Takeaways for School Administrators

School administrators have several important roles in the extended time accommodations process:

• Ensuring that decision making follows state and federal regulations

• Providing resources to ensure delivery of accommodations as written on IEPs and 504 plans

• Approving emergency temporary accommodations if a student suffers an injury or illness

• Keeping a "birds eye" view of which students have accommodations to ensure equity in the decision making process, and to prevent either underaccommodation or overaccommodation

Takeaways for school administrators from our research:

• Among both 4th and 8th graders, which school a student attended had a substantial impact on whether the student received extended time accommodations; schools appear to have different thresholds and decision-making processes.

• Students who used accessibility features (such as text-to-speech) during the exam spent more time on items. 

• In our study, among students who were receiving extended time accommodations, those students who reported putting forth more effort on the test also spent more time on test items. Therefore, if a student who has extended time accommodations does not use their extended time, this may be because of motivation problems. For instance, the student may be giving up on difficult items that they don't think they can answer.

• Students who were eligible for free/reduced-price lunch spent less time on test items.

• Most students (in either 4th or 8th grade) who received extended time accommodations didn't use any of their extra time, and of those who used it, most didn't gain any more points during the extra period of time.

What school administrators can DO, based on this research:

• If you have students who use text-to-speech when taking exams, make sure that they have enough time to use it and also answer the test items. Generally, extended time accommodations will be appropriate to provide alongside text-to-speech accommodations.

• If you have students who are receiving extended time accommodations, ask teachers to monitor whether the students are using the additional time. If not, teachers should speak with students about why that might be the case--whether the students think that they don't need the time, or whether they aren't using the time because they don't think that they can answer some test items.

  • If a student doesn't seem to ever use their extended time, the school team (IEP team or 504 committee) should review the need for this accommodation. Even though it may seem as though there's no downside to extended time, the child may be missing out on instruction as they sit in a testing center, not using their extended time.

• Because schools appear to have different thresholds and processes for awarding extended time accommodations, consider developing and using a standardized decision process, optimally in collaboration with administrators at other schools.