What School Districts Should Be Doing Now to Prepare for the DOJ's Web and Mobile Application Accessibility Requirements

On April 24, 2024, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) promulgated accessibility requirements that significantly affect public schools’ websites, electronic documents, online services, mobile applications, and digital communications. The requirements are much broader than making the school’s main website accessible. The requirements potentially reach nearly every digital service you provide to students, parents, employees, applicants, voters, and members of the public.

Depending on the population size of the school district, compliance will be required beginning April 26, 2027, or April 26, 2028.

You should treat digital accessibility as an organization-wide compliance project involving administration, information technology, communications, special education, curriculum and instruction, human resources, business operations, purchasing, and legal counsel.

What Has Changed?
The DOJ has established technical accessibility standards for websites and mobile applications provided by state and local governments, including public school districts. The required technical standard is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2.1, Level AA, commonly called WCAG 2.1 AA. WCAG establishes rules intended to make websites and electronic information usable by people with disabilities.

Compliant digital material may need to:
• work with screen-reading software;
• be usable without a mouse;
• provide sufficient color contrast;
• contain meaningful headings and labels;
• provide alternative text describing important images;
• include captions for video content;
• make forms understandable and usable with assistive technology;
• identify the purpose of form fields;
• allow users to enlarge text;
• avoid design features that interfere with users with visual, motor, hearing, or cognitive disabilities; and
• make electronic documents, including PDFs, accessible.

Public schools are already required to provide equal access to programs and services. The important change is that DOJ has now established a specific technical benchmark against which web and mobile accessibility will be measured. That makes digital accessibility much less subjective, which makes enforcement more likely.

The Rule Applies to Public School Districts
Public schools are specifically among the government entities covered by the DOJ requirements. The requirements apply not merely to information designed specifically for people with disabilities. They apply generally to the web content and mobile applications through which a school district provides its programs, services, information, and activities.

That may include:
• the District's main website;
• individual school websites;
• Board of Education webpages;
• Board agendas and meeting materials;
• BoardDocs or similar Board-management platforms;
• capital project webpages;
• budget materials;
• voter information;
• employment applications;
• student registration systems;
• transportation information;
• food-service information and menus;
• athletic schedules;
• calendars;
• emergency notifications;
• school closing information;
• online payment systems;
• parent portals;
• student portals;
• learning-management systems;
• online forms;
• PDFs;
• Word documents;
• PowerPoint presentations;
• spreadsheets;
• photographs and graphics;
• audio recordings;
• videos;
• livestreams;
• mobile applications; and
• certain digital services supplied by outside vendors.

The rule should not be viewed simply as an IT issue.

The Basic Requirement: WCAG 2.1 Level AA
As a rule, covered web content and mobile applications must meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Although the WCAG standards can be highly technical, the basic objective is clear:

A person with a disability should be able to obtain substantially the same information, complete substantially the same transactions, and participate in substantially the same District programs through the District's digital services as a person without a disability.

Examples include:
• A blind parent using screen-reading software should be able to read a school announcement.
• A person who cannot operate a mouse should be able to navigate a District website using a keyboard.
• A deaf parent should be able to understand important information communicated through a District video.
• A visually impaired voter should be able to review the District's capital project information.
• A job applicant using assistive technology should be able to complete the District's online employment application.
• A student with a disability should be able to access required course material through the District's learning-management system.

The Compliance Deadlines
DOJ has established two principal compliance dates:

Do not interpret the extended deadline as a reason to postpone planning. Reviewing and correcting thousands of webpages, PDFs, and electronic documents will be a substantial, time-consuming, and costly undertaking.

Important: District Population Does Not Mean Student Enrollment
This is one of the most important parts of the DOJ guidance for school districts. The 50,000-person threshold does not refer to student enrollment. A school district with 5,000 students could therefore fall into the 50,000-or-more category if the population of the District exceeds 50,000.

DOJ directs most school districts to use the population estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2022 Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) school district data. For a city school district that is part of a city government, DOJ explains that the city's population is used. Most New York State school districts should therefore carefully determine which Census classification, and population figure applies rather than assuming that enrollment determines the deadline. See the attached Appendix for your District’s DOJ Web Accessibility Deadline.

What Should You Be Doing Now?
We recommend you begin a proactive compliance program rather than attempting to comply on an ad hoc basis or remediate the entire digital environment immediately before the deadline.

Your compliance program should include the following steps:

1. Determine your compliance date. Identify the Census population figure that applies to your District and document whether the deadline is April 26, 2027, or April 26, 2028. Create a milestone schedule for completion deadlines for tasks and activities.

2. Appoint a District accessibility team. The group should ordinarily include administration, IT, communications, curriculum and instruction, special education, human resources, business operations, and legal counsel.

3. Inventory your digital environment. Identify websites, subsites, portals, apps, PDFs, online forms, LMS platforms, vendor systems, and electronic communications.

4. Identify high-priority material. Start with digital services people regularly need to access District programs: registration, employment, Board information, transportation, calendars, payments, parent portals, instructional materials, and emergency information.

5. Test your website and important applications. Use a combination of automated accessibility testing and manual testing.

6. Inventory PDFs and other electronic documents. Determine which documents are current, which can be removed, which can legitimately be archived, and which require remediation.

7. Review third-party vendors. Identify every vendor providing web content or mobile applications on behalf of your District.

8. Update procurement documents and contracts. Future technology purchases should address WCAG 2.1 AA compliance expressly.

9. Train employees who create digital content. Training may be needed for administrative assistants, teachers, communications personnel, Board Clerks, HR staff, and anyone else who routinely posts information.

10. Establish clear procedures for new content. The goal should be to create accessible material from the beginning instead of attempting to repair inaccessible material later.

Materials That Should Receive Early Review
• Board agendas and attachments;
• current Board policies;
• employment applications;
• student registration materials;
• transportation forms;
• special education information;
• District calendars;
• school lunch menus;
• emergency information;
• current capital project information;
• voter materials;
• budget information;
• athletic information;
• online payment functions;
• parent and student portals; and
• instructional materials currently used by students.

Accessibility remediation can become expensive if thousands of documents need to be corrected at once. You can reduce that burden and cost by stopping the creation of new inaccessible documents now. The most cost-effective compliance strategy is to create documents accessibly before converting them to PDF.

When preparing a Word or Google document:
• use actual heading styles rather than simply making text large and bold;
• provide alternative text for meaningful images;
• use properly structured tables;
• use meaningful hyperlink text;
• maintain sufficient color contrast;
• use descriptive document titles; and
• check the document with built-in accessibility tools before publishing it.

The same principle applies to PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets, and webpages. Fixing accessibility at the source is generally much easier than repairing a poorly constructed PDF afterward.

Your Board of Education Must Understand the Issue
This does not mean that you need a formal Board resolution concerning website accessibility. The Board should understand that this is a significant federal compliance requirement with a significant compliance cost and is likely to involve:

• staff time;
• software;
• consulting services;
• vendor contracts;
• website redesign;
• document remediation;
• employee training; and
• potential budgetary commitments.

You should include accessibility planning as part of your annual technology plan, communications plan, procurement procedures, and/or ADA compliance program.

Accessibility Is an Ongoing Requirement
The compliance deadline should not be viewed as the end of the project. After the applicable deadline, newly created web content and applications must continue to meet the accessibility requirements. You could have a fully compliant website on April 26 and gradually become noncompliant over time if employees begin posting inaccessible PDFs, photographs without alternative text, uncaptioned videos, or inaccessible third-party applications. The long-term goal is to establish a systems approach in which accessibility becomes part of ordinary District operations.

Practical Takeaway for New York School Districts
The DOJ rule represents an important qualitative shift in digital accessibility for New York State public schools, but the basic message is straightforward:

Accessibility must be built into the District's digital operations in the same way that accessibility is considered when designing a school building.

You should begin your compliance work with at least three questions:

1. What is our Census population for purposes of determining our compliance deadline?

2. What websites, documents, applications, and vendor platforms are we currently providing?

3. What changes do we need to make now so that accessible digital content becomes the District's normal practice before the deadline arrives?

If you answer those questions now and begin the process of compliance, you will be in a much better position than if you attempt to remediate years of digital content on an ad hoc basis or immediately before the federal compliance deadline.

Here’s a link to a quick reference guide regarding compliance: How to Meet WCAG (Quick Reference)