An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 9 – Interactive Process: Employees and Students

employee’s need for an accommodation by, for example, observing the employee having difficulty performing essential functions of his or her job. Similarly, the employer must engage in the interactive process when an existing accommodation appears to have become ineffective. The school should be sensitive to all requests for assistance or accommodation, regardless of the form of the requests and regardless of whether the individual himself or herself or someone else familiar with the individual makes the request. The EEOC regulations require employers to initiate the reasonable accommodation interactive process in the following situations: “An employer should initiate the reasonable accommodation interactive process without being asked if the employer: (1) knows that the employee has a disability, (2) knows, or has reason to know, that the employee is experiencing workplace problems because of the disability, and (3) knows, or has reason to know, that the disability prevents the employee from requesting a reasonable accommodation.” 1489 The FEHA regulations require an employer to initiate the interactive process when: 1. An applicant or employee with a known physical or mental disability or medical condition requests reasonable accommodations; or 2. The employer otherwise becomes aware of the need for an accommodation through a third party or by observation; or 3. The employer becomes aware of the possible need for an accommodation because 2. D OCUMENTATION O F A D ISABILITY If an employee informs the school that he or she has an impairment and produces a doctor’s evaluation or report to that effect, the school may accept this information and need not make any further investigations into the impairment. This is true even if it is later determined that the employee did not have such a disability. If the school doubts the validity of the report or evaluation submitted by an employee, the school may require its own fitness for duty examination, provided that the requested examination is job related and consistent with business necessity. The FEHA regulations provide that when the existence of a disability and/or the need for reasonable accommodation is not obvious, an employer may require an employee to obtain and provide the following reasonable documentation from a health care provider: 1. The name and credentials of the health care provider. 2. That the employee or applicant has a physical or mental condition that limits a major life activity or a medical condition, and a description why the employee or applicant needs a reasonable accommodation to have an equal opportunity. (The the employee with a disability has exhausted leave under the workers’ compensation law or CFRA/FMLA, or other leave provisions, and an accommodation is still necessary. 1490

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