Is a school district a special district government?

No. The Department of Justice says a school district is not a special district government, so it uses its population to determine the date.

Do teachers' class materials count?

Content a district posts or provides through its website or apps is covered. Password-protected course content for a specific class has its own rules in the regulation; check the Department of Justice guidance and your counsel for course materials.

What about PDFs from vendors, like lunch menus from a food service company?

Content the district posts, including content created by its contractors, is the district's responsibility.

Guides › Deadlines and law

Do school districts have to make PDFs accessible under ADA Title II?

Short answer: Yes. Public school districts are state or local government entities, so their websites, apps and the PDFs posted on them must conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. A city school district uses the city's population to find its date; an independent school district uses the Census Bureau's Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates. The dates are April 26, 2027 for 50,000 or more people and April 26, 2028 for fewer.

Which date applies to your district

City school district: use the city’s population.
Independent school district: use the population estimate in the most recent Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) from the U.S. Census Bureau.
50,000 or more: April 26, 2027. Under 50,000: April 26, 2028.

A school district is not a special district government for this rule.

The PDFs that matter most

Districts post a lot of PDFs. Start with the ones families use to get services, because those are never covered by the exception for older documents:

Enrollment, registration and transportation forms
Free and reduced-price meal applications
Special education and Section 504 notices and forms
Current school calendars, handbooks and codes of conduct
Board meeting agendas and packets (going forward)
Lunch menus, newsletters and event flyers

Older documents kept only for reference can usually go into a clearly marked archive area. See do old PDFs need to be accessible.

Newsletters and flyers are the hard part

School flyers and newsletters are often made in Canva or Publisher, with text in many separate boxes. Automated tools, including ours, handle them less reliably than documents made in Word: reading order and headings need a person to check. Where you can, publish this content as a web page instead of a PDF, or create it in Word with real headings and alt text before exporting.

A workable routine

Put one person in charge of approving PDFs before they are posted.
Use Word’s built-in accessibility checker before saving as PDF.
Run every new PDF through a checker. Ours is free.
Fix or replace documents that fail.

Frequently asked questions

Is a school district a special district government?: No. The Department of Justice says a school district is not a special district government, so it uses its population to determine the date.
Do teachers' class materials count?: Content a district posts or provides through its website or apps is covered. Password-protected course content for a specific class has its own rules in the regulation; check the Department of Justice guidance and your counsel for course materials.
What about PDFs from vendors, like lunch menus from a food service company?: Content the district posts, including content created by its contractors, is the district's responsibility.