A community college accessibility team reduced their active caseload tracking from 3,000 files to 500—and cut quarterly reporting from two weeks to half a day. 

The Challenge 

Managing accessibility services at a community college presents unique challenges. Unlike traditional four-year institutions, community colleges serve an incredibly diverse student population—from dual-enrolled high school students with active IEPs to parents/nurses pursuing LPN certification. This creates a massive range of needs and an equally massive amount of data to track. 

For Jake Reeder's accessibility team, that meant managing approximately 2,700 student profiles with accommodation histories, documentation, and case notes spanning multiple years. The team needed a better way to understand their active caseload, track metrics accurately, and maintain operational efficiency. 

The Solution: A Comprehensive Data Overhaul 

Jake and his team embarked on an ambitious project that would fundamentally transform how they managed student data and utilized Simplicity's Accommodate platform. The project had two key phases: 

Phase 1: Four-Year Review | The team conducted a comprehensive four-year analysis examining individual accommodations, departmental breakdowns, and fall-over-fall rates of accommodation approvals and usage. This retrospective look helped establish baseline metrics and ensure fidelity in their approval processes. 

Phase 2: Case-by-Case Review and Archival System | The real transformation came from reviewing all 2,700+ student files individually—examining documentation, notes, and letters to develop contact points, case flags, and appropriate filing statuses. Students were categorized into credit archive, non-credit archive, general archive, or "not responding" status, each with individual contact protocols. 

The Results: Chaos to Much Needed Clarity 

The impact was immediate and measurable: 

• Reduced active tracking from 3,000 total files to approximately 500 active students 

• Cut quarterly reporting time from 1-2 weeks to just half a business day 

• Improved turnaround times to under 48 hours for accommodation requests 

• Created cleaner, live dashboards showing accurate, real-time campus statistics 

"Slowing down to speed up—you got to slow down and understand how your college's systems, your registrar, your documentation, your confidentiality work. But once you do that, there's every avenue or possibility to create reports or dashboards that articulate the type of information you need."

 

Jake Reeder
Student Development Specialist, Office of Accessibility, Harford Community College

Building for the Future 

Perhaps most importantly, the new system isn't dependent on institutional knowledge or individual expertise. The team built repeatable procedures that any staff member can execute semester after semester. 

"If Johnny Doe is no longer in the office, or he's out of the office for a week and reports are needed—if they're set up properly, labeled properly, in a way that all employees with clear, concise language can understand—you should be able to semester over semester generate a report," Jake notes. 

Leveraging Custom Fields and Integration 

Working closely with Simplicity's Client Manager Stephanie Singer, the team learned to maximize the platform's capabilities. They added custom fields for case file status and explored integration with their registrar system to pull live data on academic standing—information that could trigger proactive outreach for students who might need additional support. 

The team also discovered they could use their cleaner data to better inform campus-wide training. By identifying the top eight accommodations and connecting them to Universal Design for Learning principles, they've built stronger faculty buy-in.

"We're able to paint a better picture of what our student body is, and connecting that to our accommodations allows us to paint a picture for our staff on why these accommodations are best practice," Jake explains. 

Key Insights for Other Institutions 

For accessibility offices considering a similar overhaul, Jake offers this wisdom: 

• Invest the upfront time: "It was about a two-week project up front. But now each semester it should be less than half a business day to get the same amount of functioning." 

• Understand your systems: Know how your registrar, documentation protocols, and confidentiality requirements interact before building reports. 

• Create repeatable processes: Build procedures that aren't dependent on individual knowledge or perfection. 

• Use your data strategically: Clean data enables better dashboards, more targeted outreach, and stronger institutional partnerships. 

The Bottom Line 

By taking time to properly structure their data and leverage Simplicity Accommodate's reporting capabilities, this accessibility team transformed their daily operations. They've moved from reactive firefighting to proactive service delivery—all while processing over 200 new student orientations during the project period. 

The result? "The functionality of the day-to-day has increased drastically," Jake says. And for the students they serve, that means faster access to accommodations and more personalized support. 

Interested in optimizing your accessibility data and workflows? Connect with your Simplicity Client Manager to explore custom reporting solutions for your institution. Don't have Accommodate? Talk to us!