Compliance Roadmap

2Name an accessibility lead and team

Compliance touches every department, so give one person clear ownership and a team to help.

• Name an accessibility lead. This is often the district’s ADA/504 coordinator, technology director, or communications director.
• Build a team that includes technology, communications or the webmaster, curriculum, special education, and purchasing.
• Decide who can publish to the website and social media, and who reviews content before it goes live.

Ready for the next step when: the lead and team are named and everyone knows their role.

3Train the people who publish

Most accessibility problems are created one document or post at a time. Training everyone who publishes stops the backlog from growing while you fix what’s already there.

• Give everyone who posts content (teachers, office staff, coaches, communications) a short introduction to the basics: contrast, alt text, headings, link text, and captions.
• Give deeper, role-specific training to your webmaster, anyone who creates PDFs, and staff who buy software.
• Add accessibility to onboarding for new staff.

Ready for the next step when: everyone who publishes has had basic training.

4Take inventory of your digital content

You can’t fix what you haven’t found. List every place your district publishes content, and who is responsible for it.

• District and school websites, plus any sub-sites for athletics, PTOs, or departments.
• Documents: PDFs, Word files, slide decks, and spreadsheets posted online.
• Videos, podcasts, and livestreams.
• Social media accounts.
• Third-party tools families use: registration, payments, lunch accounts, calendars, forms, mobile apps, and your learning management system.

For each item, record its owner, its audience, and roughly how often it’s used.

Ready for the next step when: you have one list of everything your district publishes, with an owner for each item.

5Sort what's covered from what's excepted

Use the five exceptions to decide what has to meet WCAG 2.1 AA. This step often shrinks the work considerably.

• Delete content that is outdated and no longer needed.
• Move content you need to keep for reference into a clearly labeled archive area, and stop changing it.
• Flag everything people still use to enroll, register, pay, apply, or stay informed. That content must be accessible.

Ready for the next step when: every item on your list is marked as delete, archive, or fix.

6Test your content and set priorities

Find out what needs fixing, then decide what to fix first.

• Run an automated checker such as WAVE on your key pages. Automated tools catch only some problems, so also do quick manual checks: use the page with only a keyboard, zoom to 200%, and check that videos have accurate captions. W3C’s Easy Checks walks you through them.
• Use our Web Accessibility Checklist for Schools to record results.
• Fix first: content people need to complete a task (enrollment, registration, payments), your most-visited pages, page templates (fixing one fixes every page that uses it), and anything someone has reported as a barrier.

Ready for the next step when: you have a prioritized list of fixes with an owner and a target date for each.

7Fix your highest-priority content

Work through your priority list, starting with the fixes that help the most people.

• Ask your website provider to fix template-level problems such as menus, color contrast, and focus indicators.
• Fix or replace key documents. Where possible, turn PDFs into web pages, which are easier to keep accessible.
• Add captions to videos, alt text to images, and descriptive text to links.
• See Anatomy of an Accessible Website for what an accessible page looks like.

Ready for the next step when: your highest-priority content passes your checks. Keep working through the rest of the list on a regular schedule.

8Hold vendors to WCAG 2.1 AA

Your district is responsible for the accessibility of the tools and services vendors provide on its behalf.

• Ask current vendors for an Accessibility Conformance Report (often called a VPAT) and a plan to fix known issues. Our Vendor Accessibility Compliance Email Template makes the request easy.
• Add WCAG 2.1 AA requirements to new contracts and renewals, including online curriculum, which Illinois law already covers.
• Make accessibility part of how you evaluate new purchases.

Ready for the next step when: your key vendors have responded and new contracts include accessibility requirements.

9Adopt a policy and publish an accessibility statement

A policy sets expectations for staff. A public statement tells families how to get help.

• Adopt a board policy or administrative procedure that names your standard (WCAG 2.1 AA), who is responsible, and how new content is reviewed. The sample policy template under “Policies & Guides” below is a starting point.
• Publish an accessibility statement on your website that explains how to report a barrier or request an accessible format, and how quickly you’ll respond. W3C’s accessibility statement generator can help.

Ready for the next step when: the policy is adopted and the statement is linked from every page, usually in the footer.

10Monitor and keep improving

Accessibility is ongoing. Content changes every day, so build regular checks into your routine.

• Scan your key pages regularly (monthly works for many districts) and do a fuller review once a year.
• Track and respond to every barrier someone reports.
• Train new staff and refresh training each year.
• Review accessibility for every new website, tool, or purchase.

Need help with any step? Contact LTC.