What Is a School Website Accessibility Audit (and Do You Really Need One?)

School websites do a lot of heavy lifting. They answer questions, share updates, and help families feel confident they’re in the right place. A school website accessibility audit helps make sure everyone can actually use what you’ve built—without needing special tools, extra time, or extra help.

What is a School Accessibility Audit?

A school website accessibility audit looks at how well your website works for people with disabilities—and for people navigating quickly, on phones, or under stress (which, let’s be honest, is most families).

In K–12, accessibility audits typically reference the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)—most often WCAG 2.1 or 2.2, Level AA. These guidelines outline best practices for things like readable text, keyboard navigation, and clear structure.

WCAG isn’t about perfection. It’s about making sure your website is usable, understandable, and dependable.

What an Audit Usually Checks

Most school website accessibility audits review for WGAG compliance like:

• • Color contrast and text readability
  • Keyboard navigation (can you navigate without a mouse?)
  • Alt text for images
  • Headings and page structure
  • PDFs and linked documents
  • Forms, buttons, and alerts
  • Mobile vs. desktop usability

This isn’t about design preferences. It’s about whether families can find information quickly and confidently—no guessing required.

What’s Changing in 2026 and Beyond

Accessibility expectations for K–12 schools are becoming more specific and consistently enforced — and soon.

In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) finalized updates to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that clearly require public entities — including school districts — to make their web content and mobile apps accessible to people with disabilities, using WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard (the set of guidelines defining things like readable text, keyboard access, and logical page structure). 

Here are the key legal milestones:

• • April 24, 2026 — Public entities serving populations of 50,000 or more
  • April 26, 2027 — Public entities serving populations of under 50,000 have until this date

Important note: This number is not the number of students you serve—it’s the entire population of your community. 

These rules don’t create a new law — ADA and nondiscrimination duties already applied to digital content — but they clarify exactly what technical standards schools should follow to meet those duties. 

This doesn’t mean schools need to panic. It means accessibility is increasingly seen as part of everyday quality — not a special project. But it does mean that paying attention now will save effort later. Identifying your accessibility needs is just the first step. The next steps?

• • Learning how to do things right the first time (and training the people in your system who add content to your website, apps, and social media)
    
  • Updating or removing old content that doesn’t meet standards
    
  • In some cases, making structural website changes

Because these legal expectations are specific and coming soon, early action puts you ahead of both compliance and community experience goals.

Where Schools Commonly Get Stuck

Accessibility issues rarely come from neglect. They usually come from growth.

Common problem areas include:

• • PDFs that aren’t screen-reader friendly (scanned flyers are a big one)
  • Low color contrast in buttons, banners, and alerts
  • Images with missing or unhelpful alt text
  • Headings used for styling instead of structure
  • Menus that work on desktop but break on mobile
  • Important information shared only in images or color

These are everyday issues—and they’re fixable. 

Why Accessibility Slips Over Time

School websites grow quickly and collaboratively.

Over time:

• • Multiple people add content
  • Tools and platforms change
  • Pages stack up
  • Older content doesn’t get revisited

Meanwhile, technology keeps improving. Your website can probably do far more today than it could five years ago. We don’t view this as organizational failure—we view this as drift. It’s normal for websites to drift over time, but a website audit can help you identify where you’ve gone wrong. 

Compliance vs. Usability

Here’s an important truth: your website can meet WCAG requirements and still leave people confused.

How is that possible?

Not all website audits look at the same things. If you’re conducting an audit—or paying for one—it helps to know the difference.

Some audits focus purely on compliance. They ask:

• • Does the website meet WCAG technical standards?
  • Are required elements present?
    

A broader website accessibility and usability audit asks a different question: Can families and staff easily find, read, navigate, and understand what you’re sharing?

This type of audit goes beyond checklists to look at real experience, including:

• • Is the sitemap organized in a way that makes sense to families?
    (Schools often organize by department. Parents don’t think that way.)
  • Does the writing style match your audience’s reading level and expectations?
  • Is the tone consistent across pages, schools, and departments?
  • Can users quickly tell where to go next without having to guess?

Compliance helps you meet requirements. Usability helps people feel confident and supported. The strongest school websites do both.

Do You Need an Audit?

You might if:

• • Multiple teams update website content
  • You rely heavily on PDFs and documents
  • You’ve never reviewed accessibility formally
  • You’re overwhelmed and not sure where to start

A K-12 website accessibility audit isn’t about pointing out problems. It’s about giving you a clear, realistic place to begin.

The biggest barrier usually isn’t ability—it’s time.

Quick question: do you know…

• • How many total webpages your site has?
  • How many images are live across the site?
  • How many PDFs and linked documents are posted?
  • Whether your brand colors meet color contrast ratios?
    

Just answering a few of those can take real time—time many communications teams simply don’t have. And that’s before you get to the part where you fix things, train your team, and keep new content from sliding backwards.

We Did An Accessibility Audit. Now What?

Your audit should give you clear information (really, a triaged report) about what’s most important—and that’s a big win. Now the goal is simple: turn findings into fixes without burning out your team.

Step 1: Train your team first (yes, before you fix everything)

This is the part schools often skip—and it matters. If people keep adding new content that doesn’t meet standards while you’re fixing older content, you’ll feel like you’re bailing out a boat with a spoon.

Start with short, practical training on the tools people actually use (CMS, Google Docs, Canva, PDFs). The goal isn’t to turn everyone into experts. It’s to help them do the basics right the first time.

Step 2: Go for the quick wins

Start with fixes that are usually fast(ish) but meaningful:

• • Color contrast issues in banners/buttons/alerts
  • Missing or weak alt text
  • Link text like “click here” (swap for clearer labels)
  • Heading structure (use headings for structure, not just size)

Step 3: Focus on high-impact, high-traffic pages

Not everything has to be perfect on day one. Start where it matters most. Common high-traffic priorities:

• • Homepage
  • Enrollment / registration
  • Emergency and safety info
  • Contact pages
  • Calendars
  • Lunch menus
  • Careers / hiring
  • Transportation

This is where improvements help the most people the fastest.

Step 4: Deal with the PDF situation

If schools had an unofficial mascot, it would be a PDF.

Common audit “fails” include:

• • Scanned flyers (not readable by screen readers)
  • PDFs missing tags/headings
  • Documents posted without an accessible alternative
    

Next steps that actually work:

• • Create accessible templates for newsletters, flyers, and forms
  • Convert high-use documents into web pages when possible
  • Set a simple rule: no uploaded PDFs unless there’s an accessible version too (no, linking to Google Docs instead doesn’t absolve you of needing accessible webpage content)

Step 5: Upgrade navigation for how families think

This is where “compliance” and “usability” split.

A compliance-focused audit may say you’re fine. A usability audit asks: Can people find things without having to guess?

Common school-site pain points:

• • Sitemap organized by departments
  • “Important” info buried under insider language
  • Too many menus, too many similar page names
  • Mobile navigation that collapses into chaos

Step 6: Build a light maintenance routine (so you don’t re-audit the same issues forever)

Pick a cadence your team can actually keep:

• • Monthly: spot-check top pages + newest PDFs
  • Quarterly: clean up navigation labels and duplicate pages
  • Annually: re-run a scan + retest key workflows (enroll, forms, contact)

Also helpful: one “last look” checklist before publishing (contrast, headings, links, alt text, PDF format).

We’re Overwhelmed — Help!

First: you’re not alone. Accessibility work can feel like one more big thing on an already-full plate. But here’s the reassuring part: you don’t have to fix everything tomorrow. (Although yes—we’re writing this in December 2025, and those 2026/2027 deadlines are starting to feel a lot less “future.”)

If you train your team, knock out quick wins, prioritize high-traffic pages, and build a steady maintenance routine, you’ll make real progress—without trying to do a year’s worth of work in one semester.

If you have questions or need a partner to bring extra hands (one, two, or ten), we’re here to help.

Just remember: even when the to-do list looks scary long, the goal isn’t perfection. It’s access. Helping students, families, and staff get to the information they need—easily and confidently. That’s a worthy goal. And it’s good work.