A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n Report on the Section 504 Self-Evaluation - May 1996

Chapter III
Explanation of Principal Office Summaries

This section of the Department's Section 504 report includes a summary of each Principal Office's response to the self-evaluation protocol it submitted in conjunction with the Department's self-evaluation. A copy of the protocol distributed is attached at Appendix B, and copies of the actual protocols submitted by each Principal Office are bound separately as Volume II of the report. (NOTE: Appendix B and Volume II of this report are not available in electronic format.) In some instances, members of the Section 504 subcommittee contacted Principal Offices after they submitted the protocol in order to clarify certain responses. The results of those follow-up conversations are not reflected on the actual protocol, but are included in the summary, where appropriate.

Each summary provides an overview of the Principal Office's functions and certain programs and activities. It also provides the name of the building that each Principal Office currently occupies in Washington, D.C. so that it can be cross-referenced with the Department's complete physical accessibility study bound separately as Volume III of this report (NOTE: Not available in electronic format), with the Executive Summary found in Chapter 4.

The Evaluation section of the Principal Office summary is a narrative description of the responses provided on the protocol regarding the status of the accessibility of the programs, policies, and practices of the Principal Office. It also includes a list of the auxiliary aids and services that currently exist in that Office. The protocol distributed asked each Principal Office to identify from a given list the aids and services that exist in that Office. That list is reproduced below and includes certain aids or services that were not included in the protocol but were identified as available by at least one Principal Office. Currently, five auxiliary aids or services are available from each Principal Office, even though the Principal Office itself may not have recognized this fact. They include access to the Department's sign language interpreter contract, the Federal Information Relay System for telecommunications and paper and pen for the hearing impaired, and computer diskette and large print for the visually impaired.

The list at the end of each Principal Office summary identifies the auxiliary aids and services existing in the Principal Office, and indicates whether they are available from within the Principal Office itself, through the Department, or through an external source with which the Principal Office contracts directly. The five auxiliary aids or services common to each Principal Office are listed at the end under the subheading "General Services Available." However, not every Principal Office recognized that these were available as aids or services. The inclusion of any of these five aids indicates that the Principal Office recognized that it possessed the capability to provide this aid or service.

Existing Aids and/or Services within the Department:

Definitions of these auxiliary aids and services can be found in the Glossary of Terms located in Appendix E of this Volume.

The Principal Office Summaries are ordered as follows:


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