How do I qualify for services?

In order to establish eligibility for services, the Office of Disability Services may require documentation that both verifies the existence of disability and provides a rationale for reasonable accommodations. The responsibility and cost of obtaining documentation is borne by the student.

If the documentation supplied by the student is insufficient to establish disability or determine appropriate accommodations, the Office of Disability Services will require the student to provide additional documentation at his/her expense. The Documentation Review Committee reviews documentation to establish eligibility for services. Guidelines for appropriate documentation are as follows (Please see accommodations for detailed information about the accommodations required for specific types of disabilities.)

• Documentation must come from an appropriate licensed professional and must be dated and signed;
• Documentation must include a clear statement of diagnosis and explanation of how the diagnosis was determined, including specific results of diagnostic procedures and dates diagnostic evaluations were administered;
• Documentation must include an explanation of the functional limitations of the condition;
• Documentation should be less than 3 years old unless the condition is permanent or unchanging, as determined by the Disability Services Coordinator. If the manifestations of the condition are variable, the Disability Services Coordinator may require more current documentation in order to determine functional.

Documentation and the nature of a student's disability is confidential information. All copies of documentation of disabilities submitted by the student for the purpose of considering ADA accommodations must be centrally housed in the Office of Disability Services.

For more information contact Jane Warner at jwarner@keene.edu or 603-358-2354.