School website guide
A 90-day school website accessibility action plan
Move from an initial inventory to assigned fixes, verified improvements, and a publishing process your school can maintain.
A school website accessibility action plan needs clear ownership, a realistic scope, and a way to check whether changes help people complete tasks. A deadline alone does not tell staff which page to fix next.
Use this 90-day cycle to organize an initial round of work. It is an example planning sequence, not a promise that every website can reach conformance in 90 days. Adjust the scope and staffing to your school's findings and applicable obligations.
Establish the starting point
For a public entity, first confirm the deadline, scope, and technical standard that apply. DOJ's planning guidance recommends understanding the rule, identifying responsible people, and reviewing the digital content and services the entity provides. DOJ's accessibility planning guidance.
Use the ADA Title II school website checklist for current date context. Then name a person who can coordinate staff and vendors, resolve ownership questions, and report progress to leadership.
Choose a manageable first group of family tasks, such as completing enrollment, finding transportation information, and contacting a school office. Give those tasks named owners before beginning a broad list of fixes.
Days 1–15: inventory and choose the review scope
Collect the sites, documents, forms, and connected services involved in the chosen tasks. Follow links beyond the school's main domain so the review includes the places families actually use.
For every item, record its purpose, owner, current use, and provider. Ask staff which documents they update repeatedly and where families ask for help.
Select representative pages and templates with a qualified reviewer. Include different interactive features and content formats. Arrange access to suitable test environments and use fictional information for submissions.
Deliverable: an agreed inventory, task list, owner list, and evaluation plan.
Days 16–30: review tasks and assign the first fixes
Combine automated checks with human evaluation. W3C explains that tools can assist with accessibility evaluation but cannot automatically determine every aspect of accessibility. W3C's evaluation-tool guidance.
Record the barrier in terms of its effect on a task. “The keyboard cannot reach the submit button” gives the responsible team an observable problem to reproduce.
Group issues by who can resolve them: a content editor, a website developer, a document specialist, or a third-party provider. Identify template problems that recur across pages.
Prioritize barriers that prevent essential tasks, while recording all findings and their planned follow-up. Prioritization organizes remediation; it does not change which requirements apply.
Deliverable: an issue log with evidence, responsible people, priorities, and planned retests.
Days 31–60: fix, retest, and train publishers
Work through the assigned issues in batches small enough to review. After changing a template, test representative pages that use it and confirm that the correction did not introduce another barrier.
Include school staff in the process. Use a current announcement to practice headings and link labels, an event page to review visual information, and a document to practice accessible export.
Keep source documents and approved templates where publishers can find them. The accessible PDF checklist for school staff can support that training.
Meet with vendors about unresolved issues in their services. Ask them to identify the affected feature, proposed correction, responsible person, and way your team can verify the change.
Deliverable: recorded fixes and retests, staff publishing guidance, and a visible list of remaining vendor work.
Days 61–90: check complete journeys and establish maintenance
Repeat the original family tasks after the fixes. Check the full journey rather than assuming that closing individual tickets means the process now works.
Include staff who answer family questions and, where appropriate, people who use assistive technology. Record what they could complete and where help was still needed.
Agree on a review process for new documents, template changes, urgent notices, and vendor updates. Make the accessibility contact route easy to find, and assign someone to respond and track requests.
Deliverable: a progress report, remaining-work plan, and ongoing publishing and review responsibilities.
Keep the leadership report useful
We recommend a short report with evidence that a leader can connect to school operations:
| Report item | What to show |
|---|---|
| Tasks reviewed | The enrollment, transportation, contact, or other journeys included |
| Barriers resolved | What changed and when the task was retested |
| Work still open | Impact, owner, next action, and target date |
| Coverage limits | Pages, formats, or services that have not yet been evaluated |
| Publishing readiness | Staff guidance, templates, training, and support ownership |
Keep an automated score in context if you use one. Pair it with task findings and review coverage so it does not become a substitute for evidence of usability or conformance.
Set up the next cycle
At the end of the first 90 days, expand the review to the next set of tasks and content. Revisit unresolved barriers and confirm whether new resources or specialist help are needed.
Explore EdPilotHub's accessibility offering, or contact our team to discuss your website, content responsibilities, and first review cycle.