Q: Why has web accessibility become such a hot topic lately with schools?

We are seeing an unprecedented increase in the number of complaints filed by disability-rights advocates to the Office of Civil Rights against school districts and other local governmental entities.  In many cases, the person making the complaint has no connection to the school or municipality against which they are complaining—they have only surfed the web and found that entity’s website to be inaccessible to persons with disabilities.

Interestingly, we are also seeing the Office of Civil Rights add to pending complaints website accessibility as an additional area that it will scrutinize when processing the original complaint.

Q: So what happens if a school or school district gets a complaint filed against them?

Having the Office of Civil Rights conduct an investigation of your school is like having the IRS conduct an audit of your finances—You can try as hard as you reasonably can to comply with the complicated web of federal regulations, but from the feds perspective, you are not “innocent until proven guilty”, you must have documentation to prove to them that you are innocent of the discrimination claims made against you.

A governmental entity that does not take a proactive approach to defending itself against an accessibility discrimination claim is facing loss of its federal funds and/or referral of the matter from the OCR to the U.S. Department of Justice so the federal government can sue the entity to comply with the federal laws granting accessibility to persons with disabilities.

In all cases, the district will suffer the significant costs associated with legal fees in dealing with the lawyers at OCR and in terms of lost productivity in dealing with the incredible distraction that defending against an OCR complaint entails. Because of this incredible burden in terms of legal fees and lost productivity, a large number of inaccessibility claims are resolved by entering into a Resolution Agreement with the OCR.

Q: What is an OCR Resolution Agreement look like?

An OCR Resolution Agreement is a mechanism by which a entity resolves a complaint made against it by addressing the known deficiencies in the entities compliance with federal discrimination laws. It’s a way to avoid the loss of federal funding that the entity receives and provides a pathway for the entity to get out from under federal oversight.

The agreements are often very complicated and involve a great deal of organizational disruption.  Of course, they are almost always negotiated by the entities’ lawyers, so they are also extremely expensive, but less expensive than defending itself against the full-weight of the federal government in a lawsuit brought by the Department o Justice.

Q: An OCR Resolution Agreement often mentions ongoing monitoring. Why is that important?

Because the OCR will be looking over your shoulder if a complaint is made, and its investigation finds the entity’s website to be inaccessible in any material manner.  The best practice is to be proactive so that if a complaint is made about your website, you can provide the OCR with evidence that you are being intentional about ensuring that persons with disabilities enjoy the same benefits as their non-disabled peers.

Q: Do all videos on a website (including those embedded or linked to YouTube) have to have closed captioning?

Yes! Schools and other governmental entities must make their videos posted on their websites accessible to persons who are deaf or hard of hearing.  The Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, require schools to provide equal access to their programs and services to persons with disabilities—closed captioning of its online videos is an expected part of that accessibility as far as OCR is concerned.

Q: How serious is ADA Compliance and OCR enforcement?

If a school’s website is not accessible, it is at risk of having the full weight of the federal government being brought against it, but, at a deeper, more fundamental level, having a website that is accessible is just the right thing to do.

It is our belief that schools and other governmental entities do not intentionally discriminate against persons with hearing and vision disabilities on their websites—failures by schools to meet accessibility standards on their websites occur because they simply are unaware of what those standards are regarding website content.

Its been our experience that once schools are informed of applicable legal accessibility requirements, they will do everything within their power to meet those standards.  The first step, of course, in complying with applicable accessibility standards is for a school to conduct a review of its existing website content to see how it stacks up to those standards.  If the review identifies failures to meet accessibility standards, those failures can be addressed so that persons with disabilities can enjoy the same access to the website content as non-disabled persons and the school can operate knowing that it is being intentional about making its website accessible.