Getting Support in School: A Parent’s Guide to K-12 Accommodations

By Xhris Castillejo, LAC | July 18, 2025

Navigating the Education System

Navigating the education system can be a daunting task for parents of children who have physical, emotional, or learning needs, but students with othering abilities have legal, ethical, and moral entitlements to support in public and charter schools that can help them to succeed academically. This article shall review one of those key ways of ensuring support toward success - looking at requesting accommodations in a K-12 setting when your child does not already have an existing Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or a 504 Plan.

What Are Accommodations?

Accommodations are adjustments made to the student’s learning environment, instruction, or assessment to help them access and learn the same content as their peers within a general education setting. These changes may be requested due to suspected or known learning and/or physical disabilities, mental health challenges, and speech and language disorders. Accommodations are intended to help level the playing field, creating equal opportunities for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills without being hindered by their disability. An important element to note is that the child is consistently facing challenges despite making an effort in their academics.

Examples of Classroom Accommodations

Common accommodations seen for students in the classroom include extended time for completing assignments, tests, or projects, preferential seating within the classroom, assistive technology, note-taking support, alternative assessment formats, assignment modifications such as “chunking” or breaking large tasks down into smaller parts, reduction of workload as long as the work given still meets all state academic standards, classroom environment adjustments, breaks from instruction and ability to move around the classroom, and visual aids and support. Unfortunately, accommodations do not include exemptions from state standardized testing, removal of homework, changes to grading policies, requesting a teacher work solely with the student (except in extreme cases wherein an exception may be made), unlimited time for tests or other assignments, removal of classroom rules, changes to curriculum, and exemptions from group work and peer interaction.

Step 1: Recognize the Need

The first step in requesting accommodations for your child is recognizing a need, and often this starts at home by noticing if they may struggle with developmental tasks such as reading, writing, concentrating, organizing, or socializing. If these persist or become more noticeable as your child progresses in the early grades of their elementary education, take note of what you are observing, including providing specific, tangible examples and samples that can be shared with your child’s teacher.

Step 2: Request an Evaluation and Gather Documentation
The second step toward securing accommodations for your child includes collection of data, documentation, and an evaluation. In Arizona, parents have the right to request an evaluation for their child (see A.R.S. 15-766), but in most cases, a school will request documentation and evidence of the child’s struggles. Public and charter schools have a maximum of 15 school days to either conduct an evaluation after reviewing the existing data, or, if the school has determined there is a lack of documentation or evidence, they may provide prior written notice refusing to conduct a requested evaluation and start what is often referred to as the Child Find process.

Step 3: Meet With the School Support Team

The Child Find process is a legal mandate under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requiring states to identify, locate, and evaluate all children with potentially unknown disabilities who may need intervention or special services. This may manifest in different ways at various schools throughout the state, but its goal is the same; to create opportunities for the school to collect data and samples that indicate a need for an evaluation for determination of accommodations.

Whether documentation is sufficient to move forward right away, or the Child Find process must be followed, the next step would be a meeting with the appropriate school officials that comprise a support team. This team often includes a special education coordinator, your child’s counselor and teacher, and administrators such as the principal. During this meeting, parents/guardians, the child, the child’s teacher(s), and other educational professionals discuss what the data and samples support. The conversation will focus on the student’s specific challenges, the types of accommodations that have been used in the past that have and have not worked, how the child uses their resources and offered support, and how the accommodations will help the student access the curriculum and demonstrate their abilities. Parents/guardians and children are encouraged to ask questions, clarify concerns, and ensure everyone involved understands the nature of the student’s needs.

Step 4: Create a Legally-Binding Plan (If Applicable)

As a part of this meeting, if it is determined that the child would benefit from accommodations, the team will create a plan that outlines which accommodations will be provided. This plan may be through an IEP for qualifying disabilities or a 504 Plan for what the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 considers “non-disabling” conditions such as ADHD. These two types of plans are considered legally-binding documents that ensure the school implements the accommodations consistently.

Step 5: Monitor and Advocate
After accommodations are in place, it is crucial for parents, students, and educators to monitor their implementation and effectiveness. If an issue arises, follow-up meetings with school staff may be necessary to make adjustments or identify and add additional supports. Advocacy for the students is key; if parents, students, and educators feel empowered to speak up about a student’s needs, support fill quickly follow. Every student deserves an education that meets their needs, and accommodations are an essential tool to ensure that equity in education is a reality.