Section 504 Coordinator

Villas Elementary School's "Section 504 Coordinator" is Catherine Cronin,
mailto:[email protected], phone 239 936 3776.

THE ROLE AND FUNCTION OF SECTION 504 COORDINATORS

  • "Section 504 coordinator" is the name generally given to the district official who is charged with coordinating district efforts to comply with Section 504.
  • To resolve a complaint of disability discrimination, the district in Providence (RI) School District, 114 LRP 35261 (OCR 05/05/14), had to develop and submit for OCR's approval a protocol for providing education and services to students with disabilities who attended a receiving school for grades 7-12. At a minimum, the protocol had to outline the district Section 504 coordinator's role in ensuring a FAPE to high school aged students and in related placement team meetings and any monitoring that school-based 504 coordinators must do of their high school aged students with disabilities.
  • OCR found that a high school's Section 504 coordinator was not typically communicating with the teachers of students with Section 504 plans about the disability-related aids and services each student needed. Instead, the coordinator was waiting until a few weeks into the school year. Once this concern was identified, the district took immediate action. The district's executive director for student support services issued a memo to all district Section 504 coordinators, setting the start of the school year or start of the semester as the deadline to make teachers aware of the Section 504 plans in place for their students. Hoke County (NC) Schs., 114 LRP 36327 (OCR 03/26/14).

This information has been posted to satisfy the general Section 504 requirements and the more specific Title II requirements for the designation of a responsible employee. See, e.g., Virtual Cmty. Sch. of Ohio (OH), 62 IDELR 124 (OCR 2013); and Berlin (NH) Pub. Schs., 54 IDELR 205 (OCR 2009).