California Community Colleges are under growing pressure to deliver accessible, data-driven disability services while meeting increasingly complex state reporting requirements. For many DSPS teams, those two demands can feel like they're pulling in opposite directions. Riverside City College (RCC) found a way to address both.

In a recent Symplicity webinar, Dr. Pamela Starr, Director of RCC's Disability Resource Center (DRC), along with colleagues Jaron Paschke and Keith Coleman, walked through their journey implementing Accommodate — from data migration and faculty rollout to MIS and VAR reporting.

Starting from Scratch (Almost)

Before Accommodate, RCC relied on a system that had no student-facing component and no connection to the college's student information system. When the pandemic hit, the gaps became impossible to ignore.

"We had to do a quick shift," said Dr. Starr. "That started the conversation with the team about a system that was very much connected on a remote or virtual level, as well as a little bit more robust — to get the letters out to faculty, to have students have a little bit more autonomy in how they navigated the system."

The implementation was intentionally phased — accommodation letters first, then appointments, then test booking roughly a semester or two later — giving the team time to pilot each module over the summer before wider rollout. The pacing mattered. "We did a lot of behind the scenes work so that the team felt comfortable with the tool before we put it out to the college," said Dr. Starr. "We were very intentional about how we rolled this out."

For colleges anticipating IT pushback, RCC's experience is reassuring. Their IT department's main concern was security and data retention, which Symplicity's team addressed directly — no DSPS staff required as intermediaries. Once the data exchanges were set up (some nightly, some on longer cycles pulling from the SIS), ongoing maintenance was minimal. RCC runs on Ellucian Colleague, and the integration was seamless. When a sister college, Moreno Valley, came online six months later, they were able to duplicate RCC's entire setup without starting from scratch.

Meeting Students Where They Are

Student onboarding was a key focus. Rather than relying solely on one-on-one orientations, the DRC created a video tutorial using a fictional student profile to walk through every function of the portal, from sending accommodation letters to booking testing room appointments. Captioned and embedded in every student's DRC Connect portal, it gives students a resource they can return to any time.

"If it's midnight and they realize they need to see a counselor, they can jump on and schedule that appointment and schedule their exam," said Dr. Starr, "because we know that our students are not just students — many of them are parents and work and are family members."

Faculty onboarding followed a similar logic: start with people who are already on board. RCC deliberately chose faculty they had strong working relationships with for the initial pilot, so early feedback was constructive and actionable. By the time Accommodate was presented at Faculty Flex, the team had already resolved the most common friction points. "If you are experiencing a potential barrier or something just isn't flowing correctly, let us know — because we can't make any adjustments unless you tell us what's not working," Dr. Starr told faculty. That collaborative framing made a difference.

Symplifying MIS and VAR Reporting

Reporting was one of the biggest wins. Through kiosk check-ins across the high tech center, test center, and interpreter services, combined with custom reports built iteratively with Symplicity's client success team over roughly two years, RCC can now pull MIS and VAR data accurately and on demand.

"There's actually a lot of flexibility in the reports themselves," said Keith Coleman. "We're able to use them to gather both reporting data for MIS and VAR, but also for our own internal use — and they can grow with us as our reporting requirements change over time." The kiosks update Accommodate in real time, giving staff up-to-the-minute headcounts across every service area.

A Note on Burnout

It's worth naming directly, because the webinar did: burnout is real in DSPS. Jaron Paschke put it plainly — before Accommodate, the team was managing 30 to 50 paper test packets a day during midterms and finals. The system didn't just streamline operations; it redistributed the load. Dr. Starr's approach: rotate ownership of high-volume tasks like processing applications and accommodation letter requests across staff by day, so no single person carries the weight of peak periods alone.

"It just becomes the process," said Dr. Starr. "And really ensuring that the team all understands that this is all of us in it together."

The Takeaway

After two years of refinement, Dr. Starr's advice to other DSPS teams is straightforward: look at your operation, identify what you need to expand or simplify, and don't be afraid of the learning curve.

"Accommodate has genuinely put the control of the accommodation process in the students' hands and meets them where they need to be. The working relationship with Symplicity has been phenomenal throughout."

Watch the full webinar on demand to see the reporting dashboards, kiosk setup, and student portal in action.