Here’s What Students With Learning Disabilities Need To Know Before Enrolling In Community College

If you’re a high school senior with a learning disability — or if you’ve struggled in school despite trying your best — you might benefit from specialized academic support when you’re in college. The same can be true for adults returning to school after years away.

Once a student transitions to higher ed, getting that support requires initiative. And summer's a perfect time to start planning ahead.

Because of the federal Individuals with Disabilities and Education Act, K-12 schools are required to provide students with special needs with the support they need to succeed. Often, parents or caregivers serve as the students’ advocates.

But “once the student gets to college, a lot of [that support] is self-initiated, and a lot of it is self-controlled,” said Christopher Elquizabal, a dean at Cerritos College who oversees services for students with disabilities. Elquizabal began his higher ed journey at Fullerton College, where he received services for his learning disabilities and gained academic confidence. From there, he went on to earn degrees at Cal State Long Beach, Harvard, and USC.

To help prospective community college students with learning disabilities take the next step, LAist spoke with local experts about what resources are available and how students can access them.

Who we talked to for this article

• Christopher Elquizabal, dean of student accessibility and wellness services, Cerritos College
• Grace Hernandez, dean of student services, East Los Angeles College
• George Marcopulos, lead learning disabilities specialist, Santa Monica College

How do you learn best?

Learning disabilities affect how people process information — how its received or transmitted through the brain.

Santa Monica College says it plainly:

Instead, experts say students need the right support and interventions.

George Marcopulos, lead learning disabilities specialist at Santa Monica College, said he encourages students to “become the expert in [their] own learning difference,” and to pay attention to what does and doesn’t work for them.

Traditional instructional methods are often inadequate for students with disabilities, Marcopulos added, so it’s not uncommon for them to have “bad memories” of school. This, in part, is why some prospective students — especially those who’ve been away for years — hesitate to enroll.

“But I think there’s a joy of learning that you sometimes recognize when you’re older,” he added. Plus, at community college, “you have the benefit of going at your own pace, maybe you only want to take one or two classes and start off slow” — there’s no wrong way, he said.

Grace Hernandez, dean of student services at East Los Angeles College, echoed his point. Whether you’ve been in the workforce for years or recently graduated from high school, she said, “don't let anybody tell you that you are not college material.” Students learn in different ways, she underscored, and it’s a school’s responsibility to help them access the material.

For students making the transition from high school to college, “the biggest shift” might be for parents and caretakers, said Elquizabal. In high school, parents or caregivers usually keep track of their children’s academic progress and related services. In college, those rights and responsibilities transfer to the student.

At Cerritos College, Elquizabal has found that some students “don't know how to have those conversations, because they've never talked about their disability.”

“And so, we often have to start the conversation with the student about the nature of their disability and what that looks like at the college level, what accommodations [they can] have access to,” he said. To set up students for success, Elquizabal encourages parents and caregivers to make sure their children are knowledgeable about their learning disabilities, and that they practice leading conversations about what services work best for them. In K-12, students might have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or a 504 plan, which require regular meetings between educators and a student’s parents or caregivers. As students prepare for postsecondary, they can use those meetings as an opportunity to practice advocating for themselves.

What kind of support do community colleges give?

Depending on their disability, students might qualify for certain accommodations to ensure they're able to access the material:

• additional time on exams
• permission to take exams in a proctoring center, instead of in class 
• audio versions of textbooks 
• access to a word processor during exams 
• specialized tutors 
• note takers
• priority registration 

Priority registration can help students in different ways, Marcopulos explained. For instance, students who need additional time to complete exams can use priority registration to make sure their class schedules are arranged in a way that allows them to “take advantage of extra exam time and be able to get to their next class.”

How do I access these services?

To confirm the existence of a disability, colleges will ask students to provide documentation. This can include an IEP or 504 Plan, or a letter from a licensed clinical psychologist or educational psychologist.

If a student has not been diagnosed, said Elquizabal, his office will still meet with them. In some cases, students might be able to access interim, short-term services.

Some schools, including Santa Monica College and East Los Angeles College, offer on-campus learning disability assessments.

“To do this privately, it would cost upwards of $2,500, and it’s free at the community college — if you’re an enrolled student taking academic classes,” Marcopulos said. The assessment, he added, takes six to eight hours.

Many students “have never been identified before,” he said, “so we rely on teachers and counselors and other school personnel to refer students [who] are having a difficult time.”

How do faculty know what I need?

Historically, Elquizabal said, students used to share their letter of accommodation directly with their faculty. “We don't do that anymore,” he said. “You don’t want to have students negotiating with faculty members for accommodations, because of the power dynamic.”

Instead, professors receive information about a student’s accommodation through an online system that’s managed by his office. This is also how things are done at Santa Monica College and at all campuses in the Los Angeles Community College District, including East Los Angeles College.

Also, students might not need an accommodation in every class they’re taking, so the letters are only sent to professors who teach courses where the accommodation is needed.