Building a Plan to Help Educators Through the OCR Resolution Process

1. Building a Plan to Help Educators Through the OCR Resolution Process

2. An OCR complaint has a tendency to cause panic in educators nationwide. The “New” American Horror Story

3. What is OCR? OCR is the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights OCR’s mission is to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence through vigorous enforcement of civil rights in our nation's schools.

4. A Brief History The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforces federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance from the Department of Education. Discrimination against persons with disabilities is prohibited by Section 504 and Title II of the ADA. Title II affects public entities whether or not they receive federal funding.

5. Who is affected by these complaints? • We see complaints across all industries, but education has been one of the hardest hit areas for accessibility. • K-12 Districts • Charter Schools • Private Schools • State Education Departments • Education Cooperatives • Community Colleges • Colleges and Universities

6. This is not a lawsuit Section 504 and Title II of the ADA How do I know if OCR is investigating me? What kinds of pages are affected? Communicating with OCR Whose fault is this? Breaking Down an OCR Complaint

7. Responding to OCR Timely Rely on your legal counsel List of items for response List of pages (4-12 is typical) Current policies and procedures related to your website Vendors used, and if they provided VPAT documents or other assurances Contact info of person responsible for Web accessibility Documents regarding efforts to make the site accessible Any monitoring or reports used to evaluate website accessibility Any complaints received Any other documents you feel OCR needs for consideration in this complaint

8. Resolution Agreement • Remedies and Reporting • Policies and Procedures for New Online Content and Functionality (Plan for New Content) • Undue Burden • Designate Auditor • Audit of Content and Functionality • Proposed Corrective Action Plan • Policy/Accessibility Notice • Training • Provide accessibility training to appropriate staff quarterly or annually

9. 2. Undue Burden Resolution Agreement

10. 3. Audit of Existing Content Auditor with bona fides (qualifications) i.e. the person who will review the internal audit and assist the school with the testing and resolution process. Internal Auditor? External Auditor? Resolution Agreement

11. Resolution Agreement 4. Proposed Corrective Action Plan Support Funding Strategic Planning Communications Education Partnerships Monitoring

12. 5. Adoption of CAP Resolution Agreement

13. 6. Proposed Notice to Persons with Disabilities Resolution Agreement

14. 7. Training Resolution Agreement

15. 8. Ongoing Monitoring by OCR Resolution Agreement

16. Auditing/Testing Begins Sitewide Automated Testing Manual Testing Sampling of pages for manual testing Template pages Popular pages Pages in complaint Functional elements User paths/journeys

17. Automated Site templates Representational content pages Dynamic content pages Dialog modals and alerts Key entry and exit pages (including account login and recovery pages) Help and assistance pages Interactive forms

18. Manual Page zoom Form elements and form validation Visible focus Multimedia and media control Dynamic elements Modals and dialog boxes Modal receives focus No keyboard trap Close modal

19. Assistive Technology Headings Links Forms Images Multiple browsers, platforms PC/Mac Chrome/FF/IE/Edge

20. Combine automated, manual, and AT test results into a comprehensive report for OCR Audit Results

21. Staff Responsibilities Funding Communication Training Vendor Relationships Ongoing Plans Corrective Action Plan

22. Remediation Fix or start over? Addressing old site issues Resources Vendors Documents Multimedia Third Party Pages/Plug ins

23. Training OCR requirement Accessibility awareness Basic Web skills Documents Assistive tech User task-based testing PwD testers

24. So your received a complaint from the OCR. Now what? Next Steps • Work with your legal counsel and draft a response to OCR • Submit an auditor and a Plan for New Content • Audit approved • Audit/testing begins • Auditor creates audit report • Auditor assists with Corrective Action Plan • Submit report and CAP • Remediation begins • Training • Ongoing monitoring • Sign-off by OCR

25. We are changing a culture • Buy-in • Awareness education • Organizational policies • Budgetary considerations

26. Identify (realistic) goals Timelines (marathon not a sprint) Action plans Define milestones Budgetary considerations Identify existing resources Address legal/regulatory issues Start your accessibility program

27. Staff Training How do we portray the level of importance? Security compliance training? Sexual harassment training? Awareness Technical training Role-based training Faculty Staff Documents

28. Identify Existing Resources Ownership of digital properties Role-based team members Inventory Web pages Documents Multimedia

29. Management Human Resources Marketing IT Office Compliance/Legal Purchasing Other Community Stakeholders External Agencies Buy-in from Stakeholders

30. Community Stakeholders Department Lead Faculty/Staff Blended classroom environments Use of multimedia Documents Disability Services Office Students with disabilities that go unreported Development/IT Teams

31. Concrete Policy and Plan • Communications/Transparency • Visible Policy and Contact Info • Implementation plan • Remediation plan

32. Sufficient Support • Divide work based on roles • Education program

33. Ongoing evaluation • Monitoring tools and processes • Continuing education

34. Resources, training, and technologies can affect your approach to an OCR resolution Creating a scalable process Accessibility is a cultural issue Takeaways: Firmer understanding of how to approach an OCR resolution Tools needed to build a plan to achieve ongoing accessibility compliance Remember

35. Digital Accessibility is a Process Not a Project The Project Management Institute defines a project as a “temporary endeavor undertaken to create a project, service, or result.” A process can be defined as a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.

36. Staff Responsibilities Who is directly involved with our website and what are their responsibilities? Developers Content creators Decision makers Who is ultimately responsible for making sure compliance is achieved? How do we track progress?

37. Funding Is this initiative being funded at an institutional level or is a specific department responsible?

38. Communication How do we communicate to employees that this is an organization-wide issue and everyone plays a part? How do we communicate this externally? A website policy? An accessibility section on the website?

39. Vendor Relationships Do our third-party vendors support accessible content creation? Are their products themselves accessible if our employees require accessible technology? Do we write accessibility (requirements/expectations/etc.?) into our contracts, RFPs, etc.?

40. Complaint Resolution Agreement Remediation Training Be Sure the Process for is Scalable

41. …and finally • Accessibility has to be on your radar. • There is no silver bullet when it comes to accessibility. • Understanding accessibility and accessibility issues has to be an ongoing conversation. • Accessibility is an issue that touches everyone in an organization.

42. Thank You! Kevin Rydberg @rydbergk kry@Siteimprove.com Questions? siteimprove.com @Siteimprove MarketingUS@Siteimprove.com

43. Icons downloaded from flaticon.com licensed by Creative Commons (CC 3.0 BY) • Authors: • Freepik • Smartline • Dot-on-Paper • Vectors-Market • Marta-Copola • Madebyoliver • Hadrien • Madebyoliver