Web Accessibility Procedures

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District (“District”) is committed to ensuring its website content is accessible to all students, prospective students, employees, guests, and visitors with disabilities, particularly those with visual, hearing, or manual impairments, or who otherwise require the use of assistive technology to access District web content.

Consistent with this goal, the District has adopted technological standards to determine whether its online content is accessible. The District has committed to ensuring its websites conform to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative’s (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, Level AA (the “Accessibility Guidelines”).

The District has designated its Web Accessibility Coordinator(s) as the individual(s) responsible for implementation and oversight of District compliance with these Web Accessibility Procedures. The District will ensure the Web Accessibility Coordinator(s) have sufficient resources and authority to coordinate and implement the objectives of these procedures.

The Web Accessibility Coordinator(s) are responsible for conducting audits of the District’s web pages at least twice per year and working to resolve identified accessibility issues within a reasonable period of time. Reports resulting from the audits will be posted on the District Communications Department’s webpage.

The Web Accessibility Coordinator(s) are also responsible for creating and providing an annual training for District administrators and employees who are responsible for creating or distributing online content, websites, or web pages to ensure their web design, posted documents, and multimedia content are accessible. The training will either be provided directly by the Web Accessibility Coordinator(s) or by another individual with sufficient knowledge, skill, and experience to understand and employ the technical standards set for in the Accessibility Guidelines. The training shall also cover methods to ensure content developed or provided by third parties that the District chooses to make available through its website will provide equal opportunity to educational benefits and opportunities afforded through the use of such technology. This training will initially be provided by October 1, 2017 and annually thereafter.

District webpages often utilize content generated from District vendors or other third parties. In such cases, District administrators or employees responsible for such webpages should verify the third-party content also conforms to the District’s Accessibility Guidelines. When securing contracts with District vendors for the provision of online content, District administrators should prioritize the service’s conformance to the Accessibility Guidelines. If third-party content does not meet the Accessibility Guidelines, the responsible District administrator or employee should review options for securing the accessibility of the content through the providing third party or replacing the content with an alternative accessible source. If either can be achieved without fundamentally altering the nature of the content or resulting in an undue financial and administrative burden for the District, the District administrator or employee will be responsible for securing such conformance.

Students, prospective students, employees, guests, and visitors may informally report violations and/or file a formal complaint of a violation of these Procedures or the Accessibility Guidelines to either the Web Accessibility Coordinator(s) or the District 504 Compliance Officer. In either case, the District will respond by remediating any identified problems within a reasonable period of time. However, if the Web Accessibility Coordinator(s) determine any violation of the Accessibility Guidelines cannot be remedied without fundamentally altering the webpage content or imposing undue financial or administrative burdens on the District after considering all resources available for use in the funding and operation of the service, the Web Accessibility Coordinator(s), serving as the CEO’s designee pursuant to 28 C.F.R. 35.164, shall document that determination in writing. In such an event, the District may take any other action that would not result in such an alteration or burdens but that ensures, to the maximum extent possible, individuals with disabilities receive the benefits and services provided by the District.

The Web Accessibility Coordinator is: