So this is an apartment? It sounded more like a typical double-room with bathroom in a dorm. Now I’m confused. How many rooms does this apartment have?
Why are you minimizing or invalidating the needs of other people who are not your D? I don’t understand why this is necessary.
Are her panic attacks medically documented and has this been brought to the administration’s attention?
Yes I need quiet and time alone, more so than most people, but noisy people don’t give me a panic attack.
I’m going to go back to my original statement. The student has a diagnosis…but a diagnosis does not mean accommodations or services are necessary. My guess is that the school did not see sufficient evidence that a single was necessary. In other words, while the person who did the testing provided a lot of information, he or she did not te that to THIS STUDENT’S need for a single room. That is the key ingredient.
@Sylvan8798 - She is an on-campus apartment. There are 3 single bedrooms and one double, a shared bath and kitchen. She is in the double.
I received a PM from several people after I posted my first comment. Many of these parents have kids whom are the same way: their kids just do better without the commotion of someone else being in the room. I’m sorry that I can’t explain it any better. Its just something you realize when you have kids like this. Its frustrating to not have the words, because then its hard to convey to those making the decisions for their well being. It almost makes you wish you could have a camera on them so others could see how they respond to things that might not phase you or me at all.
The problem is still that there seems to be no available singles. Your daugher or you, need to find out if the Housing office has a room change policy, or a waitlist and get on it. Unfortunately, at most schools transfers get the short end of the stick because returning upperclassmen get priority and frosh space tends to be separate. It’s entirely possible there were no available singles when your daughter applied.
I would get more documentation, to support her need for a single, and then make sure she ends up high on the list for a room change, if possible.
As for the current situation, maybe an RA can help?
“their kids just do better without the commotion of someone else being in the room.”, doing better is not the deciding factor. The diagnosed disability must result in a “substantially limitation” to a major life function. The definition of “substantial limitation” is left up to the granting institution, in this case the college. Court rulings have suggested that it should be defined as below the level of a “typical individual”. It seems reasonable to argue that in a “major life function” in a college setting is housing & that in this case the disability “substantially limits” the student’s ability to have a roommate.
If this is so unworkable, maybe you should think about returning her to the school where she was thriving. Am I the only one having a hard time understanding how it could cost anything like $1000 to drop a kid off 400 miles away? Or how hiring a lawyer could be a possibility but staying in a motel that doesn’t even have to be in Santa Cruz–you have a car, just drive out of town–is way out of the budget?
"The DSM is not the be all-end all, "
I’m pretty sure neither NVLD nor Aspergers are in it. Maybe that’s why!
ADA requires the school to give the student reasonable accommodations, if the school finds the request is warranted. If all upper class housing is full by the time the request was made, it may not be possible to meet this request. If there are kids in forced quads or triples, it may be school policy to undo those arrangements before giving a student a double as a single. If the school finds that the need is valid, the ADA appears to say this student should be placed on a priority list for the next single that comes up (after any other kid with a verified need already on the list is accommodated). I don’t think ADA requires the school to force a kid in a single to switch to a double or force a kid in a double to move to a triple. Hopefully, by the spring she can be moved, perhaps to a single where the student is going abroad.
I think you have explained your daughter’s needs well. It may be difficult to prove this is a need the school find is within the disabilities covered under the ADA. I really hope things improve for your daughter.
Barrier free access is difficult to retrofit on existing buildings. I would doubt a lot of college students will sue over the issue because by the time the suit is complete, they will likely have graduated from another college. What are the damages? There absolutely should be requirements that the best effort is made to provide barrier free access, but it may not be possible at every single building in every school.
“Not to sound silly, but what if, during the early 60’s, African Americans asked coffee shops if they would be served, and only went in the ones that said “yes.””
Maybe silly, but that’s what most of us did!
Obviously this may not be the best choice. But if she can’t get a single is there anyway she could commute the 40 minutes each way from home?
That sounds like a solution ^^^
Another thing I thought of: If the situation gets really untenable, maybe she can re-enroll in the original college. But she can move herself in with the help of a friend. That way you can save the $1,000.
It is difficult for people to understand this, if they don’t have a child or themselves a diagnosis such as generalized anxiety disorder or social anxiety disorder and/or clinical depression. Those who say, why don’t I get help too? I need my alone time too? - Absolutely, have at it. You are free to do as I and others in this type of situation did: spend months and years trying to figure out why someone who has a good intellect is suffering and unproductive, including a battery of tests; psychiatry appointments (many); trying various types of medication over months to years; hospitalization in some cases, including our family; and other expensive, time-consuming, and worrisome interventions. No one is denying you your right to obtain a diagnosis for you or your child, so either put shoe to pavement and try to get one, or check your resentment at the door.
OP good luck to you and your daughter. You’ve gotten some good suggestions on this thread.
P.S. The roommate’s behavior - banging around the apartment, muttering under her breath - is called passive aggression.
Snowdog- nobody is denying that this student is in a sub-optimal situation. But the problem appears to be that the documentation did not say “This student has an anxiety disorder and cannot attend college without accomodations including living in a single room”.
Documentation which leaves it up to the disabilities office to parse isn’t going to get the job done. Especially if there are a shortage of singles on campus, and especially since the D is a transfer student who likely didn’t get her housing deposit in when the returning students did- based on the nature of transfer admissions.
I have no resentment. But the OP did not understand that the documentation could not leave it to the imagination as to the type of housing her D required. It must state explicitly what she needs.
Maybe the roommate has a diagnosis of passive-aggressive disorder (from someone other than Snowdog) and is also registered with the disabilities office? We don’t know that she doesn’t have special accommodations too.
Just because OP has spent a lot of money on testing doesn’t mean all the experts are going to agree on the treatment or that the daughter is entitled to a single that isn’t available. If the experts said the daughter would do better with classes of only 25 students, is the school required to cap all her classes at 25? Schedule them all for the morning because she does best then? Waive a lab requirement because it is too stressful? No,that’s not what accommodation means. IF there is a single available, then the school should make the accommodation. If possible. The school can’t make other students accommodating or nice.
My sister teaches 4th grade. This year she has 31 kids,and half of them have IEPs, and one student has a Para because she has seizures. Every student can’t have a seat in the front row if that’s what the IEP says is optimal. Every student can’t have every test designed just for him or her.
We have to assume there is no single available because the housing office has said so. The disabilities office can’t make one appear. Kids are stacked like cord wood in other dorms and would be happy to have an apartment double. I do know lots of people with this diagnosis, who have to have singles (yet they can go to summer camps with shared dorms if that is the only optionand they want to go to summer camp, or travel with youth groups, or play on travel team and share rooms.). They have to make a choice sometimes of not living in the situation if the single is not available. Delay going to the school, commute, live off campus. Making another student give up a single is not an option. Making a double room a single when there is a housing shortage is not an option.
Just because some of us haven’t spent millions on a diagnosis doesn’t mean we don’t know what is necessary for our kids to be successful. My children had IEPs, so I know what works for them in education. More time helps, quiet spaces, sleep, food, teachers explaining in certain ways. I make it happen without the disability office. We plan schedules, plan for sleep and food, they head to the library if they need quiet time. It is not perfect. They get Bs sometime. The other girls in the suite may be like my kids, no longer on an IEP or 504, but still with the same issues. Maybe they just got their requests for singles in first. Maybe the sleep talking bothered the roommate so much because she, too, has issues and needs quiet time and sleepand that’s part of her plan with the disabilities office? We don’t know.
My son is dx with autism spectrum disorder and also has significant anxiety and depression. The school he attends (not a UC) made it clear from the beginning that they do not give singles for those types of issues. They explained that it is their philosophy that these students, who are usually socially awkward, are poorly served by an isolated, single room and are better able to access college programming with a roommate. In addition, the dorm itself is usually chaotic enough that a single wouldn’t help that much. That’s what they told us.
In other words, at that college, the disability office believes that a person with a social disability not only does not need a single room, that person may be negatively affected by a single room. My son is fine - his roommate is very quiet and polite and no trouble - but this is an example of how a diagnosis can not be interpreted the way you think it needs to be interpreted.
Exactamundo, shrinkrap! Welcome back!
BTW, to whoever suggested the student drive the 40 minutes to school, I think the OP said it was 40 mines, not 40 minutes. Its still certainly possible, but probably will be a longer commute.
And all the discussion of what will help the student. The testing needs to document that the student has a documented disability with a functional impairment, and without the needed accommodation, will not have equal access to the academic experience. So the report has to document what the functional impairment is, and how the requested accommodation will ameliorate the impairment. Its pretty straightforward when understood this way. Whats necessary to be successful vs a diagnosed disability that causes a functional impairment that requires the requested accommodation in order to have equal access are 2 different things.
OP, maybe these kids who “like to be alone” or “don’t like having a roommate” are just like your daughter, dealing with their own diagnosed, yet "invisible ", disabilities and perhaps they don’t want to share their private information with others. Just a thiught.
You are off track, Snowdog. No one here has suggested “why don’t I get help too?” What I have said is that the rest of us (i.e. those of us without sundry diagnoses) also have needs. We also need food, sleep, space and time to de-stress, yada, yada. Do you dispute that or do I need a battery of tests and a 15-page report to determine that I need food? To downplay the needs of others and make it seem like one kid is the only one who “needs” anything doesn’t help draw them to one’s cause.
The OP, for example, might think that a single should be made available for her D, even if it means taking one away from someone else who doesn’t have ADHD because that must mean she doesn’t “need” it. If that view gets carried to her D the resentment will be between the D and the 3 girls in the single rooms of her suite.
** Typo above. 40 miles (not mines). Sorry.