Websites to be more accessible

Board agrees to compliance changes to assist disabled people

PALO ALTO — Students and adults with disabilities soon should find it easier to access content on Palo Alto Unified School District websites.

The Palo Alto school board unanimously voted Tuesday to enter a voluntary resolution agreement with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that commits the district to make web page improvements to allow people with disabilities, such as vision or hearing impairments, to access the same services as everyone else.

Chief Technology Officer Derek Moore estimates it’ll cost $75,000 to bring all district websites into compliance, including individual pages for each of the district’s 17 schools.

An estimated $20,000 will be needed for annual training, regular monitoring and reporting of audit results to the Office for Civil Rights, Moore said.

Moore told board members the district is not alone in having to address alleged civil rights violations.

“There are many districts across the state that are in various stages of resolution agreements with (the Office for Civil Rights) about their website and accessibility,” Moore said.

In February, the district received a complaint from Marcie Lipsitt, a Michigan special education advocate who has filed thousands of similar complaints with the federal agency against districts nationwide.

Lipsitt has said she hopes resolutions such as the one involving Palo Alto Unified will compel school districts to comply with federal laws.

“The more I got involved, the more outraged I became that all of this information is so inaccessible to people who deserve access to it,” Lipsitt said.

Some of the features Palo Alto will have to correct include inconsistencies to keyboard navigations, inaccessibility to food menus currently posted as PDF documents and lack of captions on the district’s YouTube videos.

The district will have to hire an auditor to review website functionality by July 30.