Accommodation Notification Process

Policies/Procedures

To receive the approved academic accommodations, it is the student’s responsibility to go into their Student Profile in AIM and put in their accommodation request every semester. Once this is completed, the Faculty Notification Letters (FNLs) are automatically queued for sending in the AIM system and will be sent to each of the student’s instructors. It is best practice is to do this prior to the first day of classes so ensure your accommodations are in place from the beginning of a semester.  The FNLs outline a student’s approved classroom and/or testing accommodations. Instructors are under no obligation to provide accommodations for a student without an accommodation letter from SAR and under most circumstances’ accommodations are not retroactive.  

In order to ensure accommodations are in place, students will need to follow the process below each semester. Failure to follow these steps will hinder the provision of accommodations. 

• Log into the SAR student portal with your Patriots login information and select which accommodations you would like to receive in each course. Students will also receive a copy of each FNL via their Patriots email. Students should review each FNL to ensure every accommodation the student intends to use for a specific course is outlined on the FNL. If a student believes an accommodation is missing, they should contact the SAR office immediately.
  
  
• After FNLs are sent, the student is strongly encouraged to meet with each instructor during their published office hours and discuss needed accommodations for that particular class. These meetings should occur as early in the semester as possible. For online courses, these meetings may be completed via email exchange or a virtual meeting. 

If the student or professor has any questions about the accommodations, the student should contact the SAR office and encourage their professor to do the same. SAR staff can provide guidance regarding the provision of accommodations and recommend alternative accommodations if necessary.  

• If the student receives testing accommodations, the student must log into their Student Profile in AIM and schedule all exams or quizzes they intend to take at the UTTyler Testing Center (instructions provided during intake initial training meeting). If the student attends courses at a satellite campus (i.e. Longview, Palestine, Health Campus, Medical School, HEC), they should coordinate testing accommodations using test scheduling instructions for their campus (instructions provided during intake initial training meeting). If students have questions about how to schedule exams or encounter scheduling conflicts, they are welcome to contact the SAR office for additional training. 

Important Guidelines:

• It is not reasonable to alter fundamental course requirements.
• Although there is no deadline to deliver FNLs, students who plan to use their accommodations should deliver the accommodation letter early in the semester, so instructors have sufficient time to coordinate the necessary accommodations. 
• If the student is approved for testing accommodations, it is the student’s responsibility to remind the instructor of their accommodations schedule their exams through their Student Profile in AIM 3 weekdays before each semester exam/quiz or at least 5 weekdays before the beginning of final exam week. 
• If a student registers with SAR later in the semester, there can be no expectation of taking exams in the Testing Center in less than one week. Time for the FNL delivery, instructor involvement, and test scheduling must be considered. 
• Accommodation letters become effective on the date the letter is delivered to the instructor and ARE NOT RETROACTIVE except in rare and specific situations. 
• Accommodation letters contain confidential material and should be handled by the instructor accordingly. 
• If a student needs to request an update to their accommodations, the student must meet with the SAR office to discuss the modification.