The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office issued Legal Opinion 2020-11 on October 19, 2020, regarding whether community college districts must provide real-time captioning in live synchronous online classes.
The Chancellor’s Office found Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and state law, require a district to provide auxiliary aids or services to deaf and hearing-impaired students to ensure they are able to participate in their educational program. This requirement may be satisfied by the provision of real-time captioning in live, synchronous online classes, depending on the individual needs of the student in the class, but districts must give “primary consideration” to the choice of aid or service requested by deaf or hearing impaired students, and weight such requests against the burdens they would impose upon the college program.
Read the Opinion here.