a11y.solutions Public education and government

Training

Institutions hire a facilitated practice for the people who already publish, and disability awareness for staff who are not accessibility specialists. The modules on this page cover focus indicators, repair of PDFs and websites, and alt text a person approves. You choose the team and the calendar. There is no public course count, no certificate, and no checkout.

On this page

Formats

A teaching module is delivered in one of these formats. Practice files are documents, slides, pages, and short media. Length and group size are part of the inquiry, not a menu of seats. Disability awareness stays on this list. It is not folded into the publishing modules.

  1. Facilitated workshop

    A live session, in person or online, for a team that already works together. The institution picks the date and the group: a school, a district office, a campus department, or an agency unit.

  2. Short staff sessions

    Sessions that fit a professional-development day, a faculty meeting, or an agency staff meeting you already have on the calendar. How many, and how long, is agreed when you write.

  3. Materials a local facilitator can reuse

    A guide, practice files, and examples a coach or internal trainer can run again with their own staff. This is not a credential, and it is not a certification of the facilitator or of the institution.

  4. Follow-up working session

    Time after a workshop for questions about the materials that team actually publishes: a packet, a page, a form, or a video.

  5. Disability awareness

    For staff, faculty, clerks, and supervisors who are not accessibility specialists. The session is how disability shows up in documents, meetings, classrooms, and online services. It can be a lecture, a speaking-series session, or a mandated module with a flexible completion path. It is not a hiring, firing, or reasonable-accommodation legal service, and it is not legal advice. It is not ESEA Title I, not ADA Title II, and not ADA Title I.

Teaching modules

Three publishing modules for people who publish at public education institutions and at state and local government. Disability awareness stays a separate offering for staff who are not accessibility specialists. It is named in the format list. The session itself is under Disability awareness. It is not one of these three modules.

Not legal advice

Nothing on this page is legal advice or a certification of compliance. ESEA Title I is school funding. It names an education audience. It is not the web standard. ADA Title II is the web and mobile app rule for state and local government public entities, including public schools and public colleges. That rule names WCAG 2.1 Level AA. The compliance dates are April 26, 2027 and April 26, 2028. Dates and exceptions are on the government page. ADA Title I is employment. Disability awareness is not a hiring, firing, or reasonable-accommodation legal service. See how the titles differ.

Focus states

An intentional focus indicator is a visible mark the publisher meant to put there, showing which control has keyboard focus. The exercises use generic patterns written out in the session. They are not screenshots, and they are not pages from a named school, campus, or agency.

What you learn

Browsers draw a focus indicator by default. Pages often remove it and put nothing in its place, so a person moving through a form cannot tell where they are. This module practices putting a deliberate indicator back: a ring or other mark on links, buttons, fields, and controls the team built, visible against the colors behind it. It has to appear for keyboard focus, not only when a mouse hovers.

If a stylesheet removes the outline and nothing else shows where focus is, that is the defect to find and replace. The replacement has to be at least as easy to see as what the browser drew.

People who need it include anyone who moves through a page with a keyboard, a switch, or another device that sends focus; people who can see the page and still need a clear marker of where they are; and people using magnification who may see only part of the page.

Who it is for

Web staff, forms staff, and communications staff at public schools, districts, public colleges, and state and local government. Faculty and program staff, when they publish a page or an interactive handout. Instructional coaches and ESEA Title I program staff, when they review a student-facing or family-facing page before it goes out. ESEA Title I is education funding. It is not the web standard.

Format

A lecture, using the patterns below. Or a mandated module with a flexible completion path: do the exercises, and a local facilitator reviews the notes. A custom working session on pages the team already publishes is also available. None of these is a certificate, and none is a finding that a page meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA. That is the technical standard named in the ADA Title II web rule. This module teaches the habit. It does not certify the page.

Exercises

  1. Tab order. The pattern is a short page: a skip link, a header with a logo link and three navigation links, a main area with one heading and a form (name, email, and a comment), and one footer link. Start at the top of the page and press Tab. Write down every stop, in order. Mark any control you can see but cannot reach. Mark any stop that does not show a visible indicator, or that lands on something off the screen. Include the skip link. The order in a design file is not the assignment. The order Tab actually takes is the assignment.

  2. A control that is not a button. The pattern is a colored rectangle that reads "Apply" and responds only to a click. It is built as a generic container, not as a button or a link. Rebuild that action as a button, or as a link to a generic how-to-apply destination. Then check three things: Tab lands on it, a visible indicator appears when it is focused, and the keyboard activates it (Enter for a link; Enter or Space for a button). Do not stop when it looks right with a mouse.

  3. Recover from a focus trap. The pattern is a Details control that opens a small panel. Tab moves inside the panel and never reaches a way to close it. Escape does nothing. Add a close control that is in the tab order. Make Escape close the panel. When the panel closes, put focus back on the Details control that opened it. Then check the reverse failure: focus left inside a panel that is no longer on the screen. This is a teaching pattern for publishers. It is not a security test, and it is not a certification script.

PDF and web remediation

Three lessons: academic PDFs, handwritten or scanned pages, and website repair including menus and keyboard. Each lesson says what you learn, who it is for, and the format. A lecture, a custom working session, or a mandated module with a flexible completion path. Sample artifacts are described. They are not attached. They do not use a real school, campus, or agency name.

Repair practice is not a certification of compliance, and it is not a legal opinion about whether a file is in scope. The five exceptions are summarized on the government page. The institution and its counsel decide scope. The lesson is the repair habit.

Academic PDFs: triage, then fix, then verify

What you learn

  1. Triage. Sort the file before editing it. Can you select the sentences, or is the page a picture? Does it have a document title that is not just the file name? Do headings exist, and do they match the sections a reader sees? Are lists and tables actually lists and tables? Do figures that carry meaning have a text alternative? Write down whether people still use this file to apply, enroll, or participate. Do not decide that question in the session. It belongs to the institution and its counsel. The preexisting-document exception is on the government page.

  2. Fix. In the editor the team already uses, set the document title and the language, apply heading styles that match the outline, make lists real lists, mark header cells in tables, write or correct text alternatives for figures that carry meaning, and replace vague links with text that says where the link goes.

  3. Verify. Select a paragraph to confirm the file has real text. Open the heading list or the tag list and compare it with the page. Read the file with a screen reader, or run the editor's checker, as a first pass only. A person then confirms that the reading order matches what a student or a resident would expect from the visual page. A checker score is not a certification.

Who it is for

Teachers, faculty, instructional coaches, curriculum staff, and ESEA Title I program staff. ESEA Title I is the education-funding audience, not the web standard. Also program staff who publish packets, and communications staff when the PDF is a public explainer.

Format

A lecture that walks the three passes. A custom working session on one packet the team already publishes. Or a mandated module: one triage note on one file, reviewed by a local facilitator. The review is not a credential.

Sample artifact

Described, not attached. A six-page handout titled "Week 3 reading guide". It has a title page, three levels of heading, one table of office hours by weekday, one chart, and a short reading list. No campus name and no real course code.

Handwritten and scanned pages

What you learn

A scan or a photograph of handwriting is usually a picture. Selecting a sentence may do nothing. Software that recognizes characters can draft words and still drop a heading, a blank where a name goes, or the label on a diagram. This lesson is the triage, not a product. Decide whether the page has to work as text because people use it to learn, apply, or participate. Decide whether the honest fix is a new text document instead of a patched scan. Write down what a person still has to check before anyone publishes it. a11y.solutions does not provide character recognition, does not require a vendor API, and does not license a recognition tool.

Who it is for

Teachers and faculty who scan worksheets. Clerks who scan forms. Program staff who post meeting packets that started on paper. The same lesson fits a public school and a city or county office.

Format

A lecture. A mandated module with one page and a written triage note: image only, a text draft a person must check, or replace with a new document. Or a custom session if the team brings a packet of its own. Remove personal names before the session.

Sample artifact

Described, not attached. One photographed sign-in sheet with the names already replaced by Role A and Role B. One photographed worksheet with a diagram and empty blanks. No school name.

Website remediation, including menus and keyboard

What you learn

A page people cannot operate with a keyboard is not finished, even when the mouse path looks complete.

  1. Menus. A row of links, and a collapsed menu, can be opened, moved through, and closed without a mouse. Use a disclosure: a button opens a list of links, Tab moves through them, and Escape or the button closes the list and returns focus to the button. A menu that only opens on hover, or that moves focus into a submenu and never brings it back, is the failure this exercise looks for. If that menu cannot be operated from the keyboard at the start of the session, simplify it to the disclosure pattern. Do not add more script to hide the failure.

  2. Focus. The indicator from the focus-states module stays visible on the current item, including inside the open menu.

  3. A first pass on the rest of the template. A skip link reaches the main content. Form fields have visible labels. An error message names the field. Headings follow the sections of the page. A link makes sense without the sentence around it.

Who it is for

Web, forms, and digital services staff. Communications staff who edit the public site. School and campus technology staff, including people who support a learning system the institution runs.

Format

A custom working session on a bounded set of templates: a home page, a menu, and one form. A lecture that uses the generic template below. Or a mandated module with a keyboard script a local facilitator can run again. This is not a whole-site audit and not a certification.

Sample artifact

Described, not attached. A generic template: a header, a menu with one submenu, a contact-this-office form with name, topic, and message, and a footer. It is not a copy of a live site.

Alt text, with a person in the loop

A tool may draft alternative text. A person who knows why the image is on the page decides what is published. This module does not say that a tool makes a page compliant. No vendor API is required. Staff can use the editor they already have, or write the text themselves.

What you learn

Decorative and informative are decisions about this use of the image, not about the file in the abstract.

  • Decorative. A flourish, a repeated divider, or a banner photo that adds nothing the heading does not already say. Mark it so assistive technology can skip it.

  • Informative. A chart, a map of a service area, a photo that is the point of the page, or a diagram with labels. The alternative text has to give that point.

  • Context. The same photograph of a building entrance is decorative beside a heading that already names the building, and informative on a page about where the ramp is. The author is the person who knows which page this is. Publishing a draft unchanged is not the assignment.

Who it is for

Anyone who places an image in a page, a slide, or a document. Teachers, faculty, communications staff, web staff, and program staff. ESEA Title I curriculum staff, when they review materials before those materials reach students. The funding program is not the web standard. The publishing habit is the same one a city office needs for a public page.

Format

A lecture. A custom session on images the team already publishes, with personal names removed. Or a mandated module built around the exercise below. A local facilitator can compare answers with these notes. That comparison is not a certificate.

Exercise

Three images, described rather than attached. No institution name. Rewrite the weak alternatives, mark what is decorative, and catch the stuffed keywords.

  1. Rewrite a weak alternative. A bar chart of monthly office visits for a generic front office. The draft alternative is the single word "chart", or the file name. Rewrite it so a person who cannot see the chart gets the comparison the author meant: which month was highest, and the rough range. If the same numbers are already in a table next to the chart, do not paste the whole table into the alternative.

  2. Mark one use decorative. Two uses of one photograph of a building entrance. In the first, the photo is a banner next to a heading that already names the building. Mark that use decorative. In the second, the photo is on a page that shows where the ramp is. Write an informative alternative for that use. The file is the same. The context is the decision.

  3. Catch keyword stuffing. An alternative that strings together words such as accessible, ADA, WCAG, school district, government, and PDF, and never says what the image shows. Replace it with one sentence about the image. Stuffing search words into an alternative is not access, and it is not compliance.

Who the training is for

The words in the cells are the status. Public education and state and local government often share a building, and a public school district can need both columns. Focus indicators, PDF and web repair, and alt text a person approves are the publishing modules above. Disability awareness is its own offering for staff who are not accessibility specialists. It is not the employment row. Hiring, firing, and reasonable-accommodation decisions stay with the employer and its counsel.

On a small screen, scroll the table sideways to read every column.

Role matrix for institutional accessibility training
Role Public education State and local government What staff practice
Teachers, faculty, and instructors Yes When the public entity employs them to teach Documents, slides, course materials, captions, and transcripts
Instructional coaches, curriculum staff, and ESEA Title I program staff Yes No — this is an education-program role Review before materials reach students. ESEA Title I is education funding, not ADA Title I.
School and campus technology, including LMS support Yes Sometimes, when the agency runs a learning system Publishing workflows and the tools the team already uses
Communications and public information Sometimes Yes Pages, explainers, and media the public relies on
Web, forms, and digital services Sometimes Yes Pages, forms, documents, and content a vendor posts for the entity
Program staff who publish documents Yes Yes PDFs, slides, and meeting materials that are already part of the job
Procurement and contracts Yes Yes Questions to ask before the entity buys a tool or a content service
ADA coordinators and Section 504 contacts Partners Partners Practical sessions they can offer colleagues. Training does not take over policy, complaints, or legal sign-off.
Staff, faculty, clerks, and supervisors who are not accessibility specialists Yes Yes Disability awareness: how disability shows up in documents, meetings, classrooms, and online services. A lecture, a speaking-series session, or a mandated module with a flexible completion path.
Hiring, firing, and reasonable-accommodation decisions Not a legal service Not a legal service ADA Title I is the employment statute. Disability awareness does not decide these questions, and it is not legal advice.

Not legal advice

Publishing practice and disability awareness are training. Neither is a legal opinion, a hiring or firing service, or a reasonable-accommodation legal service, and neither is a certification of compliance. Pair them with your counsel and your own policy owners. Dates and exceptions are on the government page.

Ask for a format that fits the team you have

Name the audience, which module you want (focus indicators, PDF and web repair, alt text, disability awareness, or a combination), whether you want a live session or materials a local facilitator can reuse, and the month you have in mind. Write to tim@a11y.solutions.

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