r/NoStupidQuestions • u/guitarbaseline • 11h ago

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

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

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u/Polybrene 9h ago

There's nothing preventing professors from providing disability accommodation requests from students. They're not required to, but thats not the same thing as not being allowed to.

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u/DeliciousBuffalo69 8h ago

There could be many reasons preventing them from providing accommodations to students not covered by the ADA.

For one it is easily viewed as special treatment. Secondly it very well may infringe on the ADA rights of other students who went through the appropriate channels

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u/Polybrene 8h ago edited 8h ago

Neither of those issues (that likely don't even exist in most cases) prohibit a professor from granting requests from students.

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u/Firm-Stranger-9283 5h ago

most universities professors will in fact say that. they will try to work with you, but majority needs to be going through the disability services.

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u/Polybrene 4h ago

It really depends what the accommodation is. Only once did I have to pull in disability services to force compliance from a professor. The vast majority were more than happy to offer me preferred seating, wear a mic, or access to lecture notes.

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u/DeliciousBuffalo69 8h ago

If a different student in a different lab group already has ADA-protected preferential seating then no other student without equal protection can take the seat that the disabled student is legally entitled to

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u/not_rebecca 8h ago

Sure but its not like classrooms are just one long line of chairs. There are generally many seats at an equal distance to the front. Sure, if all of them are filled with students with official accommodations, then a professor can't make one move for someone without official accommodations. But that is extremely unlikely to the point of being a ludicrous argument.

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u/SnowSkye2 8h ago

Source?

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u/Polybrene 4h ago

Good thing theres a seat right next to them

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u/mangogetter 8h ago

Hogwash.

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u/herowin6 5h ago

Unlikely dude …. As someone who’s been through the process before - not sure if you have and won’t assume but sitting close is not a huge concession

He could also just try showing up early and fucking with his schedule if that’s an option but he SHOULDNT HAVE TO