Exciting Changes to the Accommodation Request Process

On December 1, 2016, the College Board announced a simplified process for requesting accommodations, making it easier for eligible students to receive the support they need on College Board assessments. Beginning January 1, 2017, the vast majority of students who are approved for and using testing accommodations at their school through a current IEP or 504 Plan will have those same accommodations automatically approved for taking the SAT, PSAT 10, and PSAT 8/9. Under this new policy, SSD coordinators need to answer only two questions when submitting most requests for students: “Is the requested accommodation(s) in the student’s plan?” and “Has the student used the accommodation(s) for school testing?”

If the answer is yes to both questions, eligible students can be approved to receive most accommodations on College Board exams. This new process is expected to reduce the approval time for an overwhelming majority of accommodation requests. Additionally, EL students taking the state provided PSAT 8/9, PSAT 10, and SAT during the school day in Michigan will have access to testing instructions in Spanish, Arabic, Haitian Creole, Mandarin, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, and Vietnamese, and will be able to use approved word-to-word bilingual glossaries. The assessment results, when these supports are used, will now be college- and scholarship reportable and do not require an accommodation request in SSD online.

In order to review and answer questions about these policies, we will be hosting a webinar for SSD coordinators on December 14, 2016 from 3:30-5:00. If you cannot view the webinar live, you can still register and we will email you a link to the recording and the PowerPoint when the webinar is complete. •

Click here to register: http://tinyurl.com/MISSDWebinar