Legally, school website accessibility is a requirement for districts, but it's also a commitment that improves the user experience for every family, student, staff member, and community partner who depends on your site to get things done.

That matters in both high-stress moments, like school closures, safety updates, and schedule changes, and in everyday tasks, like lunch menu updates, posting board agendas, and editing the calendars.

Recent accessibility research and website audits across the broader web show just how common these barriers are and how quickly small issues can add up on busy, content-heavy district websites.

If you only take one thing from this data, it’s that accessibility compliance pays off twice: 

1. It fulfills the legal responsibility of improving usability for people with disabilities
2. It improves the experience for everyone who wants faster, simpler access to information

Check out some of these important web accessibility stats you may have overlooked, and how your school can take the next steps toward ADA compliance.

1) Nearly 95% of the top 1 million homepages had WCAG failures

A recent project by WebAIM Million surveyed the top popular sites across the web, and found that nearly every homepage (94.8%) still had detectable Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) failures. A “WCAG failure” means a page doesn’t meet one or more WCAG success criteria, like adding sufficient alt text to images, proper contrast ratios, button language, etc.

Automated audits often catch only part of what needs attention, but they do show a consistent pattern: the issues are widespread, and they tend to show up in everyday content areas like navigation, buttons, images, and page structure.

It’s a reminder that districts can’t assume their sites are accessible without ongoing monitoring and maintenance, even if they're ADA-compliant at launch.

Next Steps: Add routine accessibility checks to your calendar, especially for high-traffic pages like your homepage, enrollment, calendars, transportation, and career pages.

2) Homepages had an average of 50+ errors

It's no surprise that homepages are prone to errors. They're built with alerts, news, quick links, featured programs, rotating graphics, video embeds, and social feeds, and every component adds another chance for an error to sneak in. 

Fifty-one errors per homepage is a lot, and it explains why “a few small issues” can create a frustrating experience fast. In the same study, automated testing found 50,960,288 accessibility errors, and 69% of participants with access needs said they would leave a problematic website.

That’s e-commerce research, but the behavior maps to schools in an important way: when people can’t use your site, they don’t stop needing answers. They switch channels, call the front office, email principals, or rely on unofficial sources.

Pro Tip: Treat your homepage like an accessibility “hub.” Fixing common homepage patterns often improves many of your interior pages that could share a similar layout, style, and content.

3) Low-contrast text appeared on 79.1% of home pages

Low contrast is the accessibility issue that affects the widest range of users. It’s tough for people with poor eyesight, but it also affects families who use phones in sunlight and older community members with vision issues.

On your school district’s websites, contrast problems can show up in important places liike alert banners, school selection buttons, menu text, and small “helper” copy on forms.

Next Step: Audit the contrast in your most “mission-critical” elements first: emergency messaging, primary navigation, and top calls-to-action.

4) Missing alternative text showed up on 55.5% of home pages

Districts often post important information in graphic form, like flyers, schedule change banners, event tiles, testing updates, and deadline reminders. Without alt text, users with screen readers may miss the key message entirely, especially when the image also functions as a link.

"We were running scans and adding alt text, but it’s impossible to catch everything," shared Brian Hauser, webmaster at OHM BOCES. “We needed a solution that worked behind the scenes, flagged issues we might miss, and saved us from having to manually fix the same problems over and over again."

When OHM BOCES migrated its websites to Finalsite, the team also implemented AudioEye’s automated accessibility platform. Starting with their main website, they automated fixes and gained visibility into issues.

Finalsite's content management system, Composer, and its built-in accessibility checker can detect errors and suggest solutions. Meanwhile, its alt-text generator can easily add descriptive text and set guardrails in place.

5) Missing form input labels appeared on 48.2% of home pages

Forms power so many of the tasks families want to finish quickly: registration, volunteering, school transfers, tip lines, job applications, and more.

When form labels are missing or poorly connected to fields, screen reader users can’t tell what to type, and even sighted users can get tripped up when placeholder text disappears mid-entry or creates confusion.

Make sure your form fields are labeled and clear, so every user knows what type of information to enter.

6) 96% of all detected errors fell into six categories

This is the good news, actually! WebAIM found that 96% of detected errors fall into the same six buckets:

1. Low-contrast text
2. Missing alt text
3. Missing form labels
4. Empty links
5. Empty buttons
6. Missing document language

That means a lot of progress can be made by focusing on these categories and looking out for the most common types of issues.

To do: Build an “Accessibility Fix List” around these six categories. Assign ownership (design, content, IT, departments) and work through them, page by page.

7) The average complexity of homepages is up 61% in six years

Modern school sites are feature-rich, which is great for storytelling and engagement, but complexity could increase the risk of accessibility issues. WebAIM reports an average of 1,257 elements per homepage and notes that the complexity of those elements has increased by 61% over the past 6 years.

Utica Community Schools didn’t need to choose between accessibility and a beautiful design. The district site leverages a custom design with a confident, intuitive user experience and is easy to navigate.

Next Steps: Treat every third-party embed (menus, calendars, news boards, maps) as part of your accessibility footprint. More embeds, extensions, and tools mean more moving parts to monitor.

8) More than 1 in 4 U.S. adults reported having a disability

District sites serve adults constantly, so for the more than 70 million parents/guardians, staff, job seekers, volunteers, business partners, and community members with a disability, accessibility should be a priority.

When accessibility improves, you reduce the challenges faced by a large share of your audience, as well as by many people with temporary needs, too (injury, fatigue, noisy environments, broken screens).

Keep Reading: School Website ADA Compliance: Make Your District's Site Accessible

9) Students served under IDEA grew to 7.5 million in 2022–23, about 15% of public school enrollment

The NCES reports 7.5 million students received services under IDEA in 2022–23, representing 15% of public school students. 

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law requiring public schools to provide special education and services to eligible children with disabilities.

District websites support these students and families with schedules, resources, learning support pages, assistive tech info, transportation updates, and more. Accessible pages help students build independence, too, especially when resources are easy to navigate, readable, and usable with assistive technology.

10) 91.3% of screen reader survey respondents use a screen reader on a mobile device

Mobile accessibility is also an important factor for ADA compliance on your school's website. More than 90% of respondents in one survey report using a screen reader on a mobile device, and that has major implications for district sites, where many users check updates on phones between work, childcare, and commuting.

Test your key user experiences on mobile with assistive tech in mind: menus, accordions, “expand” buttons, embedded calendars, and any “tap to download” links. I always think the video below is interesting to see how screen readers actually behave and sound:

11) 71.6% of screen reader users report using more than one desktop/laptop screen reader

It was also found that more than 70% of those respondents use more than one desktop or laptop screen reader. Families and staff don’t use a single tool, browser, or device type, so a single “spot check” can miss problems that appear for others.

12) Over 4,000 ADA digital accessibility lawsuits 961 involved organizations previously sued

UsableNet reviewed more than 4,000 ADA lawsuits related to digital properties in 2024 (including 1,600 state and 2,400 federal filings). It also reported that 961 lawsuits were against organizations that had a previous ADA lawsuit.

Education was listed at 2% of those cases, which is roughly 80+ cases tied to education organizations that year (including higher-ed and training programs, not only K–12).

While districts don’t always match the risk profile of online retail, the stats are important to consider because digital accessibility has become a visible compliance and trust topic. For schools, reputation and community confidence are always on the line, especially when families are trying to access time-sensitive information.

Key Takeaway

Research and audits keep showing the common barriers across the web, and while each one might seem minor, together they can block access for people with disabilities and slow down everyone else on mobile, on older devices, or in a hurry.

School website accessibility works like a two-part promise: it meets ADA-related requirements for districts while making your website easier for everyone to use.

Find platform-level support to help your team catch issues early and put best practices in place, and you'll be one step closer to achieving ADA compliance and building sustainable habits over time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Connor has spent the last decade within the field of marketing and communications, working with independent schools and colleges throughout New England. At Finalsite, Connor plans and executes marketing strategies and digital content across the web. A former photojournalist, he has a passion for digital media, storytelling, coffee, and creating content that connects.