De Anza has a reputation for excellence for its services to students with disabilities. However, when compared to programs implemented outside the community colleges environment, it falls short.

Most difficulties encountered by students, faculty, staff and management at any of California’s community colleges are rooted in money. Nationwide, community colleges receive twice the support that California gives. Though funding did increase 33% during the last three years, California State Universities increased 66%, while the UC system more than doubled their funding.

Legally required services sometimes do not get properly funded, and so the needs of students often do not get met.

I have a disability. I am familiar with conditions on campus that are encountered by students with disabilities. I have tried to use services promised in De Anza’s faculty/staff handbook, only to face numerous unnecessary difficulties. Being visually impaired, when I needed help reading my homework, I went to the Department of Disabled Student Programs and Services. They referred me to the California Department of Rehabilitation.

When I checked with the CDR office in San Jose, a counselor told me that the college was responsible. DSPS then told me that the college could not meet my need. After all that, a four-minute walk to the tutorial center finally resolved the problem.

They provided a tutor to help me keep up with my reading.

De Anza does maintain one of the finest computer labs for students with disabilities in the state. Located just off the southeast corner of the college, the lab has about a dozen PC clones and Macintoshes, two part-time technicians and one part-time instructor. To mitigate the inconvenient location, a shuttle service transports students back and forth from the Seminar building on-campus. This seems a reasonable solution to what should have been a short-term problem.

However, year after year, the lab remains off-campus. Many students do not use the facility because it takes too long to travel back and forth. It has no evening hours, and still does not have a full-time instructor or lab technician.

De Anza’s services for students with disabilities may rise above what most other community colleges offer, but after ten years of service, the program remains under-funded and under-staffed.

Until recently, the office did not have a procedure for handling aid requests from students with disabilities. Students would indicate special expenses, only to have the information ignored.

It took six to nine months to straighten out the problems. Students who depended on assistance to complete their studies discovered that they had a special category called “unmet need.”

De Anza’s financial aid office did not look at the Social Security Admin-istration’s income exclusion policies, and in my experience has penalized students whose spouses must use SSA’s funds for legitimate expenses.

It took nine years for the college to produce a faculty handbook that the Faculty Association would accept to advise instructors of their responsibilities under state and federal laws. Only management and full-time faculty members received copies, not part-time faculty.

I would encourage everyone to ask the reference librarian to look at the reference copy.