A psychoeducational evaluation costs more than a semester of textbooks, and most students are told it is the only way into disability services. The regulation says otherwise, and the colleges' own pages say otherwise more often than students are told.
The short answer: California's Title 5 section 56006 lets a community college verify a disability three ways — observation by DSPS professional staff, assessment by DSPS professional staff, or review of documentation from an agency or licensed professional outside DSPS. We have now read the public disability-services pages of every California community college. Of the 116 classified, 68 of them name a staff assessment or observation route somewhere on their own site; 41 name only outside documentation; 7 say requirements vary or invite the student in first. So a majority of California community colleges publish a route that does not require you to buy an evaluation. The catch, and it is the important one: the staff route is usually written for learning disabilities, and at 7 of the colleges that offer it the pages state that ADHD specifically still needs an outside evaluation. Ask before you pay.¹
What the regulation actually says
Section 56006 lists the ways a disability may be verified: observation by DSPS professional staff; assessment by DSPS professional staff; or review of documentation provided by an appropriate agency or by a certified or licensed professional outside DSPS.¹ Nothing in it makes the third route the default. Which route an office uses is an office decision, and it is usually written down somewhere on the college's own site — often not on the page a new student lands on.
The directory
Every college in the system, grouped by region. Each link goes to the page that was read, and each row carries the date it was read.² One college — Solano — could not be classified, and appears at the foot of the table with the reason rather than being quietly dropped.
| College | Region | What its pages name | Read | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Berkeley City College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | An in-house specialist assesses and decides eligibility for learning disability; other disabilities still need a verification form from a qualified professional. |
| Cañada College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The same page says staff evaluate educational background and previous assessments and determine whether further assessment is necessary; the registration page describes testing over three to four sessions. The in-house route is for learning disabilities. |
| Chabot College | Bay Area | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | Only documents originating outside the office are named, with no staff assessment, testing or observation route and no regulatory citation. |
| City College of San Francisco | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The handbook mirrors the three Title 5 routes; the college's learning-disability assessment page excludes ADHD, saying it is typically determined by a physician. |
| College of Alameda | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 23 Sep 2026 | Re-read on 23 September 2026. The application page that carried this sentence was withdrawn in the college's site rebuild and now returns 404; the same sentence survives verbatim in the office's student handbook, which is where this row now points. The handbook adds that the documentation must come from an agency or a licensed or certified professional qualified to evaluate the disability, and the office's Learning Skills Program page names the learning-disabilities specialist who does the in-house testing. The current eligibility page names no staff route at all - a student who reads only that page would never learn the route exists. |
| College of San Mateo | Bay Area | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | The intake page names only outside documentation while a separate learning-disabilities page describes in-house assessment by a specialist; the two pages conflict. |
| Contra Costa College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The main documentation list requires outside records. The in-office route appears only in the temporary-disability section and is limited to students with visible disabilities, so it is narrow rather than a general alternative. |
| De Anza College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The application page separately asks for an IEP, psychoeducational report, 504 plan or verification form at the point of application. |
| Diablo Valley College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The observation route is scoped to obvious visible disabilities; ADHD and learning disabilities otherwise need a report, physician letter or verification form. |
| Foothill College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The observation route is scoped to apparent disabilities; otherwise a letter, IEP or psychoeducational evaluation is required. |
| Laney College | Bay Area | Not stated | 10 Sep 2026 | Examples of outside documentation are listed and then undocumented students are invited to apply anyway, without any route being named. |
| Las Positas College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | Observation by a certificated staff member is named as a full alternative to outside documentation, in the office's own eligibility criteria. |
| Los Medanos College | Bay Area | Outside documentation only | 23 Sep 2026 | Reclassified on 23 September 2026. The college withdrew its DSPS assessment page: the address that carried the sentence about assessment services to determine eligibility for learning-disability services now returns the college's 404 page, and no assessment link remains in the office's navigation. The office's current How to Apply page names only verification the student provides, and no staff assessment, testing, screening or observation route appears on any remaining DSPS page. This row previously read as a staff route on the strength of the withdrawn page. |
| Merritt College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The FAQ lists three verification means, including staff observation with coordinator review. A separate page confirms in-house learning disability evaluation, delivered through a course. |
| Ohlone College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | All three regulatory routes are stated on the office's own page, in the regulation's own order. |
| Skyline College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | The in-office route is named for learning difficulties only; no equivalent is named for other disabilities. |
| College of Marin | North Bay | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The same page still lists signed professional documentation as an eligibility requirement, so the in-house assessment is presented as a way of obtaining that documentation rather than a waiver of it. |
| Napa Valley College | North Bay | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | Important limit: the office's learning disabilities page states it currently has no LD specialist on staff and is unable to offer LD assessment, so the staff route is named in policy but that assessment is not actually available. |
| Santa Rosa Junior College | North Bay | Not stated | 6 Sep 2026 | The office's getting-started page lists required documentation, including medical verification for ADHD, and names no staff route. |
| El Camino College | South Bay | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | Board policy separately cites Title 5 section 56006 while framing documentation as the student's responsibility. |
| Evergreen Valley College | South Bay | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | One of the clearest statements of the observation route in the dataset. The page cites Title 5 sections 56002 and 56032 through 56044, though not 56006 specifically. |
| Gavilan College | South Bay | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The office's separate admission page conflicts in emphasis: it requires outside verification for physical, speech, language and hearing disabilities, and says a learning-disabled student must complete a diagnostic test battery without stating who administers it. |
| Mission College | South Bay | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | This is the Santa Clara college, not Los Angeles Mission College. ADHD appears only in an external resource listing, not in the documentation requirements. |
| San José City College | South Bay | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | In-house LD assessment is listed as a service but flagged as suspended until spring 2026, so availability may have changed. The page otherwise requires a verification form, IEP, IPP, 504 plan or prior assessment. |
| West Valley College | South Bay | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The student handbook lists three verification means, including staff observation, and cites section 56006 by number. ADHD is named in its eligibility examples. |
| College of the Redwoods | North Coast | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | In-house learning disability assessment runs through a credit course and, if it finds a learning disability, serves as verification. The same page says the model determines eligibility for services only and that a diagnosis is a determination by a licensed professional. ADHD is expressly outside the staff route. |
| Mendocino College | North Coast | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | Tension worth noting: the office's application-forms page says a student must have verification from a certified professional and that the office cannot provide a diagnosis. The staff route appears limited to learning disabilities. |
| Butte College | Far North | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | The office invites students who suspect a disability and will help request records, but every route ends at a provider outside the office; the specialist's intake interview is described as determining accommodations, not establishing the disability. |
| College of the Siskiyous | Far North | Staff assessment or observation named | 23 Sep 2026 | Re-read on 23 September 2026. The office was called Student Access Services when this was first read; it is now Disability Services and every /sas/ address returns 404. The FAQ says the testing involves intake screening and interview along with cognitive, processing and achievement testing, and that it is free to eligible students. It cites Title 5 sections 56032-56042 rather than 56006, and it no longer mentions ADHD anywhere - the earlier record's ADHD flag was true and is now false. |
| Feather River College | Far North | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | For learning disability the page requires a psycho-educational assessment by a qualified specialist certified to assess learning disabilities, without saying staff may perform it. |
| Lassen Community College | Far North | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The same page lists all three verification routes as separate bullets, including assessment by a DSPS certificated staff member and observation when the disability can be clearly seen. Title 5 is cited generically, not by section. |
| Shasta College | Far North | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | In-house assessment is named only for learning disabilities; the same page says it is the student's responsibility to provide documentation. The page cites Chancellor's Office guidelines but not Title 5. |
| American River College | Sacramento | Outside documentation only | 6 Sep 2026 | The college's new-student page lists only outside documents; the form cites the regulation while naming one of its three routes. |
| Cosumnes River College | Sacramento | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The in-house route is explicit and is for learning disability only. For other disabilities the apply page requires an IEP, 504 plan, or a verification form completed by a doctor or appropriate professional. |
| Folsom Lake College | Sacramento | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | This is one item in the page's own list of accepted forms of verification, alongside outside documentation. The learning disability services page separately describes an in-house evaluation process for undocumented students. |
| Sacramento City College | Sacramento | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The page routes such students into an on-campus evaluation that includes testing; the general application page still asks for outside documentation. |
| Sierra College | Sacramento | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The same page states the specialists do not test for ADHD, which needs an outside medical or psychological evaluation. |
| Woodland Community College | Sacramento | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The weakest staff-assessment call in the dataset. The college's own web pages name only outside documentation; the in-house language appears solely in the handbook PDF hosted under those pages, and its wording is further assessment through the college rather than an explicit statement that staff test. |
| Yuba College | Sacramento | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The new-students page carries the same three-route language and adds that undiagnosed students are referred to an LD specialist for an interview and, if appropriate, assessment. |
| Columbia College | Sierra Foothills | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | This is the Columbia College in Sonora. The services page offers individual assessment review only to students with a professionally verified learning disability, which is a service for already-verified students rather than a route to establishing a disability. |
| Lake Tahoe Community College | Sierra Foothills | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The office's separate eligibility page lists ADHD among disability categories and requires documentation bearing the provider's signature, licence number and contact information. The staff route is described only for learning disabilities. |
| Bakersfield College | Central Valley | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The page quotes Title 5 section 56006 by name and number directly above the list. |
| Clovis Community College | Central Valley | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The staff route is limited to learning disabilities and is explicitly for students without documentation; the application page otherwise requires verified documentation from a doctor, practitioner or other qualified individual. This is the California college in Fresno, not the one in New Mexico. |
| Coalinga College | Central Valley | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | Weaker evidence than most records here: the office's own web pages describe only how to apply and never describe verification. The only public statement that the office provides diagnostic testing is in the college catalog. |
| College of the Sequoias | Central Valley | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The assessment is offered as the fallback when a student has no outside documentation, but the page never says who performs it, so this classification rests on its placement as the alternative to uploading outside records. |
| Fresno City College | Central Valley | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The same page's ADHD entry allows verification only by review of outside documentation, not by staff assessment. |
| Lemoore College | Central Valley | Not stated | 13 Sep 2026 | Three office pages ask only for an application and an appointment and state no documentation requirement and no staff assessment route; accommodations are described as determined through an interactive process with a counsellor. |
| Madera Community College | Central Valley | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | Madera's pages mirror those of sister college Clovis in the same district: the testing route is for students without documentation, while the application page requires verified documentation from a doctor, practitioner or other qualified individual. |
| Merced College | Central Valley | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The enrolment page lists two in-house routes alongside outside documentation: the quoted staff-observation option, and obtaining a learning disability assessment through the office. |
| Modesto Junior College | Central Valley | Outside documentation only | 6 Sep 2026 | An IEP or 504 plan is accepted in place of a signature; no staff observation or assessment route is described. |
| Porterville College | Central Valley | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | Four office pages were read. None names assessment, testing, screening or observation by staff. |
| Reedley College | Central Valley | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The office's eligibility page cites section 56006 and requires an intake interview plus, if necessary, additional testing. The in-house route is documented only for learning disabilities; other disabilities go through provider verification forms. |
| San Joaquin Delta College | Central Valley | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | Four office pages were read. All route verification through an outside certifying professional or a form that professional completes. |
| Taft College | Central Valley | Outside documentation only | 6 Oct 2026 | Re-read on 6 October 2026. Taft moved its whole DSPS section to a new platform: the address this row carried returns the college's 404 page, and the FAQ now lives at /o/dsps/. The documentation examples changed with the move - the old page offered “a recent psycho educational assessment report”, the new one offers “an IEP or 504 plan from high school”, which is a far cheaper document for a student who already had one. Every example still comes from outside the office, and the DSPS page says students are eligible after an intake interview and review of documentation they bring, so the classification is unchanged. The FAQ says DSPS faculty can assist in determining specific documentation, which is help identifying paperwork rather than a verification route. |
| Allan Hancock College | Central Coast | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The same FAQ also says students are responsible for providing current documentation, so both routes coexist; in-office testing takes about three to five weeks. The Title 5 reference is on the office's separate policies page, not here. |
| Cabrillo College | Central Coast | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The office's policies page adds that provisional services may be provided after an interactive interview with a learning disabilities specialist. Students with ADHD are advised to bring supporting documentation, phrased as a recommendation rather than an exclusion. |
| Cuesta College | Central Coast | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | Every acceptable route on the application page comes from outside the office. The services, about and student pages name no staff assessment, testing, screening or observation route. |
| Hartnell College | Central Coast | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The page lays out an in-house battery of intake interview plus achievement and cognitive assessment. This conflicts in emphasis with the office's registration pages, which direct students to have a medical professional complete a verification form and mention no staff route. |
| Monterey Peninsula College | Central Coast | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | Outside documentation and an office-arranged learning disability assessment are presented as alternatives. ADD is named among eligible disabilities, but the in-house assessment named is specifically for learning disabilities. |
| Moorpark College | Central Coast | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | A specialist appointment is offered to discuss the possibility of further evaluation, but the page does not say staff themselves verify or assess. |
| Oxnard College | Central Coast | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The page has a learning disability assessment section inviting students to let the office set up assessment, and contrasts the private cost with free testing at the college. It does not name who on staff conducts the assessment. |
| Santa Barbara City College | Central Coast | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | The application page names only an outside professional's diagnostic statement, while the office's own FAQ invites students to inquire about learning-disability testing; the two pages conflict. |
| Ventura College | Central Coast | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | All three routes are named, with assessment by a certificated staff member described as covering a specialist, psychologist or licensed clinical social worker. |
| Antelope Valley College | Los Angeles | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | In-house diagnostic testing is named as an alternative to outside results for learning disabilities only; physical and psychological disabilities still need an outside professional. |
| Cerritos College | Los Angeles | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | An observation exception to the documentation requirement is named in a single clause; every other route listed originates outside the office. |
| Citrus College | Los Angeles | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | All three regulatory routes are named on the office's own eligibility page, though the regulation is not cited by number. |
| College of the Canyons | Los Angeles | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | Only externally sourced documents are named, with no staff assessment or observation route and no regulatory citation. |
| Compton College | Los Angeles | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | This is the second of three bulleted verification routes; the third is observation by SRC professional staff. The page also allows provisional services with incomplete documentation when a disability is clearly discernible. |
| East Los Angeles College | Los Angeles | Outside documentation only | 6 Sep 2026 | The linked verification form is completed by a licensed or certified professional; no staff assessment or observation route is named. |
| Glendale Community College | Los Angeles | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The office's About page lists learning disability assessments among its services. Caveat: the FAQ lists the same centre's services without assessments, and no page found states documentation requirements. |
| Long Beach City College | Los Angeles | Not stated | 10 Sep 2026 | Documentation is encouraged rather than required and undocumented students are invited into an interactive process, with no staff assessment or observation route named. |
| Los Angeles City College | Los Angeles | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | The page names only externally sourced verification and no staff assessment or observation route, though it lists ADHD among the disabilities served. |
| Los Angeles Harbor College | Los Angeles | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | Conflicting emphasis: the office's resources page says it needs signed documentation from an appropriate professional and names only an outside route. The Title 5 citation is in the office brochure rather than on this page. |
| Los Angeles Mission College | Los Angeles | Outside documentation only | 23 Sep 2026 | Re-read on 23 September 2026 and unchanged. Step one of the office's four-step process; students exiting high school may use an IEP. Staff are described only as reviewing documentation the student obtains. The college moved from lamission.edu to lamc.edu, so the link is new and the text behind it is not. |
| Los Angeles Pierce College | Los Angeles | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | The same FAQ requires an IEP, a 504 plan or a qualified professional’s signed documentation for everyone else; the counselor route is scoped to visible disabilities. |
| Los Angeles Southwest College | Los Angeles | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | The signer list includes a learning disability or educational assessment specialist and students are told to see a DSPS counsellor or LD specialist, but the page never says college staff assess, test or screen, so no staff route is credited. |
| Los Angeles Trade-Technical College | Los Angeles | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | No assessment or observation route appears on the registration, services or application pages; students with outside verification are routed to an eligibility workshop. The Title 5 citation is on the application PDF rather than this page. |
| Los Angeles Valley College | Los Angeles | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | The page requires documentation and a meeting with a disability specialist, cites the district's own administrative regulation rather than Title 5, and names no staff route. |
| Mt. San Antonio College | Los Angeles | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The office's FAQ separately requires outside professional documentation and names ADHD among the conditions that need it. |
| Pasadena City College | Los Angeles | Outside documentation only | 6 Sep 2026 | A companion page lists ADD/ADHD as a covered category but does not describe how it may be verified. |
| Rio Hondo College | Los Angeles | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | The office conducts its own learning-disability testing while the same page calls verification paperwork required for intake, and it states plainly that it does not diagnose ADHD. |
| Santa Monica College | Los Angeles | Not stated | 10 Sep 2026 | The page puts documentation on the student and says requirements are discussed with a counselor at the initial meeting, without naming a verification route. |
| West Los Angeles College | Los Angeles | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The quoted item is a bullet in the office's own list of eligibility and services, so it offers diagnostic assessment for learning disability eligibility in-house. For other disabilities the page says only to have verification of your disability. |
| Coastline College | Orange County | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | The page lists acceptable outside documentation and names no in-house assessment, screening or observation route. |
| Cypress College | Orange County | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | A college verification form is offered for medical and psychological disabilities; no staff assessment or observation route is named. |
| Fullerton College | Orange County | Outside documentation only | 6 Sep 2026 | No staff testing or observation route is named on the page. |
| Golden West College | Orange County | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | Outside documentation is required before an appointment can be scheduled, and no staff assessment or observation route is named. |
| Irvine Valley College | Orange County | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | Every applicant is routed to outside documentation, including students who arrive with nothing, and the office names an ADHD eligibility programme without naming a staff route. |
| Orange Coast College | Orange County | Outside documentation only | 6 Sep 2026 | A separate rights page cites Title 5 section 56010(b) rather than 56006 and names no staff route. |
| Saddleback College | Orange County | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | The same page's application steps require a verification form signed by a licensed practitioner, so the in-house assessment route runs alongside a documentation requirement. |
| Santa Ana College | Orange County | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The application page otherwise asks for written verification from a physician, psychiatrist or therapist. |
| Santiago Canyon College | Orange County | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The same page adds that students without documentation who suspect a learning disability may schedule a screening appointment, so both an observation route and an in-house screening route are named. |
| Chaffey College | Inland Empire | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | A physician-completed verification form runs in parallel for conditions other than learning disabilities. |
| Crafton Hills College | Inland Empire | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The quoted line is an item in the office's own list of services for students with a verified disability. Otherwise verification is external: the office's form must be completed in its entirety by a certified or licensed medical professional, waived only for a 504 plan or IEP with a psycho-educational report. |
| Moreno Valley College | Inland Empire | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | The office routes students to a verification form for a medical professional to complete and names no staff assessment, testing, screening or observation route. A registration subpage could not be reached, so this rests on the landing page. |
| Mt. San Jacinto College | Inland Empire | Staff assessment or observation named | 23 Sep 2026 | Re-read on 23 September 2026. The office was called the Accommodation Service Center when this was first read; it is now DSPS and the ASC page that reproduced all three routes of section 56006 verbatim is gone, so the regulatory citation this row once rested on no longer exists anywhere on the college's site. The in-college assessment route survives but has moved: DSPS sends students to the college's Personalized Academic Learning Skills programme, whose own page says it provides assessment under the Chancellor's Office learning-disability eligibility model. Read the row accordingly - the assessment is by college staff, but not by DSPS staff. |
| Norco College | Inland Empire | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | The one no-documentation path routes the student to a separate campus health office rather than to disability-services staff assessment or observation, so it is outside-professional documentation even though it can be obtained on campus. |
| Riverside City College | Inland Empire | Outside documentation only | 6 Sep 2026 | The same page invites students without documentation to meet a counselor to discuss solutions, without naming another verification route. |
| San Bernardino Valley College | Inland Empire | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The office's eligibility page cites Title 5 sections 56032-56044 and 56002, lists ADHD as eligible, and invites students without a verified disability to request this assessment. |
| Barstow Community College | Desert | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | The intake page requires a verifying professional's form or substitute outside documentation and cites Title 5 sections 56032 through 56044. No staff assessment or observation route appears on any office page. |
| Cerro Coso Community College | Desert | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | The same page states it is the student's responsibility to provide verification and lists provider notes, medical documentation, IEPs and accommodation plans. No staff assessment, testing, screening or observation route is named. |
| College of the Desert | Desert | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | The office's checklist, services and about pages describe only externally sourced documentation and never say staff assess, test, screen or observe. The college catalog, not the office, is where a Title 5 reference appears. |
| Copper Mountain College | Desert | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | The page lists only outside sources plus a verification form for a licensed professional. It offers help to students unable to obtain documentation but never says staff can assess, test, screen or verify by observation. |
| Imperial Valley College | Desert | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The staff route is named only for learning disabilities. Conflict: the office's separate documentation guidelines page names only outside documentation signed by a verifying professional. |
| Palo Verde College | Desert | Not stated | 13 Sep 2026 | The page says eligibility is consistent with Title 5 requirements but never states what documentation is needed, who may verify, or whether staff assess or observe. The words assess, assessment, testing and screening do not appear. |
| Victor Valley College | Desert | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | The in-house route is limited to learning disability testing and to summer and winter terms; a second office page states eligibility requires verification by a physician, psychologist or other appropriate professional. |
| Cuyamaca College | San Diego | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | A learning disability assessment page exists only as an archived URL and is absent from the current navigation, so it is not counted as a live route. |
| Grossmont College | San Diego | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | Medical, agency, educational and other college records are the routes listed; ADHD is named among the categories served but no staff route is named. |
| MiraCosta College | San Diego | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | The same page invites students who cannot produce documentation to be tested by the office, alongside a list of outside verification routes. |
| Palomar College | San Diego | Staff assessment or observation named | 6 Sep 2026 | The office's handbook otherwise states a student must provide current professional documentation. |
| San Diego City College | San Diego | Outside documentation only | 10 Sep 2026 | Verification is defined as a document from an outside professional; students without one are invited to contact the office, but no staff route is described. |
| San Diego College of Continuing Education | San Diego | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | SDCCE is the San Diego Community College District's noncredit college, so its page is written for noncredit students; it names no in-house assessment or observation route. ADD appears only in the list of other disabling conditions served. |
| San Diego Mesa College | San Diego | Not stated | 6 Sep 2026 | The same page asks for a verification form from a provider, clinician, specialist or school district. |
| San Diego Miramar College | San Diego | Outside documentation only | 13 Sep 2026 | The office's web pages say only that a student must have a verified disability and never name who may verify it; its own verification form is the only place the route appears, and it requires a licensed or certified professional's signature, title and licence number. |
| Southwestern College | San Diego | Staff assessment or observation named | 10 Sep 2026 | Learning-disability testing is provided in-house through the office itself, while the application steps on the department’s main page name only high school, healthcare or agency documentation. |
| Calbright College | Statewide | Staff assessment or observation named | 13 Sep 2026 | Calbright is California's fully online statewide college, so it has no campus office and Accessibility Services operates remotely. It lists three routes including staff observation, and cites Title 5 section 56032 rather than 56006. |
| Solano Community College | North Bay | Could not be read | 13 Sep 2026 | The Disability Services Program's eligibility and documentation text is inside JavaScript accordion panels that are absent from the served HTML, and every handbook and form PDF linked from those pages returned 404 on 13 September 2026. No verbatim quote could be obtained, so no classification was made. |
How to read the middle column. "Staff assessment or observation named" means the office's own pages say its staff can assess, test or verify by observation for at least some disabilities — not that they will do it for you, and not that they will do it for ADHD. "Outside documentation only" means the pages we read name no other route. "Not stated" means the pages invite you in without documentation, or say requirements vary, without naming a route.
The ADHD asterisk
At 7 of the colleges that name a staff route, the same site says ADHD is different: Mt. San Antonio College, Diablo Valley College, City College of San Francisco, Fresno City College, Sierra College, Rio Hondo College and College of the Redwoods each state, in one place or another, that a learning-disability specialist does not test for ADHD or that ADHD needs an outside medical or psychological evaluation. College of the Redwoods is the bluntest: “We do not offer assessments for ADHD or Autism, but we can help you find a provider who can assess you for those conditions.” That is not a contradiction in the regulation; it is a scope decision by each office. It is also exactly why the question below is worth asking in writing rather than assuming from a web page.
What to ask your own college
Send this, or read it at the counter:
I am a student at [college] and I am requesting a DSPS intake for ADHD. Before I pay for any new evaluation, please tell me which verification route your office uses for ADHD under Title 5 section 56006 — observation, assessment by DSPS staff, or outside documentation — and, if outside documentation, exactly what information is missing from what I already have.
An office that answers "documentation" has answered the question, and you can stop guessing. An office that answers "come in and we will look at it" has just saved you a bill. The full DSPS walkthrough, with what an Academic Accommodation Plan must contain →
What this directory is not
- A census, with one hole in it. All 116 credit colleges were read, plus the San Diego district's noncredit college. Solano Community College could not be classified: its eligibility text sits inside JavaScript panels absent from the served HTML, and every handbook PDF linked from those pages returns 404. It is listed as unread rather than guessed at.
- Not a promise. Pages change, and an office's practice can differ from its page. Every row is a quotation from a page on one date, and the date is in the row.
- Not advice about your case. Whether an evaluation is worth paying for is a decision about your situation, your money and your deadlines.
- Corrections welcome. If a college's page says something different from what is recorded here, the page wins and this table should be fixed.
Q&A
Q: My college is on the list as "outside documentation only." Is that final? A: It is what its pages said on the date in the row. Ask anyway, in writing, using the script above — the pages a new student sees are not always the whole policy, and several of the colleges in the "staff route" column bury that route two clicks deep.
Q: I have an old IEP or 504 plan. Is that enough? A: Often yes, and it is the cheapest thing to try first. Most of the offices here accept school records as documentation. What a DSPS intake looks like →
Q: I am at a UC or CSU, not a community college. A: Title 5 section 56006 governs the community colleges. The four-year systems set their own documentation policies. Documentation rules for California campuses →
Q: Do I need a diagnosis before any of this? A: For accommodations, you need verification, which is not always the same as a private diagnosis. For treatment, a diagnosis is a different errand. What an adult ADHD evaluation should include → · Every adult ADHD decision on one map →
Our therapist directory: See its current status →
In crisis? Call or text 988 — free, 24/7.
Sources
- California Code of Regulations, Title 5, section 56006, "Determination of Eligibility" — law.cornell.edu.
- The college pages linked in the table above, each read on the date shown in its row, and each classification resting on a verbatim sentence from the page it links. The machine-readable version of this table, with that sentence for every college, is
site/src/data/dsps-verification-routes.jsonin the site's repository. It is free to reuse with attribution; see press, citation and linking.
Correction, 23 September 2026: five of the 116 links in this table had gone dead since the census was taken ten days earlier, and re-reading them changed one row's answer. Los Medanos College is now recorded as outside documentation only: the page that said the college assesses students for learning-disability eligibility has been withdrawn and returns a 404, and nothing on the office's remaining pages names a staff route. The staff-route count therefore falls from 69 to 68 and the documentation-only count rises from 40 to 41. Mt. San Jacinto's Accommodation Service Center is now called DSPS, and the page that reproduced all three routes of section 56006 verbatim is gone; the college still assesses, but through its Personalized Academic Learning Skills programme rather than the disability office, and the row now says so. College of the Siskiyous's Student Access Services is now Disability Services, and its FAQ no longer mentions ADHD. College of Alameda's application page was withdrawn and the sentence this row rests on now appears only in the office's student handbook. Los Angeles Mission College moved from lamission.edu to lamc.edu with its text unchanged. No quotation in this table is carried over from a page that has stopped serving it.
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