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 read the public disability-services pages of 24 colleges on 6 September 2026. 15 of them name a staff assessment or observation route somewhere on their own site; 7 name only outside documentation; 2 say requirements vary or invite the student in first. The catch, and it is the important one: the staff route is usually written for learning disabilities, and at 5 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
Twenty-four colleges, chosen for size and geographic spread out of the 116 in the system. Each link goes to the page that was read; the date read is 6 September 2026 for every row.
| College | Region | What its pages name | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| City College of San Francisco | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 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. |
| De Anza College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | 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 | 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 | The observation route is scoped to apparent disabilities; otherwise a letter, IEP or psychoeducational evaluation is required. |
| Ohlone College | Bay Area | Staff assessment or observation named | All three regulatory routes are stated on the office's own page, in the regulation's own order. |
| Bakersfield College | Central Valley | Staff assessment or observation named | The page quotes Title 5 section 56006 by name and number directly above the list. |
| Fresno City College | Central Valley | Staff assessment or observation named | The same page's ADHD entry allows verification only by review of outside documentation, not by staff assessment. |
| Modesto Junior College | Central Valley | Outside documentation only | An IEP or 504 plan is accepted in place of a signature; no staff observation or assessment route is described. |
| Chaffey College | Inland Empire | Staff assessment or observation named | A physician-completed verification form runs in parallel for conditions other than learning disabilities. |
| Riverside City College | Inland Empire | Outside documentation only | 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 | 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. |
| East Los Angeles College | Los Angeles | Outside documentation only | The linked verification form is completed by a licensed or certified professional; no staff assessment or observation route is named. |
| Mt. San Antonio College | Los Angeles | Staff assessment or observation named | 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 | A companion page lists ADD/ADHD as a covered category but does not describe how it may be verified. |
| Santa Rosa Junior College | North Bay | Not stated | The office's getting-started page lists required documentation, including medical verification for ADHD, and names no staff route. |
| Fullerton College | Orange County | Outside documentation only | No staff testing or observation route is named on the page. |
| Orange Coast College | Orange County | Outside documentation only | A separate rights page cites Title 5 section 56010(b) rather than 56006 and names no staff route. |
| Santa Ana College | Orange County | Staff assessment or observation named | The application page otherwise asks for written verification from a physician, psychiatrist or therapist. |
| American River College | Sacramento | Outside documentation only | The college's new-student page lists only outside documents; the form cites the regulation while naming one of its three routes. |
| Sacramento City College | Sacramento | Staff assessment or observation named | 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 | The same page states the specialists do not test for ADHD, which needs an outside medical or psychological evaluation. |
| Palomar College | San Diego | Staff assessment or observation named | The office's handbook otherwise states a student must provide current professional documentation. |
| San Diego Mesa College | San Diego | Not stated | The same page asks for a verification form from a provider, clinician, specialist or school district. |
| El Camino College | South Bay | Staff assessment or observation named | Board policy separately cites Title 5 section 56006 while framing documentation as the student's responsibility. |
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 5 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 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. 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
- Not a census. Twenty-four of 116 colleges. A college's absence means we have not read it, not that it is worse or better.
- 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 →
Ready to find a clinician if your college says you need outside documentation? Filter by approach, schedule and payment route →
Sources
- California Code of Regulations, Title 5, section 56006, "Determination of Eligibility" — law.cornell.edu.
- The 24 college pages linked in the table above, each read on 6 September 2026. The machine-readable version of this table, with the sentence quoted from each page, is
site/src/data/dsps-verification-routes.jsonin the site's repository.
Paid for by participating therapists. Inclusion is computed from availability data — never purchased. No ads, no data sold.