Accessibility

Our Efforts:

Estes Park School District is committed to digital compliance under HB21-1110 through the strategic allocation of resources, establishment of dedicated roles, and proactive management of vendor relationships. This approach fosters an inclusive digital environment to ensure the educational success of all students and staff.

Website Compliance Plan

1. accessiBe to scan the website and provide a monthly accessibility report to ensure compliance.
2. accessiBe to provide client-side accessibility adjustment widget.
3. Estes Park School District Staff to fix all identified accessibility issues.
4. Estes Park School District to use Grackle - Google Docs extension product to create compliant Documents and PDFs.
5. All content will be checked for compliance before being published to the website.

Staff Training

1. Estes Park School District to provide internally developed digital accessibility training for all staff.
2. Digital accessibility training to be incorporated into new hire onboarding processes.
3. Annual digital accessibility refresher training provided to all staff.

Application Compliance

1. Estes Park School District to use Learn Platform for application requests and vetting for accessibility.
2. Estes Park School District to send Vendor HB21-1110 Accessibility Form to all vendors before approval.

Documents and Other Digital Resource Compliance

1. Estes Park School District to use the Grackle add-on to check for accessibility in all published Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
2. Canva Accessibility Checker to be used for created Canva documents and resources.
3. Accessibility checkers in Microsoft Office products to be used as needed.
4. Adobe Acrobat Professional and CommonLook PDF plugin to be used for advanced document compliance needs.
5. Allyant for PDF Remediation Support.

Ongoing Support and Oversight

Budget Planning: Estes Park School District will request a dedicated budget to support HB21-1110 compliance activities, including:

• Purchasing necessary tools, resources, and training to ensure ongoing compliance.

Accessibility Maturity Level

Estes Park School District is currently at the Integrate stage of accessibility maturity, with a well-organized approach and a defined roadmap in place. The district has begun optimizing accessibility practices in 2025 by embedding them into regular operations and consistently evaluating outcomes.

Rationale for Current Stage:

• Developed criteria for vendor accessibility assessment and establishing a timeline for phasing out non-compliant tools.
• Received grants, purchased remediation tools, held the first annual mandatory staff training. 
• Well organized timeline in place.

Definition of stages and criteria:

1. Inactive: No awareness and recognition of need. At this stage organizations are inventorying their technology, have begun to make investments, etc…

2. Launch: Recognized need organization-wide. Planning initiated, but activities not well organized.

3. Integrate: Roadmap including timeline is in place, overall organizational approach defined and well organized.

4. Optimize: Incorporated into the whole organization, consistently evaluated, and actions taken on assessment outcomes.

Progress and Challenges

1. Vendor Non-Compliance: Developing a scorecard for vendor assessment and establishing timelines for rejecting non-compliant applications.
2. Resource Limitations: Securing additional grants for remediation projects and exploring staff incentives to boost participation.
3. Training Deployment: Comprehensive training sessions hosted on Schoology and in-person, integrated into staff development programs.
4. Vendor Management: Sending accessibility forms to vendors with strict response deadlines to ensure compliance.
5. Technology Audits and Remediation: Using tools like Allyant and Grackle to scan and remediate non-compliant files (PDFs, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides).

Compliance Oversight

• Regular updates and strategic meetings to track progress such as HB21-1110 Updates and Issues Meetings. 
• Development of job descriptions, budget plans, and summaries of next steps for leadership teams.
• Maintenance of compliance documentation templates, including Undue Burden Documentation
• The Undue Burden Documentation includes a description of the product, a summary of the accessibility issues, and summary of planned actions when applicable.

 

Timeline

Item	Date of Completion
Initial Committee Meeting for HB21-1110	2/2/2024
Initial contact and trial of accessiBe widget	8/22/2024
Website accessibility vendor meeting with Finalsite	8/29/2024
Hosted accessibility training for the District Leadership Team	11/15/2024
Received initial website audit report from acceessiBe	11/20/2024
Accessibility widget installed on the website	12/2024
Demo presentation of Grackle	12/5/2024
Hosted accessibility training for the Communications Team	12/9/2024
Entered into Execute Eligible Government Entity (EGE) Agreement with the Colorado Statewide Internet Portal Authority (SIPA)	12/17/2024
Accessibility Team created accessibility plan and undue burden document	1/16/2025
Accessibility Team created the Accessibility Requirements for Submitted Materials guideline	1/30/2025
Purchased Grackle - Google Docs Extension	4/14/2025
Mandatory Accessibility Training for all staff	4/14/2025
Contracted with Allyant for PDF Remediation	5/04/2025

The Accessibility Team holds bi-weekly meetings to advance progress on implementing the district's plan and attends monthly virtual HB21-1110 planning coalition meetings with other districts across the state.