The Palo Alto High School special education department is working on an online resource called Class Notes for students which is designed to provide lecture notes for students with special disabilities or those who missed a lecture.

Class Notes gives students the opportunity to read other students’ notes on a lesson. According to Heather Johanson, head of the special education department Heather Johanson, Class Notes is designed for students with auditory-processing disabilities who may have difficulties taking notes during lectures.

“If you have an auditory-processing disability, when you take in information auditorily, you don’t process it quite the same as other people do,” Johanson said. “You don’t process things as quickly as other people do. If you have an auditory-processing disability, legally speaking, you need to be accommodated for that. Just like if you have a wheelchair, there needs to be a ramp.”

Johanson created Class Notes to accommodate students with an Individualized Education Plan or a 504 plan. Class notes are documents that list the special educational services a student can receive, but are available for any student to access.

“It’s for students with an IEP or a 504 plan,” Johanson said. “But really when it comes down to it, anyone is more than welcome to access it. What we’ve noticed is that what is good for a kid with a disability is usually good for a student that doesn’t have one.”

The concept is modeled after the aid provided by colleges, where such accommodations are regular, according to Johanson.

“Class notes are a very standard accommodation in college,” Johanson said. “If you go on any college website, there’s always a disability-resource center. One of the number one accommodations they offer is access to in-class notes.”

Students can participate in note-taking by applying to Johanson or by selection of teachers who need to accommodate students with auditory-processing disabilities. If given permission, the students are asked to take the notes on laptops or other electronic devices, as handwritten notes need to be scanned onto a computer, according to Johanson.

“The best thing so far has been students who are willing to bring their laptops and take notes that way,” Johanson said. “Some of the scans with the paper and pencil don’t come out as well.”

Students like junior Maddie Kau say that taking notes electronically is also more efficient than regular hand-written notes because of the clear format and speed at which the notes are typed.

“I have the notes in electronic form, which is great for organization, [and] legibility,” Kau said. “I type at least three times as fast as I write by hand, so class is less stressful.”

Students who take the notes meet monthly and are given community service hours or school service credit for their work, according to Johanson.

“We have monthly note-taker meetings,” Johanson said. “[We] check in, [see] how are things going, how we want it to look. These kids are getting student service. [Also] they can get community service hours. A lot of kids are earning five to six community service hours a week.”

Aside from the community service hours provided, Kau says that Class Notes is rewarding because it helps all Paly students.

“I think Class Notes is a great idea,” Kau said. “Not only for people with 504 plans, but also for all students. I get [a] ridiculous amount of community service for nothing too far out of my way.”

As for the resource’s current state, Johanson says Class Notes is currently adding more classes, with an emphasis on adding more English notes.

“It’s a work in progress,” Johanson said. “We’re still missing some classes because we just started the program this year. I would say English [needs to most improvement]. English is the hardest one because it’s not so lecture-based.”

Ultimately, Johanson hopes Class Notes will have notes available for every class at Paly.

“Our goal is to have pretty much every class on this campus up on this web, especially for lecture periods,” Johanson said. “This is our way of making sure students with learning disabilities have equal access to their education.”

Students interested in participating by taking notes for a class can contact Johanson at [email protected].

Class Notes is accessible here.