An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 9 – Interactive Process: Employees and Students

Except where permitted by applicable law, disability information should not be shared with non- school employees without the parent’s express written permission (or student’s permission once they reach 18 years of age). As a general rule, faculty and staff do not have a right to access diagnostic or related information regarding a student’s disability or know what the disability is. Faculty and staff generally only need to know that the administration has verified the disability and the student’s right to appropriate accommodations to meet his or her disability-related needs. The school’s administration should house disability-related material for students and keep it in separate files for each student. The school should keep those files in secure, locked storage and/or a secure database. After a student graduates or otherwise leaves the school, the school should retain disability-related records for the same time period that the school maintains other student records. F. T ITLE III A ND F OOD A LLERGIES Under Title III, private schools must make reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures when necessary to give children with disabilities, including those with food allergies, full and equal access to and participation in programs and services unless the school can show that the modification would result in a fundamental alteration of those programs and services. Schools must provide children with food allergy disabilities the services and modifications they need in order to attend. Examples of these services and modifications might include implementing allergen-safe food plans, administering epinephrine according to a doctor’s orders (even if the school has a no-medication policy), allowing students to carry their own medication, and providing an allergen-safe environment in which students can eat meals. 1649 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published voluntary guidelines for schools on the management of food allergies. 1650 Schools that receive an allergy management grant are required to comply with the guidelines. 1651 G. T ITLE III A ND S ERVICE D OGS As with employees, private schools generally must accommodate a student’s request to use a service dog at school. 1652 The definition of service animal, the limited questions the school may ask regarding the service animal, and responsibility for care or supervision of the service animal are generally the same for students and employees. See Section 2.C.4.b.xv, above. And like service dogs utilized by employees, service dogs utilized by students must be under the control of the handler at all times and in most instances, the handler will be the student with a disability or a third party who accompanies the student with a disability. Schools may, however, need to provide some assistance to enable the student to handle his or her service dog. 1653 While the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has made it clear that animals that provide emotional support, therapy, comfort, or companionship do not qualify as service animals because they have not been trained to perform a specific task for an individual with a disability, these animals may otherwise serve as reasonable accommodations under other laws. For example, under the federal

An Administrator’s Guide to California Private School Law ©2019 Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 371