The Juneau School District is one of 11 education organizations that voluntarily reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to ensure website accessibility for people with disabilities. OCR made the announcement Wednesday.
The other organizations are the Guam Department of Education; Montana School for the Deaf and Blind; Santa Fe, New Mexico, Public Schools; Washoe County, Nevada, School District; The Davidson Academy of Nevada; Nevada Department of Education; Oregon Department of Education; Granite, Utah, School District; Bellingham, Washington, School District; and the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
“As schools, school districts, states, and territories turn to the internet as a way to provide relevant and up-to-date information to their audiences in a cost-effective manner, they must make sure they are not inadvertently excluding people with disabilities from their online programs, services, and activities,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights, in a press release. “I applaud each of these signatories who have committed to ensuring that their websites are accessible to people with disabilities.”
OCR investigations found that on all 11 websites important images were missing text descriptions, called “alt tags,” that describe the images to blind and low-vision users who use special software. Common problems affecting many of the websites included not being accessible to blind and low-vision users, people who are deaf and those with disabilities impacting fine motor control.
