that occur in the pathway for disabled students who are transferred

between prison sites.

As many of you already know, at the college level, there is no “special education”, rather

the college’s Disability Services office will work with students who identify and request

accommodations because of a disability to create approved disability accommodations.

Due to the nature of higher education disability services, each college sets their own

policies and procedures related to the processing of disability accommodation requests.

For example, some colleges require specific documentation of a disability, including the

evaluation must be current (usually within three to five years, but sometimes may

require annually updated evaluation or letter from qualified medical professional); adult-

normed; and include all the evaluation data (such as achievement and aptitude scores

for learning disability evaluations. On the other hand, some colleges are more flexible

and willing to review previous documentation (such as a high school IEP or 504 Plan)

and engage in a conversation with the student about the disability impacts in the

learning environment and how accommodations have helped the student previously

(part of the interactive dialogue the colleges must engage in with the student requesting

accommodations).

The relatively “simple” act of moving a student from facility A where College X is

teaching to facility B where College Y is teaching, may mean the student with disabilities

is delayed in setting up and receiving accommodations from College Y.

Additionally, as Ben and I are finding out on our work on building out the training manual

for disability accessibility in prison education, not every college prison education

program has been deliberate in developing processes for students with disabilities to

request accommodations and connect with the college disability services office in a

quick manner. For example, College X may have established a formal process where

students are notified at the new student orientation to request accommodations and the

request is submitted to the college disability services that same day and a pass is

provided to the student to attend the interactive dialogue meeting with the college

representative from disability services within a week. College Y may not have

considered nor established any formal process for students to request disability

accommodations. The disabled student who is transferred to facility B and enrolls in

College Y may encounter delays in getting connected to the disability representative

from College Y. The representative may then also need additional time to figure out how

to facilitate the needed accommodations, such as American Sign Language

interpreters, real-time live captioning of class lectures, accessible audio textbooks,

braille or large print materials, extra time on tests and tests read aloud, or even the

simple accommodation of a notetaker for lectures, inside the constrained environment

of the prison setting.

Complicating the transfer situation for disabled students enrolled in postsecondary

education and training programs inside prison settings is the issue of documentation.

Originally, College X was able to receive and review the students previous IEP and with

that and the interactive dialogue, the college disability services representative was able

to determine the appropriate accommodations for the student in College X’s classes

and degree program. However, that documentation is on file at College X and does not

follow with student who is moved between facilities to facility B where College Y is

offering classes. College Y would now be expecting documentation from the student

requesting disability accommodations. However, the student likely does not have that

documentation themselves, though it may be on file at College X. That documentation is

not automatically transferred from College X to College Y, though a student can request

a FERPA release from the original college and a signed release of information form

from the original college’s disability services office in order to have College X fax the

documentation to College Y at the student’s request. But the student would need to

know to make that request and College X would need to be ameniable to sharing

documentation they have received. Some colleges may deny sharing out third party

(like a high school IEP, or a doctor’s letter of documentation) with another organization,

but may be okay with providing a copy to the student directly – but there is the

complicating factor of whether or not an individual under the care of a state DOC can

possess any of this type of information (medical / educational records) or if that could be

considered contraband.

So far, we have only discussed two rather common “sinkholes” that might occur for a

disabled student who is administratively transferred between two prison facilities with

different colleges providing education inside. Additional barriers may pop up because of

the differences between what the prison administration at each facility may or may not

approve for the college disability services staff to bring into the facility for

accommodations.

Even something as general as the depth of experience that the college disability

services staff has with specific types of accommodations will vary between institutions.

Some disabilities are considered “low-incidence” meaning the number per 100,000 or

per 1000 students is lower than other disabilities, making that disability a bit more

infrequent in showing up in the student population (even on the main general campus).

Hearing loss and vision loss are two of the disabilities that are more infrequent on

college campuses, especially students who are Deaf and use American Sign Language

for communication or students who are Blind and use Braille for reading. Some college

campuses may have educational programs that draw more students with hearing or

vision loss to the campus (such as an undergraduate Teachers for the Deaf or Teachers

for the Blind and Low Vision degree programs). That means the college disability

professionals have likely had more experience with specific accommodations such as

interpreters, real-time captioning, closed captioning, assistive listening devices, braille,

large print, screen reading software, portable magnification devices, tactile diagrams,

and accessible textbooks than a staff member who may not have worked with a blind or

Deaf student in the five years they have been working in the disability services field.

Having a student who is Deaf and reliant on sign language interpreters for

communication moved between facilities may also impact the number and quality of

interpreters available for in-person interpreting. This is critical if internet is not an option

and therefore remote interpreting is not a possible accommodation that can be arranged

for the Deaf student in the college classes. There is currently a lack of qualified

interpreters for the level of need across the United States. Since interpreters often are

freelance and only earn money when they are in front of a Deaf person interpreting,

interpreters will be located where large populations of Deaf persons are located –

usually in large cities and suburbs. More prisons seem to be located in less urban

areas, more rural locations, and removed from large populations of Deaf persons and

the co-existing larger population of ASL interpreters that would be available to interpret.

This means the college disability professional would have to try and secure qualified

interpreters from further away, including cities that may be 1, 2, or even 3 or more hours

away, increasing costs and coordination efforts.

Since this is a blog and that means it should be short, I will close with the knowledge

that we will continue to engage in the conversation about impacts on education for

disabled students who are moved between prison facilities.

Jenifer Montag, Ed.D., is the Associate Director of the National Center for

College Students with Disabilities (NCCSD) through AHEAD. She has over

20 years of experience in postsecondary disability service provision, at a

variety of higher education institutions, along with having taught graduate,

undergraduate, and community college classes. Previously, as the college

disability services professional, she facilitated college disability services,

including ASL interpreters, real-time captioning, ALDs, and magnification

technology for students enrolled in Marion Technical College classes at two

state prisons. Along with facilitating these complex college

accommodations in the highly constrained prison environment, she has

also been fortunate to be able to teach the college’s First Year Experience class to students enrolled in the MTC prison education program.