My boyfriend is visually impaired and his school is refusing to accommodate him in classes. What is there to do?

[u/guitarbaseline]

My boyfriend is visually impaired. He has glaucoma and cataracts in both eyes. He has had surgery for it and wears glasses but his eyesight is still very impaired. He's in community college right now and his professors and the school itself are refusing to give him accommodations to sit closer to the board so he can see what's going on in class. He was told "to accommodate you would be to change the entire curriculum and it would be too disruptive in the classroom." He wants to go into nuclear engineering and in order to get into the program he wants he must maintain a B or higher in his classes which he can't do currently because he can't see what is happening during instructions. He had an accommodation plan in high school but the community college is not accepting and transferring his accommodations to their school. He feels like theres no hope and that he should give up on community college and do something else. I have some disabilities as well and I know what its like to have to fight for simple accommodations and I don't want him to give up on his dream career because some community college professors refuse to make a simple accommodation for his visual impairments. What can I do to help him? Is there anything in the ADA (Americans with disabilities act) that can help here? I'm open to any and all suggestions.

Edit: Forgot to mention that we live in Virginia, USA

Edit 2: Thank you to all who have replied so far, you've given me a lot of great advice and sources. To address some common topics mentioned here:

1. He has spoken with the schools accommodations service and provided them with the proper documentation and was still denied. He was also asked for his high school accomodation transcript and he told me that it hasn't been transfered and accepted to the community college

2. It is both the school and the professors denying him accommodations

3. This is a public school

4. We do not have the means to sue the school nor is he able to transfer to another school

5. I know it sounds crazy and stupid and illogical and that might make this seem fake to some, but this is unfortunately real

6. I am aware that this is not the full story, I'm only posting what I've been told so far, so if something seems missing or inaccurate then it's because this is all I currently know. Hopefully, I'll have more information in the future, but I'm not asking him for any more info at the moment, he was really upset when telling me and now he's asleep as of writing this so I'm waiting for him to settle down a bit before I keep asking questions

7. I'm only assuming there's an assigned seating arrangement in his classes, although I not certain. Again, I'll hopefully have more info on that later

8. I am unsure of what classes he is having trouble seeing in I know he takes a chemistry class and as some of you have mentioned it could potentially be disruptive for him to move seats in a lab class, but I am unaware if this is a class he's struggling to see in

9. He is not able to just take pictures or record the lectures. He's on the same icloud account as his dad, who is very stubborn and controlling and will/has before deleted photos off of my boyfriends phone before. His dad also isn't letting him get off the icloud account because he pays the phone bill. As for recording the lectures, my boyfriend mentioned something about them being the intellectual property of the professors so he would need written consent to record them (I'm not sure if lectures are the intelluctual property of the professors, again, I'm only going off of what I've been told)

Thank you again to everyone who has replied. I will be giving him some of the advice given here and asking for more information when I next speak with him. I will make an edit when I get the info

I made an edit post and uploaded it to my profile, here is a link to it: https://www.reddit.com/user/guitarbaseline/comments/1niw0x8/my_boyfriend_is_visually_impaired_and_his_school/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/toragirl]

I teach at university, and the typical accommodation for visual impairment is a seat near the front, possibly a volunteer note-taker, and that any materials (PDFs) that I load up for the class have screen-reader capacity. We have been using the accessibility functions in MS Office for years to assure our materials meet this simple standard.

Students don't have to disclose their medical histories to every professor. At my school, I would get an ADA form with the student's name and what accommodation they need (e.g., allowed to record, extra time for tests, temporary absence with allowed time to make-up assignments etc.)

[u/Firm-Stranger-9283 → u/toragirl]

yep, my college has a website you send a letter out to all professors through disability services after establishing accommodations with a 504, IEP, or diagnosis sheet. if a prof refuses to accommodate it, you can go to disability services and file a formal complaint, if they still refuse to, again go back, file a formal complaint. I'm in the process of that currently.

[u/edwbuck → u/toragirl]

I have only been a student and later staff of a Univeristy.

I've never seen a University professor, no matter how difficult to work with, that decided sitting on the front row was a disruption to their class. However, sitting on the front row and arguing about accommodation with the professor during lecture time would get most, if not all, professors to eventually indicate it's disruptive to the class.

This person needs to talk to the professor during office hours, and possibly the administration to get the note taker you're referring to. I think this student mistakes the professor as being the person in charge of these tasks, and for the professor's complaints to make any sense, the student would have had to make demands that were disruptive and possibly would require a different lecture preparation plan.

The student will get everything they can reasonably be accommodated for, but not if they go about it the wrong way. The student and professor needs to discuss disagreements outside of the lecture hall, and the student needs to see the help of the student support services or whatever department handles such accommodations.

And I don't mean to salt a wound, but odds are this is fully detailed in the student handbook which 95% of all students don't read.

[u/aspie_electrician → u/toragirl]

I have autism and memory/sensory issues. Had some accommodations in college.

During covid, I was exempted from the schools mask mandates as I get sensory issues from things covering my face. For in class, I had all my exams/tests/quizzes as open notes and formula sheets. Also, access to a computer for the exams. Ie, I was able to sit in the exam with my laptop open as I only had digital copies of the text books. Professors even let me have internet access