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Re: Inquiry Regarding Handling PDF Accessibility Challenges in School District Practices

for

From: chagnon
Date: Dec 8, 2023 4:06AM

Mark B. wrote: " Curious if other state/federal agencies have refused inaccessible PDFs from third parties."

Yes, Mark. Many of our government clients are rejecting inaccessible ICT, and they are pushing back on contractors — and, of course, their sub-contractors — to provide fully accessible ICT. HHS is a key agency that started doing this about 10–12 years ago, see https://www.hhs.gov/web/governance/digital-strategy/it-policy-archive/hhs-policy-section-508-compliance-accessibility-information-communications-technology.html

The law is very clear:
E201.1 Scope
ICT that is procured, developed, maintained, or used by agencies shall conform to the Revised 508 Standards.

You can view the regulation at https://www.access-board.gov/ict/

If states, schools, and school districts have adopted the federal standard, then what you receive from 3rd parties must be accessible.
In our opinion, it is the responsibility of the content's owner or author or publisher to provide it in an accessible format. It is not the school's responsibility to fix bad ICT — that is cost-prohibitive, and every school has to fix the same crappy inaccessible ICT over and over at an insane cost to the public and tax payers.

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