An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 9 – Interactive Process: Employees and Students

iii. Addressing Issues The Employee Has Regarding The Commute To Work If an employee’s disability is affected by his or her commute to work, it may be a reasonable accommodation to make changes to the employee’s work schedule or work location. 1513 iv. Job Restructuring The ADA and FEHA require job restructuring as a reasonable accommodation. A job may be restructured by reallocating or redistributing nonessential, marginal job functions. A school is not, however, required to reallocate essential functions of the position, since the ability to perform such functions is a prerequisite to being a qualified individual with a disability. 1514 Job restructuring may not be a reasonable accommodation where less demanding, vacant positions exist. The California Court of Appeal held that where those positions exist, it may not be a reasonable accommodation to restructure an existing position and that reassignment would be required in the absence of a showing of undue hardship. 1515 v. Modifying Work Schedules Another form of job restructuring is altering when and/or how an employee performs an essential function of the job. For example, the school may reschedule an essential function that the employee customarily performs in the morning to a later time in the day. Or the employee might perform a job which he or she ordinarily performs at the office at home, and at the employee’s convenience. This type of reasonable accommodation may also include providing flexibility in work hours or the work week, or part-time work, where this will not be an undue hardship. vi. Flexible Leave Policies Schools should consider flexible leave policies as a reasonable accommodation when employees with disabilities require time off from work because of their disability. The school is not required to provide additional paid leave as an accommodation, but should consider allowing use of accrued leave, advanced leave, or leave without pay, where this will not cause an undue hardship. In fact, a school may be required to provide unpaid leave beyond its policy if it would be a reasonable accommodation and would not impose any undue hardship. 1516 Cases have held, however, that the reasonable accommodation provisions of the ADA do not require an employer to keep an employee on indefinite leave while recovering from a disability. 1517 vii. Reassignment To A Vacant Position Schools should consider reassignment to a vacant position when:  accommodation within the individual’s current position would pose an undue hardship to the school;  the employee can no longer perform the essential functions of his or her position even with reasonable accommodation;  if both the school and employee agree that reassignment is preferable;  or if the employee so requests. 1518

An Administrator’s Guide to California Private School Law ©2019 Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 344