Disability Support Services Council
October 22nd 2014
Fall Meeting Minutes
(Bellingham Technical College: Campus Center Building Settlemyer Hall)
Meeting was called to order at 9:30am by President Karen Fusco. Karen welcomed those in
attendance and expressed appreciation to the colleges attending by Go-To-Meeting. At which time,
Mary Gerard extended appreciation for being able to host her fellow colleagues and shared her VP
would not be able to welcome DSSC due to accreditation meetings and again welcomed everyone to
Bellingham Technical College.
10:00 State Board Community& Technical College (SBCTC) Report (with hand out provided)
Scott Copeland led discussions referencing highlights from the hand out and extended appreciation to
those who had completed the ADAR requested data. He shared updates with his schedule being
pulled in all different directions due to Accessibility Resource Center (ARC) with appreciation for
everyone’s patience.
Although, Tacoma Community College and the Spokane District Colleges continue to lead the way in
the ctcLink system conversion there will be delays with the roll out and that we could follow the
progress at the ctcLink Connect link.
Scott then provided the following legislative highlights from the handout:
 Military Credit Report will be due prior to 12/31/15.
 SSB 5669 was signed into law. This statue will provide for awarding credit for military training
applicable to the student’s certificate or degree requirements.
 SSB 5318 was signed into law and in effect since July 1st 2014. This statue removed the one-year
waiting period for veterans or active members of the military and spouse and/or dependent(s) by
expanding the definition of “resident student” for purposes of eligibility for resident tuition.
 SSB 6358 was signed into law and effective since June 14th 2014. Requiring institutions of higher
education to provide certain financial aid information to admitted and prospective students.
 SSB 6323 signed into law and effective since June 12th 2014; expanding the definition of “resident
student” for State Need Grant eligibility by including “Dreamers”.
 SSB 6002 $410,000.00 was appropriated for the Mathematics, Engineering and Science
Achievement Community College Program (MCCP) to extend the current pilots at six colleges
where federal NSF funds are set to expire in 2015: Columbia Basin; Edmonds; Highline; Olympic;
Seattle Central; and Yakima Valley.
Discussions then turned to the budget. Scott shared the requested budget is being rolled out this
month (October) and spoke to the Student Services Decision Package. One of the 2015-17 package
features proposes to strengthen efforts of academic completion and career counseling in the CTC’s.
The request would fund an increase in staff and support the implementation of strategies to increase
the academic and career preparedness of first year students, improve persistence and momentum of
students toward completion and entry into the workplace. The biennial request is for 17,952,000.00. It
is anticipated that students will demonstrate significantly higher career confidence and contribute to
an increase in the first-year fall-to-spring retention rate, to 67% in 2015-16 and 69% in 2016-17.
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Scott highlighted information on the Awarding Prior Credit; Competency-Based Education Projects;
Reverse Transfer Project; Smarter Balance Exam; College Bound Scholarship Program; Legislative
Internship Program; Working Families Success Network (WFSN); and Reports. Please see specific
details in the Fall State Board Report October 2014.
At which time, Scott opened up the floor for any questions. Members asked the following:
Q: Any more information on the ctcLink outside of delayed roll out?
A: Norma Martinek from Spokane Falls shared some validation coding changes. Challenge is with
priority codes being lost and then merging codes from other college entries and then the new college
not having all the documents regarding the other codes entered by the prior college. Norma is looking
for any new guidelines…
Q: Katherine Held from Tacoma shared challenges with confidentiality being able to see actual
records. She is working with Betsy Abts who is aware of all the feedback.
Scott added these concerns are shared by SBCTC as well. Some challenges come from Ciber who
seem to have some employee changes. This is the third company reorganization which appears to be
contribution to some of the frustration. Additional contributing delays come from the Financial Aid
side.
Norma threw out an idea that all questions could be sent to Scott, who suggested ccing him on emails
that go to each college’s ctcLink lead and/or Betsy Abts.
Susan Gjolmesli from Bellevue had a question on the accessibility of People Soft and the repeated
answer of “we don’t know.” Scott added nobody has shown the accessibility but everyone keeps
saying “yes it is” but no one can demonstrate that at this time. Norma reiterated that JAWS access is
sporadic at best…Susan suggested there be accessibility teams testing ease and use even though
everyone says it’s ADA compliant. Dennis Johnson from Spokane shared that his college has
volunteer teams established to explore accessibility. Scott added that challenges identified from a
least a year ago are just now being addressed.
Kim Thompson from Shoreline suggested to Scott that the ctcLink representatives really need to be
working with DSS folks, which has not happened at her college as of yet. Katherine felt that the
Financial Aid and payroll issues have been at the forefront of troubleshooting and that although
accessibility is recognized they aren’t able to troubleshoot any of the feedback coming from the pilot
schools. At which time Kamran Rasul from Columbia Basin offered any assistance with
troubleshooting access; this is his area of expertise.
Scott wrapped up discussions on this subject by stating ctcLink is going through significant growing
pains.
Q: Karen Fusco had a budget question regarding any anticipated campus budget cuts.
A: Scott did share that due to the McCleary Act and issues budgets are impacted and unless
additional revenue options can be identified that an anticipated 15% budget amounting 92 billion
could cause impact.
10:30am-10:45 Break
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10:45am Washington State Student Services Council (WSSSC) Report
Report was led by Dr. Deb Casey who shared the council had met on 10/8 and 10/9. At which time,
she hoped to bring a couple of issues to the forefront for discussions first being Universal Design and
accessibility of conferences and events.
Questions to members included who pays for access services (i.e. interpreters, captioning) the event
or the employer? And are there access statements on registration forms? Deb is suggesting that
DSSC submit a white paper drafting guidelines regarding who funds requested accommodations.
DSSC members came up with developing a subcommittee to put a white paper together with three
volunteers to work with Dr. Casey. Members included Kerri Holferty from Whatcom; John Rajcich
from South Puget Sound; and Maud Steyaert from Cascadia.
Current input from members regarding who pays for the cost of requested accommodations all
agreed it was the sponsoring entity. ADA Title II and III states that the sponsoring entity pays
accommodation cost not the employer or attendee (student/employee).
With regards to the registration form and access statements, Karen Fusco from Olympic shared she
has an accessible statement from Fresno State College and will send everyone the link for review.
Action Item: Karen will send out Fresno’s accessibility statement to DSSC listserv.
Tami Jacobs from Pierce Ft. Steilacoom suggested a budget line item with each state commission
that extends registration costs to include accommodation requests and then it is there saved for any
accommodation request.
The second issue Dr. Casey hoped to discuss was the ctcLink and all concerns at all different levels
and the need for a state board overview to occur. At which time, discussion was opened to the floor.
Members shared due to the earlier Q&A with Scott Copeland no other questions remained.
11:30am Task Force Updates
Kim Thompson and Mary Gerard led update on “Transition Task Force” she discussed the following:
 Fears i.e. curriculum modifications are not going to materialize.
 Talks continue with the pieces on “transition process” from K-12 to college.
 Discussions continue to address the gap between K-12 and college for students who don’t have
college as an option due to limited specialized college programs.
 Task Force “recommendations” will be shared Mary Gerard looking for list to give to board so
GTM attendees have access to the points-Disability Task Force Report 2014 Executive Summary
was put up on the screen with Mary reading each bullet point. Action Item: Mary will send out this
list to DSSC listserv.
 Discussions continue with the misunderstanding between accommodations and the
costs/organization of accommodations.
 Relationships are being built between task members.
Kim was asked to give a brief hx on why this task force was created for new members, which she did.
She did make the suggestion to DSSC board to think about having different task force
representatives come and present their services and how to create partnerships with DSS offices to
support the K-12 transition.
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Tami Jacobs and Karen Fusco led updated from the “Accessible Technology” Task Force:
 Introductions were extended to Carl Oekerman, instruction member from BTC he shared
information from instructions perspective.
 Spring 2014 was last meeting with recommendations made and presented to all SBCTC
councils…at which point it appears to have stalled.
 Hx on how this task force was created presented.
 No new chair has been identified since Warren Brown left. Scott Copeland suggested that the
summary report needs to go to Mark Jenkins who could take the report to the board and/or WAC.
12:00pm to 12:45pm Lunch Break
12:45pm Business Meeting
Jamie Hatleberg, DSSC Board Secretary presented spring 2014 minutes and spring 2014 WSSSC
meeting minutes for review both were approved at 12:58pm.
Marc Coomer, DSSC Board Treasurer presented the spring 2014 treasury report with updates on
EventBrite and registration process. It was agreed the board will add an accessibility statement with
next meeting registration form. The treasury report was approved at 1:03pm. Action Item: Marc will
put accessibility statement on registration template.
At which point, Karen presented the 2014-2015 Work Plan with GTM access for all to review and
comment.
Goal 1: No changes
Goal 2: It was suggested to add the accessibility subcommittee in this goal along with the two task
force committees. However, it was agreed to put results of the committee in the goal vs. adding new
objectives since plan is already approved by the state.
Goal 3: No changes.
Side comment from members: A suggestion was made to follow-up with Disability Rights Washington
regarding the Public Records Act Request for compliance with the Disability History Month Act. They
had requested disability awareness records from all Community and Technical College’s back in
February 2013. It might be nice to find out what happened with this data request.
Winter meeting dates were explored with members identifying January 29 th (full day) and 30th (half
day). Targeted location for the meeting is Olympia. Action Item: DSSC board will identify whether or
not SBCTC is available to host January dates.
A motion to adjourn the business meeting was accepted at1:30pm.
1:30pm Break
1:40pm Canvas Student Orientation
Mary Gerard and Liz Campbell led presentation. It was recognized that all presented information will
tie into the DSSC Work Plan Goal 3. Details of data were presented via a ppt with guest presenters
Terri Thayer and Stew Sepp leading discussions on student learning outcomes via interface with
CANVAS. Particular services available through CANVAS included renewing accommodations;
identification of resources; student communications; and assessment. At which time, Mary provided
specifics on student learning outcomes with handout provided on the new SLO quiz (see handout for
details). Members extended appreciation to Mary and her colleagues with pioneering different service
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methods to assist both students and DSS Offices with qualitative data collection; student access and
retention.
3:00pm Disability History& Awareness Panel
Angela Merrit led panel discussions with a set of questions presented to panel members (Claudia
Angus at Walla Walla; Aaron Hodukavich at Clark; Susan Gjolmesli at Bellevue; Karen Fusco at
Olympia; and Marc Coomer at Yakima Valley). The main question to panel members centers on
“what have colleges been doing for disability month (October)?” Discussions identified the following
efforts:
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Offering different disability related activities.
Offering guest speakers on disability awareness.
Develop workshops and/or panels where swd educate audiences on access.
Develop workshops or presentations on diagnostic education and the impact of different
diagnoses.
Showing movies and/or TED Talks that are inspirational
Create disability awareness exhibits throughout campus
Partner with instruction and develop scavenger hunts for extra credit
4:00pm Hot Topics
A quick suggestion to have DSS Offices consider presenting at the June 2015 Diversity Conference
was made by an attending member; at which time, the following hot topics were discussed and led by
all members and included:
 Chronic acute health related disabilities with requests for remote access or synchronized remote
participation
 Accommodations for modification of assignments due to “triggering effects”
 “Helicopter” parent using internet blogs to discuss accommodation concerns
Members were advised conference evaluation forms would be emailed out to listserv with request to
please take the time to provide feedback and suggestions.
Meeting Adjourned at 5:00pm.
Meeting Minutes respectfully submitted by Jamie Hatleberg, Secretary on
12-3-14
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