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Creating an Accessible Digital World: Navigating Title II Compliance in Education with Charles LaPierre

• Benetech: The Non-Profit for Education Equity • Season 1 • Episode 1

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This episode dives into the crucial topic of Title II compliance in education with accessibility expert Charles LaPierre, who clarifies the importance of creating inclusive educational environments through proactive measures and shared practices. Listeners learn valuable recommendations and insights into overcoming challenges, achieving compliance, and the social responsibility of educational institutions towards accessibility.

  • Overview of Title II compliance and its importance in education
  • Common challenges faced by institutions striving for compliance 
  • Best practices for fostering an inclusive educational environment 
  • Successful case studies of GCA certification and its impact 
  • Resources available to aid in navigating Title II compliance 
  • Recap of the social importance of accessibility beyond legal obligations
Shareef Phillips:

Hey, hey, everyone. Welcome to Benetech, the podcast where we're breaking down barriers in digital access, exploring the latest in inclusive technology and amplifying voices that push for change, Brought to you by Benetech, a leading nonprofit dedicated to creating technology that helps students of all ages with learning differences and or disabilities reach their full potential. Benetech is where insightful conversations meet real-world impact. I'm Shareef Phillips, your host and Digital Comms guru, here to bring you insightful conversations, fresh perspectives and a whole lot of energy. Whether we're unpacking the latest in inclusive tech, championing education, equity or spotlighting the innovators making a difference, this is your go-to space for real talk that inspires action. Get ready, because accessibility should never be boring. Today, we're thrilled to have a true pioneer in accessibility. Join us, Charles Lapierre. Charles is the Principal Accessibility and Content Quality Architect at Benetech and has been leading the charge in accessible product development for over 25 years. Charles brings a wealth of knowledge, experience and passion to the field of digital accessibility, so get ready for an insightful conversation with Charles. Welcome, Charles, to Benetech. How are you?

Charles LaPierre:

I'm good. Thanks, Shareef. I really appreciate it. I love this. This is great. Thanks for having me and, as accessibility is so near and dear to my heart, I'm excited to dive into this.

Shareef Phillips:

Absolutely, and thank you so much for being here and actually, happy anniversary again for 25 years. I mean that's a huge impact. So thank you for your work in the world of accessibility. I appreciate that For sure. So I want to keep this conversation a little bit fun, but also educational and engaging, and I wanted to start with asking you about a little bit of an icebreaker, if you will. What would be your ideal superhero for accessibility? What would their name be and what superpower would they have if it were up to you?

Charles LaPierre:

Okay, the name would be Captain Accessible. I love that. And their superpower would be to instant barrier transformation.

Shareef Phillips:

They could wave their hand and immediately make any environment or content universally accessible. Wow, hey, what's funny about that is I was thinking about that question for myself. I'm not an accessibility guru at all like you, but I was thinking of what would I do if I could. I'm like, yeah, if I could just wave my hand over something and it's accessible, because just imagine, like just the legwork and the extra attention to detail that needs to be put in when you're making any kind of content accessible. So I think if you could just snap a finger and it be that.

Shareef Phillips:

I mean, the world would be a better place, I think. But great, that's awesome. So today's conversation is really all around accessibility one and then also Title II compliance. I wanted to gauge you a bit more as far as your role here at Benetech and what led you to focus on accessibility Absolutely.

Charles LaPierre:

So let's see, here at Benetech, I ensure that all of the work we're doing here is accessible. This includes helping train employees on how to make their content accessible from the start, or, as we like to call it, born accessible, to minimize the remediation that's needed right for the down the road. Um, I also helped launch our global certified accessible, or gca, program at benetech, which helps digital publishers create fully accessible and compliant epub books. Expanding this program to help educational institutions meet the newly accessible require the new accessibility regulations introduced in the latest title two changes is an obvious next step in continuing our mission of making digital educational materials accessible for students and really anyone absolutely.

Shareef Phillips:

Absolutely, absolutely Great, and thank you again, charles, for just the work that you're doing in the world of accessibility. I know right now that one of the hot topics, if you will, is Title II, and there is a wide variety as far as the spectrum of how little or how much folks know, whether they're educational or non-educational. For those who may not know or may be somewhat familiar with it, can you give us maybe a basic rundown of what is Title II and what is Title II compliance?

Charles LaPierre:

Absolutely so. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, requires all state and local governments, including public schools, libraries, colleges and universities, make their programs, services and digital activities accessible to individuals with disabilities. For educational institutions, this means ensuring that everything from digital course materials and online learning platforms to school websites and communication tools that can be used effectively by all students, regardless of their disability or abilities. Disability or abilities. Recent update to the Title II have strengthened these requirements, particularly around digital accessibility, making it essential for schools to proactively ensure that their educational materials and technologies are accessible from the start, again born accessible right, rather than making these accommodations after the fact. This helps ensure that all students have equal access to their education.

Shareef Phillips:

Awesome, awesome, awesome rundown, and I must admit, I was, too, one of those folks that didn't really know about Title II. So I think your rundown, and then just everything I've been hearing as we've been working towards it within Benetech for helping educational institutions become compliant or reach compliance of some sort, I think I'm learning a lot.

Charles LaPierre:

I think I'm learning too. Learning experience for all of us, I think.

Shareef Phillips:

Exactly yeah, are there any let's just say, top-of-mind challenges as far as what these schools will be facing or educational institutions will be facing when they're trying to achieve Title II compliance?

Charles LaPierre:

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. So the common challenges, at least as we see it right now, is that educational institutions face when they try to achieve Title II compliance, would be to first get a handle on the scope and extent of the problem right, so knowing what needs to be remediated and the funding required to get those issues addressed, required to get those issues addressed. Next would be to ensure that the future tools, materials and updates will be fully accessible, which requires that all contracts and RFPs include accessibility requirements as line items to ensure that the vendors are responsible for being Title II compliant and you don't find out after the fact that something that you've purchased is non-compliant.

Shareef Phillips:

Yeah, because that wouldn't be good at all. I think that's great that we well one, that you and the team and the rest of us are kind of identifying some of these challenges, because I think that will help us as far as our strategy and helping meet these schools or these educational institutions where they are, as far as just how we kind of get them to Title II compliance in a way that's comfortable for them and a way that they are actually compliant across the board and using accessibility in their day-to-day practices. So, speaking of some of those practices, what are some best practices, as the guru yourself, that you would recommend for some of these organizations or educational institutions as far as promoting accessibility and being compliant with Title II Right?

Charles LaPierre:

So, first, I would suggest that they set up a Title II accessibility team right.

Charles LaPierre:

That includes representation from all aspects of their organization, including the teachers, the administration, finance, procurement, the IT department, special ed, parents and even a representative of the board right.

Charles LaPierre:

And then next would be to perform an accessibility maturity model assessment across the entire organization and what this helps identify the areas within the institution which have been perhaps neglected in terms of accessibility and shows where you need to spend your time to improve your overall accessibility maturity right.

Charles LaPierre:

Next would be to get an accessibility audit done for all of the websites LMS is used educational materials, communication channels, et cetera right. So once you have that audit done, next would be to come up with a plan to address the accessibility issues found and make this plan and timeline public. This is to resolve these issues by priority. Having a public plan shows how and when the accessibility issues found will be addressed and is critical to show that you are making real progress in becoming Title II compliant. You know if you have a plan in there saying that, yes, we've identified these are our issues and this is our plan on working towards it. You are working in good faith in actually completing these improvements over time, because you may not get everything done by the time that the Title II is required, which would be in the next two, two and a half years, depending on the size of your school district.

Shareef Phillips:

Yeah, absolutely so. What I gathered from what you just mentioned is it's essential that schools are making maybe their Title II roadmap a priority, meaning making sure they have phases and starting with the audit and then carrying on from there so that they can be organized and stay on track with the timeline and just with everything else that probably needs to be done to make sure that they are compliant across the board. You got it Absolutely so. Thank you for that for sure. Can you share any success stories from your work here at Benetech in which you know we've been able to implement Title II compliance, specifically through GCA certification for publishers, particularly in the context of using the STEM EPUB book in the school district? Right?

Charles LaPierre:

right, yeah, so this is all brand new, right?

Charles LaPierre:

So Title II just came out, so we're still working out how this is going to comply with.

Charles LaPierre:

You know or affect or be so.

Charles LaPierre:

Title II just came out, so we're still working out how this is going to comply with.

Charles LaPierre:

You know or affect or be affected by Title II. But right now that any publisher that has gone through our GCA program is now certified at what is called WCAG W-C-A-G 2.2 AA compliance, and this is actually above the requirements with the new Title II regulations, which is only 2.1 instead of 2.2 AA compliant. So we're above the standard right now, or requirement for Title II, and this also. We have several publishers, a number of which have STEM materials, such as Macmillan Learning, pearson and Wiley, which have been GCA certified and their books conform to this higher level of standards, surpassing what Title II currently requires. Any institution that uses these books won't have to worry about the Title II requirements regulations on those materials, because they're already at and above, in most cases, what is required, and some institutions are already requiring that any digital book that they acquire are third-party certified and conform to the latest accessibility standards, which I would also recommend that all institutions do, and as a part of our Title II action plan.

Shareef Phillips:

Absolutely, absolutely, and thank you for that information and the plug for GCA and the great work that y'all are doing over at GCA and just making sure this content is accessible through the publishers. So that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. About some advice that you possibly would give to those administrators or those educators or those stakeholders of some sort who are just beginning to navigate Title II, what advice could you give beyond? I know we mentioned the audit and roadmap of some sort, but I know it could be extremely overwhelming for some of these districts who may have never even heard of Title II. Crazy enough. So what would you?

Charles LaPierre:

say Right. So, first off, you need to, like I mentioned, establish a Title II, like we call a tiger team, right? That covers all aspects of your org. We went through what that would include Next would be to do that accessibility maturity model evaluation and either do it yourself or have a help help by a third party to just sort of show you things that you might not even thought of like. Well, what about an accessibility statement? Do you have one of those in your website? Can people fill out a form identifying an issue so that you can address certain accessibility issues you know? Things like is you know, there's a number of things in that model that will basically make you start to think about oh, this is a little bit bigger than I thought, right, and so this gives you it's. You start getting a bigger painting the picture, if you will, right? Right?

Charles LaPierre:

Next would be to catalog all of your digital footprint, right, which includes your, all of your websites. Your LMS is used. If you use an LMS for your students and staff, for grade taking and posting of that, bus schedules, you know, lunch menus, all of those things, right, that is digital in nature, needs to be accessible Any digital tools that you use or mobile apps. So if you have an app that you use and students can download and use on their cell phones, that needs to be accessible to. I don't know, do accessible math. You know to do math problems and submit answers and things of that nature needs to be accessible. All of the digital materials, right, all of your books, your digital books and you know, any digital handout right, a lot of teachers will maybe make a PDF. Pdfs are notoriously not very accessible, so you need to really look into how you know, how can you mitigate that exposure to accessibility and you know, maybe training of your staff so that they know how to make or what materials and how to make accessible materials.

Charles LaPierre:

Um next is all of your communication channels between the students and the staff, parents, board members, community members, etc. Like announcements and all how making sure that all of those are accessible. Right, this is all covered under title ii um. And then work with a reputable third party to perform an accessibility audit, okay, so that you know exactly what is the issues, right that need to be addressed. Make it public again, like I mentioned, and start at remediating some of the low-hanging fruit. That really gives you the most bang for your buck right and you know, so that you can really start to make a lot of progress in a very short amount of time and then move on to the more corner cases, if you will, of your platform and making those ultimately accessible. Yeah, that's pretty much my main points that I would start with, for sure.

Shareef Phillips:

Yeah, I think you've given them a plethora of information and advice for them to move forward, and I definitely know about how PDFs can be not accessible. I think I learned that my first week here at Benetech, or maybe first couple of months, when I did the impact report and just the tagging of the PDF and all these other things in the reading order. And yeah, it's definitely not for the people.

Charles LaPierre:

I remember reviewing it. Oh yeah, this is not accessible, buddy. Yeah, exactly, we have something to do here.

Shareef Phillips:

Yeah, for sure. So, as we kind of bring this conversation to a close here, I wanted to ask in regards to if there are any specific resources or tools that you haven't mentioned, or if you've mentioned them already, just to plug again for folks to learn more about Title II compliance and accessibility.

Charles LaPierre:

Yeah, I think we could maybe point folks to our Title II blog that we've recently created and our Title II landing page, or our base landing page for Title II, which is our Benetech Accessible oh boy, I'm blanking on the name now. Accessible Services for Education.

Shareef Phillips:

Benetech Accessibility Services for Education exactly there we go.

Charles LaPierre:

I think we could point folks to probably be part of the textual, you know, part of this podcast or what have you. And then, yeah, I have you know. Those would be the main two points, I think. As far as resources go, I you know, definitely Googling anything on Title II compliance will give you some resources, but I think we cover all of that in our blog post that we had and we in that has a number of different links right to resources.

Shareef Phillips:

Yes, yes, yes, correct and our final message yes, yes, yes, correct. And our final message. So what do you want to leave our listeners with regarding the importance of Title II compliance and promoting inclusive education?

Charles LaPierre:

Right. So this is the right thing to do, regardless of what the law requires or any potential penalties. Organizations may occur right. Creating a more inclusive educational environment will help more students learn to the best of their ability period.

Shareef Phillips:

Absolutely, absolutely. And I did want to plug a story, I believe that you shared with me, that Michael within our team shared with me. It was about the student with dyslexia discovers the love of reading. That is also a impact story that lives on our benetechorg and our blog. So if anyone wants a great read and an impactful story to run through, that is definitely the story to indulge in, for sure, amongst all the other stories of impact that are under our blogs informational, like the Tata2 blog, every kind of category of what you're looking for we have in our blogs, just information of how we're trying to achieve education and equity across the board.

Shareef Phillips:

So anywho, charles, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you today around accessibility and Title II compliance. You shared a huge wealth of knowledge for our listeners and just for our supporters and everyone that is currently striving towards Title II compliance in their school districts or other educational institutions. So it's been great having you and hopefully you'll come back, maybe for another topic soon. Thanks, I appreciate it. Thank you everyone for listening and we will be back with another episode soon. Check out our social media pages and our Benetechorg website for any further information about further episode releases. But this has been a talk signing off, hey you. Thank you for tuning in for this episode from the benetalk podcast. If you're looking forward to any specific topics or industry professionals or conversations that we may have not addressed yet, please dm us on any of our social media platforms or email us at communications benetechorg and we will take those requests accordingly. But for now, stay tuned and the next episode is coming very soon. Bye for now.

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Shareef Phillips

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Charles LaPierre

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