Situation
Debbie Kosior, Learning Disabilities Specialist at Tunxis Community College, began using Symplicity Accommodate in the summer of 2020 after it was implemented as part of the Symplicity’s state-wide partnership with the Connecticut State Colleges and University (CSCU) system. Before her recent full-time appointment at Tunxis Community College, Kosior split her time between Tunxis and providing Disability Services support at Asnuntuck Community College which is also part of the CSCU system. Kosior said that “I have a unique perspective on how Accommodate has helped us on both campuses and I can confirm that managing accommodations was much more cumbersome before having the system in place.” Both Tunxis Community College and Asnuntuck Community College immediately started experiencing the benefits of Accommodate after implementation and reported that the platform was instrumental to their office operations during the pandemic.
“Since the pandemic began, we've seen our caseload grow substantially and Accommodate helped cut down on the time-consuming process that we used to have. With everything being electronic, we're now able to serve more students and provide them with more resources than ever before."
Debbie Kosior,
Learning Disabilities Specialist
Solution
Before Accommodate, Tunxis Community College was using a homegrown system for managing testing and student accommodations, and Asnuntuck Community College was utilizing an Excel Spreadsheet. “We didn’t have the ability to upload documents digitally; instead, we had a big filing cabinet and that was how we tracked students who were approved and what disabilities they had,” Kosior noted. It was incredibly beneficial to have electronic access to files, especially when the staff at both campuses were working remotely during the pandemic. “Everything was right there at our fingertips, so it made life so much easier,” Kosior added, “We didn’t have to worry about accessing a filing cabinet. I could review a student’s documentation or request from anywhere which was very helpful.” Moving away from a paper-based system has saved Kosior and her team a ton of time, allowing them to provide more resources to students..
Success
With Accommodate, Tunxis Community College and Asnuntuck Community College have improved student and faculty communication. In the past, there was a lot of paperwork that both students and instructors needed to keep track of every semester. “The faculty portal is fantastic! Instructors can log in and get a quick view of the students in each of their classes, who has accommodations and what those accommodations are,” Kosior said, “And students benefit from this, too, because sometimes students need different accommodations for different classes so they’re able to customize their accommodations by each class.” Instead of students filling out paperwork and physically bringing it to their instructors, they’re able to do it all online. On the other end, instructors don’t need to keep track of the paper requests—Accommodate organizes and keeps track of it all for both students and faculty.
Having this data in one central place has been helpful to track and understand student trends. Kosior imagines the data in these reports that Accommodate can generate will help get more resources for her office. Kosior said, “We’ve only been using Accommodate for a year so it hasn’t happened yet, but I do think the reporting we’ll be able to do with Accommodate will help us to justify and support our need for more resources or funding in the future. The data will help us tell our story.” In the meantime, Tunxis Community College and Asnuntuck Community College will continue to maximize Accommodate to better serve their students with disabilities.
“Symplicity has been extremely supportive with the entire rollout. Their support team is always making sure that we're comfortable every step of the way and, any time I've had a question or concern about something, I always heard back within a short period of time. Symplicity's support team is very responsive which is amazing!"
Debbie Kosior,
Learning Disabilities Specialist
