Key takeaways:
- Policy is lagging behind practice: AI is advancing faster than most institutions can update their guidance, leaving Disability Services teams to make judgment calls in real time.
- Faculty alignment is crucial: Blanket bans on AI can create real barriers for students who rely on it for legitimate accessibility reasons.
- Stigma keeps students quiet: Many students with disabilities hide their AI use rather than risk accusations of plagiarism, even when their use is justified.
- Good AI policy is individualized: Effective AI policy for Disability Services should be interactive, student-by-student, and able to evolve alongside the technology.
- Note taking offers a good starting point: Evidence-backed tools like Genio Notes provide Disability Services teams with a trusted and transparent solution to support students.
For Disability and Accessibility Services teams, AI presents both opportunities and challenges. While it has the potential to make learning more accessible, it also raises important questions about where the line is between a reasonable accommodation and an academic integrity concern.
In a recent Genio webinar, we were joined by Tashania Garner, Director of the Office of Student Wellbeing and Support at College of Coastal Georgia. As a sole Disability Services provider supporting 477 students, Tashania shared practical insights into navigating accessibility in an AI-enabled learning environment. Her experience offers valuable lessons for institutions looking to embrace AI while continuing to support students fairly and effectively.
Why are Disability Services teams struggling to keep up with AI?
For Disability Services teams carrying large caseloads, policy revisions can take months and practice updates need to happen weekly. When students start wearing AI glasses to proctored exams, which has actually happened on her campus, the gap between what an institution permits and what students actually do can widen quickly.
This results in the Disability Services teams filling in the policy gap with judgment calls and informal practice. That is a heavy lift, especially for solo coordinators serving hundreds of students at once.
"The advances in AI are moving forward so quickly, it's hard to keep up with how students are using them."
- Tashania Garner, Director of the Office of Student Wellbeing and Support at College of Coastal Georgia.
Read more about how Genio is approaching AI responsibly by visiting our AI Hub.
Where is the line between AI as an accommodation and AI as a shortcut?
For students with cognitive or executive functioning challenges, AI can provide meaningful support in a number of ways:
- A student with ADHD using AI to organize scattered thoughts into an outline, doing work a writing center or tutor would otherwise help them do.
- A student with social anxiety using AI for feedback because the in-person interaction at a tutoring center is itself a barrier.
- A student with a reading comprehension deficit using AI-generated transcripts to engage with course content at their own pace.
The shortcut concern arises when students reach for AI as a substitute for engaging with the material at all. The line is rarely easy to draw, and Tashania acknowledged that faculty, staff, and students often draw it in different places.
Learn more about how Genio Notes supports students with additional needs.
What does AI ambiguity cost students with disabilities?
Many students with disabilities are reluctant to use note taking tools or AI-based accommodations because they fear being seen as gaining an unfair advantage, or worse, being accused of plagiarism.
The cost is that students who would benefit most from accessibility tools end up avoiding them. Only one in three students with a disability disclose it to their college, meaning around 65% miss out on accommodations that could support their learning.
Common barriers include a lack of belief that the college disability office has useful resources to offer, waiting times to receive support and an expectation that by disclosing their disability, they would be treated differently by faculty. Hidden AI use sits on top of that, with students using AI quietly to avoid uncomfortable conversations with faculty.
What is left is a workaround economy, where students get what they need but at the cost of transparency, support, and the chance to build skills with the right scaffolding around them.
"The more students become reliant on the AI to do the work, the less capable they become outside of it."
- Tashania Garner, Director of the Office of Student Wellbeing and Support at College of Coastal Georgia.
Read more about the strategies for implementing AI for better student engagement.
How can Disability Services teams collaborate with faculty around AI use?
Tashania's approach is grounded in proactive conversation rather than reactive enforcement. Her office uses a few practices other teams can refer to:
- Faculty training and school-level presentations to clarify which AI tools students are using and which the institution has approved.
- Shared approved tool lists so faculty are not surprised when they see a student opening an AI platform in class.
- Active mediation when disagreements arise between faculty and students, especially when students are too intimidated to advocate for themselves.
- An invitation framing for new tools, where students can bring tools forward for discussion rather than running into a blanket ban.
Introducing tools that the institution has already approved, then leaving room for new tools to be discussed as students bring them forward, frames AI usage as an invitation rather than an imposition.
What does a good AI policy look like for Disability Services?
Tashania's advice for Disability Services Directors starting from scratch, breaks down into three principles:
- Work with peer institutions: Within the university system of Georgia, Disability Services teams collaborate regularly on policy development, and most systems have similar networks worth tapping into.
- Make individualization the foundation: A blanket campus-wide approach will fail because students have different needs, and those needs change over time. Effective AI policy needs to be interactive, student-by-student, and able to evolve as students develop new skills or face new challenges.
- Plan for the policy itself to keep changing: AI is not going to settle into a fixed state any time soon, and policy needs to be built to evolve with it.
Continued conversation across faculty, students, staff, and careers services is the only path forward, especially as AI continues to reshape both the classroom and the job market students are heading into.
"One of the things that's a great place to start is making sure that the policy, no matter what, includes that it's individualized for the student." - Tashania Garner, Director of the Office of Student Wellbeing and Support at College of Coastal Georgia.
Download Genio’s free AI policy template.
How does Genio Notes support Disability Services teams?
For Disability Services teams looking for a tool that simplifies the AI accommodation conversation, Genio Notes offers a clear starting point.
Genio Notes is built on accessibility principles from the ground up, the key features include:
- Compliance: Genio Notes (web) has achieved full WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 Level AA compliance, verified by third-party auditor Level Access.
- Responsible AI by default: A published commitment that student data is never used to train AI models.
- Accessible learning workflows: Recording, transcription, and structured notes students can revisit at their own pace.
- Built-in study skills support: The Confident Notetaker's Masterclass helps students build the foundational study skills that turn the tool into a long-term capability.
Rather than hiding their workflow, students can show faculty exactly what the platform does and how it supports their learning. That visibility reduces the burden of mediation for Disability Services coordinators and shifts faculty conversations from suspicion to support.
The gap between AI capability and institutional policy is not going to close on its own, and the cost of waiting falls heaviest on students with disabilities. Disability Services teams that move proactively, even with imperfect frameworks, give their students the best chance of using AI in ways that genuinely support their learning.
Want to see how Genio Notes supports Disability Services teams across higher education?
