Humans make mistakes. As a classroom teacher for 27 years, I know the feeling of doing (or not doing) something that affects a student’s grade or discipline record. The guilt is very real and can be long lasting, with repercussions affecting many different stakeholders. The ACT Test® is important- for the students, the school, and in some cases the state. Do not let a mistake in the accommodations request process lead to a student not receiving the accommodations and/or supports they require to do their best on the ACT.
Before we dive into the key reminders, make sure you've bookmarked these essential ACT accommodations resources:1. Test Accessibility and Accommodations System (TAA) Access – Get it early!
TAA access can be provided to you at any time. You do not need to wait another day to request the access necessary to request accommodations. You do not have to have a trusted agent for the school for the accommodations process but having a few people who have access to TAA (a backup is always a good idea) is paramount to the process. The instructions in this article will guide you to request access to TAA. TAA is now open for fall request submissions.
2 . Know your Contract!
Students can take the ACT with their school through two different programs – State Testing or District Testing. It is imperative that you select the correct test administration in TAA when creating an initial request or assigning the upcoming test. If you do not, you run the risk of accommodations not being approved, applied, or utilized for testing. If you need clarification about under which program you are testing, please contact us for the answer before you submit the requests for accommodations
3. Know your deadlines
Deadlines are a part of any contract – and the deadlines for requesting accommodations are very specific. There are three types of deadlines for accommodations: initial, reconsideration, and Qualified Exception to the Deadline (QED) deadlines. Initial is for any new request. Reconsideration is an appeal opportunity to any requests that were not approved, or for renewing EL supports, which need to be re-applied for each new school year. QED refers to certain events that occur after the initial deadline, such as a new student enrollment Ask the school or district test coordinator to provide you with a link to the “Schedule of Events” for your contract.
4. Documentation
Give us all you have! We want the entire IEP/504 plan. We must see the entire document for all applicable information to verify it is a valid plan and so much more. When Test Accommodations Coordinators (TACs) only submit the accommodations page of a plan, it often does not have the dates, name of the student, disability, etc. listed, and the request will be denied in those cases.
For EL supports, the easiest document to provide to us is the record from the most recent testing from the English Language Proficiency assessment for the current academic year. That score report should show the test administration, student’s name, and date of birth. The composite score is what we need to see. If you do not have the electronic version of the reports, you have other options as listed on our website. Whatever you submit must include the student’s name, date of birth, and current school year. The documentation must show participation in ESL classes or show an English Learner designation for the school year of 2025-2026.
5. Be sure to press “Submit”
Another thing that sounds very simple but gets overlooked is hitting the final submit button in TAA. We often have cases where the TAC did everything for the request, including uploading the documentation, but did not actually submit the request for review. After you successfully submit a request, a confirmation screen will appear. Take the time to save this screen as a pdf, naming it the student’s name and TAA request. (You will have to search the internet to determine how to do this on your device.) This will serve as a great reference as this pdf will contain all the things that you requested, the names of the documents you submitted, and the date and time of when it was received.
6. Don’t forget prior approvals
You will likely have students who have already been approved for accommodations and/or supports. These might be approved, but they still need attention. For those previously approved for accommodations, you must associate the correct test administration (remember your contract?) to the student in TAA before the initial deadline. Then those examinees are set. For students approved for EL supports, it is quite likely their supports will have expired at the end of July. You must do an edit for reconsideration supplying us with the most recent documentation showing they still qualify for EL services. This must be done before the reconsideration deadline.
7. Check (and print or otherwise save) the Decision Notification Letters
You will receive an email once a decision has been made on a request. The email does not say approved or not approved. You must go into the student’s TAA request and locate the decision letter to see what the letter says. Do not assume that everything requested was approved. If there are accommodations/supports that were denied, you have until the reconsideration deadline to submit the additional documentation for another review.
8. QED (Qualified Exception to the Deadline)
We understand that students can get diagnosed or identified as needing accommodations and/or supports at any time during the school year. We have the Qualified Exception to the Deadline (QED) to assist those students who fall into only a few qualifying categories for requesting accommodations under the QED.
- Student transferred to school after the published deadline.
- Student was classified into a new grade after the published deadline.
- Student was given new diagnosis or disability classification after the deadline AND started new IEP/504/Official Accommodations plan after published deadline.
- Student was identified as an English Learner and started receiving language supports after the published deadline.
Forgetting to request a student’s accommodations and/or supports does not qualify for the QED.
IMPORTANT: When submitting under the QED, you must submit the QED form, the proof of the qualifying event, and the documentation for the disability or EL status. Without every piece of information, the request will be denied. Deadlines do apply so be sure to look at the Schedule of Events for your contract. Requests submitted under the QED are not subject to reconsideration.
9. Run your roster – often
Rosters can be run in ACT Now based on accommodations. Since there are many factors that go into accommodations being approved and applied in the respective platforms, it is imperative that TACs are involved in the pre-test processes beyond the accommodation request process. About a week after the initial deadline, TAA pins will be pulled into the test platform on a nightly basis. If you have students who you know have approved accommodations, and those accommodations are not pulled into ACT Now, and it is at least one week after the initial deadline, please reach out to us so we can get the accommodations pulled through.
10. Ask before you act!
If you are in doubt about any step in the accommodation/support request process, do not act – make no submission – click no button – until you have asked your question and have an answer from ACT. If you submit a request, and you had questions about or doubts about what you were doing, we cannot go back and change the request until ACT has reviewed it. The State and District Accommodations Department can be reached at actstateaccoms@act.org or by calling 319-337-1788. We are open 7:00-5:00 central time Monday-Friday.
