Section 504 Plan

Parents need to be the advocate when it comes to their child's education. Schools want every child to be academically successful for the knowledge and skills that are developmentally appropriate. While the regular classroom setting may be least restrictive to reach this goal, sometimes it is appropriate to receive accommodations that will assure that academic success is */possible./* Local school districts are aware of their responsibility to identify students who, without some accommodation, can not be accurately assessed as to their academic knowledge or skills level over time.

Section 504 is a civil rights law which empowers both the parent and school district to work together to determine what modification in a daily school routine might be necessary to assure that the child has access to all aspects of the "free appropriate public education".

Any health condition which might potentially decrease a child's access to the daily educational process or lessen the school's ability to accurately evaluate the child's academic success is deserving of consideration by a committee of teachers, school administrators, parents and health professionals.

The Section 504 committee provides a consensus on the daily school routine which is a written plan to include accommodations to insure the safety and well-being of the child at school in addition to removing school protocols which prove to be barriers to health-impaired students. Normal classroom rules, regulations, and operating procedures which are very appropriate guidelines for governing most students, can prove to be too limiting for a health-impaired student, even if the handicapping condition is as temporary as a broken hand, or specifically related to a single activity(fear of heights) or allergic reaction.

The 504 plan for a child is */not/* a guarantee of school success or even of improved grades, but rather the committee's efforts to remove any barrier that denies the child the same access to the educational process as a child without the identified disability.

A child's 504 plan is committee-produced and may continue as long as the committee approves. The plan always remains a flexible document, changing with the changes in the identified needs of the student or when there are different recognized barriers to his/her full educational access.

Every public school district in America has a designated Section 504 Plan Coordinator. The coordinator can provide an overview of the Section 504 federal legislation, including specific requirements of the school district and the rights of parents for their children with a qualifying disability attending a public school district.

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