http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/504faq.html (december 2013)

There's a section there that says this:

Quote
4. What services are available for students with disabilities under Section 504?

Section 504 requires recipients to provide to students with disabilities appropriate educational services designed to meet the individual needs of such students to the same extent as the needs of students without disabilities are met. An appropriate education for a student with a disability under the Section 504 regulations could consist of education in regular classrooms, education in regular classes with supplementary services, and/or special education and related services.

This seems different from what we were going on before where students had accommodations to allow equal access to the same programs as nondisabled peers. But it does seem to open the door to them being required to actually teach a kid to type when they give them a word processor, or to provide extra help to teach a dysgraphic to write or a dyslexic to read-- even if they are making adequate progress.


and this:

Quote
14. Does the nature of services to which a student is entitled under Section 504 differ by educational level?

Yes. Public elementary and secondary recipients are required to provide a free appropriate public education to qualified students with disabilities. Such an education consists of regular or special education and related aids and services designed to meet the individual educational needs of students with disabilities as adequately as the needs of students without disabilities are met.

At the postsecondary level, the recipient is required to provide students with appropriate academic adjustments and auxiliary aids and services that are necessary to afford an individual with a disability an equal opportunity to participate in a school's program. Recipients are not required to make adjustments or provide aids or services that would result in a fundamental alteration of a recipient's program or impose an undue burden.


We had been going by equal access to the curriculum (what is described for post secondary level), but this seems to say that K-12 need to have needs met as adequately as nondisabled needs are met. (What even does that mean?).

Anyway, I was updating my knowledge and was kind of surprised to see this wording, and thought I'd share in case it helps anyone else.