AI Is Access: Name AI as an Accommodation for Disabled Students
The Issue
For 20 years, I retrofitted teachers' content by hand to make it accessible for disabled learners. It was slow, expensive, and always one step behind the student who needed it that day.
AI changes that, if we let it. Used openly, a learner can turn inaccessible course content into the format they actually learn with: audio, video, braille-ready text, flashcards, or clear readable text. For a student who cannot access the standard material, that is not cheating. That is access, the same kind of access we have always promised disabled students by law.
But in most schools and colleges today, that access depends on luck. One teacher allows it, another bans it, a third reports it. AI detectors with documented false-positive problems flag students, including disabled students and students writing in a second language, and an accusation can follow a student for years. Meanwhile the plans that are supposed to protect these students, IEPs, Section 504 plans, and college accommodation plans, almost never name the tool itself. Students are punished for using informally what the system refuses to grant formally.
We are parents and educators, and we have seen both sides of this table. Transcenders Inc has advocated against false AI accusations since 2024. Now we are asking for the affirmative fix.
We call on the U.S. Department of Education, state education agencies, school districts, and college and university disability services offices to:
- Name AI as assistive technology. Issue and adopt guidance recognizing that AI tools used to convert inaccessible content into accessible formats are assistive technology and a legitimate accommodation under IDEA, Section 504, and the ADA.
- List it in the plan. Make "AI tools for content conversion and study support" a standard, written option in IEPs, Section 504 plans, and college accommodation plans, so a student's right to use these tools does not depend on which teacher or professor they happen to get.
- End discipline by detector score alone. No student should face an academic integrity finding based only on a probability score from a tool with a documented false-positive record. Require human review and real evidence.
AI is a tool everyone should learn to use openly and responsibly. For disabled learners, it is also the ramp. Let us write it into the plans where it belongs.
Tera Lisicky, M.Ed.
Co-founder & Executive Director, Transcenders Inc (501(c)(3) nonprofit)
San Diego, California
1
The Issue
For 20 years, I retrofitted teachers' content by hand to make it accessible for disabled learners. It was slow, expensive, and always one step behind the student who needed it that day.
AI changes that, if we let it. Used openly, a learner can turn inaccessible course content into the format they actually learn with: audio, video, braille-ready text, flashcards, or clear readable text. For a student who cannot access the standard material, that is not cheating. That is access, the same kind of access we have always promised disabled students by law.
But in most schools and colleges today, that access depends on luck. One teacher allows it, another bans it, a third reports it. AI detectors with documented false-positive problems flag students, including disabled students and students writing in a second language, and an accusation can follow a student for years. Meanwhile the plans that are supposed to protect these students, IEPs, Section 504 plans, and college accommodation plans, almost never name the tool itself. Students are punished for using informally what the system refuses to grant formally.
We are parents and educators, and we have seen both sides of this table. Transcenders Inc has advocated against false AI accusations since 2024. Now we are asking for the affirmative fix.
We call on the U.S. Department of Education, state education agencies, school districts, and college and university disability services offices to:
- Name AI as assistive technology. Issue and adopt guidance recognizing that AI tools used to convert inaccessible content into accessible formats are assistive technology and a legitimate accommodation under IDEA, Section 504, and the ADA.
- List it in the plan. Make "AI tools for content conversion and study support" a standard, written option in IEPs, Section 504 plans, and college accommodation plans, so a student's right to use these tools does not depend on which teacher or professor they happen to get.
- End discipline by detector score alone. No student should face an academic integrity finding based only on a probability score from a tool with a documented false-positive record. Require human review and real evidence.
AI is a tool everyone should learn to use openly and responsibly. For disabled learners, it is also the ramp. Let us write it into the plans where it belongs.
Tera Lisicky, M.Ed.
Co-founder & Executive Director, Transcenders Inc (501(c)(3) nonprofit)
San Diego, California
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Petition created on October 27, 2026