Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Associate Deans (Academic)

I am a first-year student. Please accept this letter as an appeal of the zero grade I received in CLST 130 Introduction to Archaeology.

This letter is being written with my father Tony Lafazanis. He agrees with the contents of this letter and supports my appeal. He can be contacted at 416-979-1770 extension 321, or by email tony@tonylafazanis.com.

I am registered with the QSAS. I have an IEP and Letter of Accommodation consistent with my ADHD (copy attached). I have various accommodations. In this appeal, I am essentially asking for an accommodation consistent with my IEP. I am requesting an extension of time to withdraw from the course.

Complying with deadlines is an issue I sometimes have. In this first year at university I generally complied with deadlines, but at times I did not. The more things that are coming at me the more likely something will slip, or I postpone doing things. I believe I will do the task later, but often the task disappears from my mental To Do list. I am working on getting better at creating actual To Do lists and using my calendar.

At the beginning of the second semester, I had Spanish. I took a screen shot of my calendar so that I would not have to keep logging in SOLUS. I dropped Spanish and replaced it with Archaeology. I forgot to take another screen shot. I continued to follow my old schedule and literally completely forgot about the Archaeology course. At times this happens to me. Events completely disappear from my memory.

I thought the Archaeology course would be interesting. To be able to complete a course it is very important for me to be interested in the subject. At some point I realized I needed to drop the course formally. I knew I wanted to drop the course and believed in my mind that I actually did so.

From the start of the course and the March 4, 2022 deadline to drop the course, I did not attend a class nor did I submit any assigned work. Although I accept it is primarily my responsibility, in that time I did not receive notification from the instructor, QSAS or anyone at the school prompting me to consider dropping the course. If I was sent any emails, I have not read them, as I get overwhelmed at times with the volume of things coming at me.

Not meeting the deadline was inadvertent, but partially related to my ADHD. I imagine that most ADHD students will miss deadlines, at times. It is a characteristic of my ADHD.

At times I am not good at following through. As an example, I did not fully register with QSAS and extend my Letter of Accommodation. I want to try to do what I need to do without relying on accommodations.

At times I do not fully appreciate the importance of taking a step. I did not understand that a zero grade would impact my overall GPA. I believed there would be no effect.

At times I doubted my ability to be in university. When I have these feelings, my ADHD causes me to have these feelings in a more extreme way. The importance of staying on top of things at these times diminishes for me. I had these feelings on/off through first year.

Once I realized I missed the date, it was exam time. I wanted to focus on my exams, and now am filing my appeal.

I apologize to the school for missing the deadline.