Educating Students with Medical Needs:
10 Essential Accommodation Considerations for Section 504 Teams
Erin D. Gilsbach, Esq.
Description of Program:
Section 504 cases are on the rise, and courts are increasingly examining whether schools are fully accommodating students with disabilities. Are your school’s 504 plans legally defensible? In this session, attorney Erin D. Gilsbach outlines 10 categories of disability-related accommodation that 504 teams need to consider. Through an analysis of caselaw and practical experience, she identifies key accommodation areas that often go overlooked by 504 teams and points out common accommodations that may result in liability.
In this session, Atty. Gilsbach explores the full scope of Section 504 accommodations and identifies a logical, methodical process of considerations that 504 teams can follow to ensure that students’ needs are met comprehensively and appropriately. She addresses such issues as administration of medication, accommodations during extracurricular activities, training of staff, and more. This session is packed full of practical tips and tools that schools can use to bolster the legal defensiblity of their Section 504 plans.
About the Presenter:
Erin D. Gilsbach, Esq., is the Executive Director of EdLaw Interactive, which specializes in legal training for educators and school administrators. An experienced speaker both nationally and in her home state of Pennsylvania, Erin currently serves as the Board of Directors of NSBA’s Council of School Attorneys and President of the PSBA Solicitors Association. She provides legal consulting and training services to schools, education-related organizations in the areas of special education; development of legally-defensible policies and procedures; trending legal issues regarding technology and education; nursing and school health services; truancy prevention; child abuse prevention and mandated reporting; educator evaluation and discipline; and many other school law topics.
Elected by her peers as a "Rising Star Attorney" for 5 consecutive years, Erin began her career as a public high school English teacher, and she served for several years at the PA Department of Education’s Office of Chief Counsel. She was selected as the Missouri Council of Administrators of Special Education's (CASE) "2018 Distinguished Speaker." In 2017, she served as the legal consultant for the desk reference "Legal Issues in School Health Services,” and she is the author of a handbook on health-related special education issues for LRP Publications, which is scheduled for publication in the spring of 2019.
