Auxiliary Aids and Services – for the many years I served K-12 students as an educational sign language interpreter, that’s how I was designated on the paperwork. Each Individualized Education Program (IEP) specified what services the student would receive to help them succeed in school. Including your friendly neighborhood Auxiliary Aid and Service.

At the college level, students don’t qualify for disability-related accommodations through the IEP process anymore. At NMC, the student initiates a meeting with me to make their request. Through an interactive process with the student and careful review of supporting documents, the necessary adjustments are agreed upon. I then inform the instructors through the Accommodation Notice email.

Although this process is quite different from that at the K-12 level, our responsibility to provide auxiliary aids and services, to students who qualify, has not changed. The aids and services I am referring to include (but is not limited to) note taker, sign language interpreter, talking calculator, and voice recorder. The U.S. Department of Education has this helpful article I encourage you to read. I found the Commonly Asked Question section particularly interesting.

If you have skipped directly to this last paragraph for my bottom line, here you go…the bottom line is if a student in your class is requesting an accommodation due to a disability please refer them to my office so we can get this process started. If everything is in order, you’ll receive an email from me with all the necessary information. Including which  Auxiliary Aids and Services are approved.