Accommodation Breakdown: Extended Time

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This article was first published 9.22.22 and is being republished today with updates. It's one of the most popular articles on the site, but I still continue to learn different ways this accommodation has played out with others. If you have your own input, please provide it in the comments below and/or email me and I'll look at adding it to the article.

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This article is an extension to the article "Accommodation Break Down: Testing to Completion". It includes a few different options I wish I'd included previously, as well as a few more pits you'll want to make sure you avoid.

How Much Time is Extended Time?

There is no one-size-fits all answer. It depends on the student and it could depend on the class, too.

Any number of things could lead to students experiencing fatigue, headaches, eye strain, and/or other struggles that impact them as the day progresses.

One student might be able to do more in the morning, but struggle in the afternoon—while another student might struggle with doing prolonged work within one class period. If the student struggles with Dyscalculia she might need more time in math classes and high school science classes that include math.

In some cases, a student might not be able to test multiple classes in a row and/or may need to test half a test at a time.

For example, perhaps your daughter struggles with fatigue. The longer she spends on a task, the more time she needs for breaks. In addition, as the tests get longer (think about the difference between 1st grade and 12th grade tests), her pace might slow down. She might start strong for the first quarter of the test and then start falling off from there.

It isn't that she can't do the work. It's that she needs the time. In her case, maybe she needs two-day testing and/or a reduced load accommodation to offset the fatigue, too. If she's taking days to do work, she'll get behind fast, things will snowball, which could lead to a long list of partially completed tests, a scheduling nightmare, worry, anxiety and stress.

How to Figure Out the Extended Time?

Take data on how many assessments and assignments the student is finishing in full. Are shorter assessments and assignments finished, while longer ones always go unfinished?

Does she do better in the morning than in the afternoon?

Are there certain classes in which the student has greater struggles, such as in math and science per the previous Dyscalculia example?

Does the teacher notice a disconnect between the knowledge the student is able to share during class and what she accomplishes on exams?

Time and a half is a common starting point for an extended time accommodation. However, it isn't concrete. As with all accommodations, it is fluid and should be adjusted as more data is collected.

If the general ed class receives one hour for a test. A student with a time-and-a-half accommodation would receive an hour and 30 minutes. For homework, the student would have an extra day to turn in the assignment.

Measure how the student does. Are the assessments and assignments being completed? Is the student exhausted by the end of the test, which makes finishing the school day difficult?

What happens if the student is given half the test on one day and then has to stop at a specific point and do the second half during study hall or before school the next day? In this case, will the teacher give the student the entire test, with instructions to stop at a specific number or will the student give the teacher the first half one day and the second half the next day?

Extended time can be time and a half, double time, or until completion, or any other time period that addresses your child's needs—and it can be a mix of all of these times.

It depends on the child and the activity.

The same goes for homework, classwork, and anything else the school sends her way.

How is Extended Time Applied?

If your child needs extended time, it applies across the board. Either he needs it or he doesn't.

For example, if your child has "testing to completion" as an accommodation, it should be applied to every form of testing, whether it is a quiz, an end-of-unit test, a one-question check-in evaluation at the beginning of each day, or any other area in which he's being assessed, whether the assessment is graded or ungraded.

As I wrote in "Accommodation Break Down: Testing to Completion", I once ran into a teacher who didn't consider quizzes to be tests. The year started with her failing to provide testing to completion period. After she was advised that she needed to implement this accommodation, she failed to implement it for quizzes. By the fourth quarter she caught on, but by that time the student had given up, his relationship with the teacher eroded, and the parent had to file multiple state complaints because the teacher failed to implement the accommodation over and over. All of this could have been avoided.

For this reason, you need to be specific about every single activity to which the extended time applies.

Address All the "What If's"

For classwork, time and a half or double time is something to consider.

If your child doesn't finish classwork in class, she can't be marked off. Doing so would be discrimination. So, how much more time does she need? Or, is the solution to pair classwork with the reduced load accommodation, too? This way your student is assessed on essential knowledge, rather than if she can do the same math problem 20 times, and might have a better chance of finishing without getting too far behind her peers.

If she needs time and a half, which comes down to her finishing it that night and submitting it the next time the class is held, would that be enough time?

What if the classwork takes so long that the entire class is assigned to finish it at home and return it the next day? In that case, your daughter still gets more time. If she can finish it that night, that's great. But, if she needs more time, she isn't required to turn it in the same day, with the general education students.

For homework, is all homework the same time frame? Or does she receive more time for projects that are heavy on reading and writing, such as long reports?

And, what about those tests we mentioned before?

And then there are the hybrid take-home tests.

If she has time and a half for homework and testing to completion for tests, what does she have for a test that is assigned as homework? (Please see "Accommodation Break Down: The Assignment Notebook (a.k.a. the Most-Changed and Least-Implemented Accommodation)" which hits on this, too.)

Since the teacher says it is a test, your daughter might rightfully assume it is a test, but the teacher might assume it to be homework.

This has to be defined within the goal, too. How will take-home tests be approached?

In one instance, a teacher said she was giving the entire class extended time, thus the student with an extended-time accomodation had to turn it in at the same time as the other students. Yet, if the teacher determined the students without an IEP or 504 Plan needed extra time, she should have understood that some students with IEPs and 504 Plans might need even more.

What About Weekends?

If general education students are given four school days to complete a project, does the weekend count as extended time for your daughter?

If the general education students don't have to work on the weekend, does your daughter?

The school might say yes. However, maybe your daughter needs that down time.

You have to discuss this with the school, too.

As a parent, you want your child to have the time she or he needs, but if you can swing a weekend here or there, I'd suggest doing it, just to get the project off your child's plate. But, at the same time, have the conversation in advance about weekends not counting if they don't count for general education students.

What About Grading?

If a student needs two-day testing, will the teacher grade the already completed work prior to giving the student back her test or will the teacher wait for completion?

Students taking tests two days in a row might want to use the first day to test and the second day to finish testing and double check the work, similar to their peers who test within one day.

Students without accommodations don't have to worry about taking tests that are already marked up. Why should students with accommodations have to experience this?

For a student already struggling, seeing red marks all over a test that he's yet to complete could be enough to convince the student to shut down.

What about Cheating?

A teacher pushed back on two students last year who didn't finish their tests within the class period. Both have 504 Plans and both asked the teacher about scheduling a time to finish the test at another time. The teacher responded with a no, and stated that it wouldn't be fair to other students because the two students already knew what was on the test before finishing it.

Accommodations aren't about fairness. They are about access.

Do some students cheat? Yes. However, students can't be denied accommodations simply because teachers think it not fair to the general ed students and/or because teachers are worried about cheating.

Accommodations don't provide an unfair advantage. They help level the playing field.

The Final Break Down

It's hard to provide a sample accommodation for this one, because there are so many variables. A starting place might look like this:

Student will receive X time for ALL assignments. Assignments are defined as classwork, homework, group projects, school-wide assignments (such as an assignment to bring a schedule each day, or a signed form required by the school), and any other type of assignment unmentioned here.

Student will receive X time for long-term assignments. Long-term is defined as 5+ school days.

Student will receive X time for ALL assessments. Assessments are defined as both graded and ungraded quizzes, tests, evaluations, exams, state assessments, take-home tests, retests, chunked tests, end-of-quarter test, end-of semester tests, end-of-year tests, state assessments, and any other type of assessment unmentioned here.

Student will receive X time for ALL take-home tests.

Student's extended time will be counted according to school days, not holidays and weekends.

Remember: Teachers have the option to provide the student more time. They can't do less than what is on the IEP or 504 Plan, but if they see there's a need, they can provide it, take data, and then suggest an IEP or 504 meeting to tweak the accommodation.