Accessibility Statement

Last updated: the date shown at the bottom of this page.

Our Commitment

School Circle Network is committed to making our website usable by everyone, including people who use assistive technology such as screen readers, screen magnification, voice control, or keyboard-only navigation. We are working toward conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Level AA (which fully includes WCAG 2.1 Level AA, plus newer criteria such as larger minimum touch targets and not requiring memory-only authentication) — the technical standard referenced by both the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II (state and local government services) and Title III (places of public accommodation) in current U.S. Department of Justice guidance, as well as by Section 508.

Conformance Status

This site is partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA. "Partially conformant" means some parts of the content do not yet fully meet every success criterion — accessibility is an ongoing effort here, not a one-time project, and this page is updated as real progress is made, not written as a one-time claim of perfection.

Measures We've Taken

• A "Skip to main content" link at the top of every page for keyboard and screen-reader users.
• Semantic landmark structure (header/navigation, main content, footer) on every page.
• A visible, high-contrast keyboard focus indicator on links, buttons, and form fields — never obscured by a sticky or fixed header, since this site doesn't use one.
• Support for your device or browser's "reduce motion" setting.
• Site-wide color-contrast fixes to text/link colors that failed the standard 4.5:1 minimum against their backgrounds.
• Touch targets sized to a comfortable minimum on mobile, and distinguishing text added to repeated links (e.g. several "Create your PTO page" links) so they read as separate, specific items to a screen reader.
• No feature on this site requires a dragging gesture with no alternative, and no login or verification step requires solving a puzzle or recalling information from memory alone with no other option (passkeys, an authenticator app, and normal password managers are all supported, and pasting into a password field is never blocked).
• A consistent way to reach us (the Contact link) in the same place across every page, not moved around from one page to the next.
• Ongoing work to properly label form fields for assistive technology, and to review keyboard operability across the site.

Automated Accessibility Checks Before Publishing

New and edited content — school, PTO, district, and class news, and events — now goes through an automated accessibility check before it can be published: it's saved as a draft, checked for common issues (missing image descriptions, links with no clear destination, empty or out-of-order headings, unlabeled form fields, tables without headers, undersized click targets, dragging-only interactions, and similar), and can only be published once that check reports no blocking issues. This is enforced on our end, not just suggested in an editor — content cannot skip the check by being submitted a different way.

This automated check is a real, useful safeguard against common mistakes — it is not a certification of WCAG or ADA compliance, and it does not replace human judgment. A "passed" result means no blocking issues were automatically detected; it does not mean every applicable success criterion has been verified. Content flagged with warnings (rather than a hard block) is still reviewed manually by the person publishing it. We also periodically re-check already-published content on a schedule, since older content can predate this system and standards/tools improve over time.

As of this writing, this automated check covers school/PTO/district/class news and events; other content types (standalone pages, custom tabs, business listings) are being brought under the same check over time and may not yet have gone through it.

A Respectful, Moderated Community

Our community forum is checked for prohibited language before a post or reply is made public, using an administrator-configured list — never a public list, and never applied to private information like your name, address, or form responses. This is a community-standards measure, separate from the accessibility checks described above.

Known Limitations

Despite our best efforts, some content may not yet be fully accessible: older uploaded documents (PDFs, images) may not have alternative text or proper structure, some third-party embedded content (e.g. maps, videos, or social media embeds) is outside our direct control and can't be automatically verified for its own accessibility, some interactive components are still being reviewed for full keyboard and screen-reader support, and the automated publishing check described above does not yet cover every content type on the site. We are actively working through these.

Feedback & Contact

If you encounter an accessibility barrier anywhere on this site, please tell us — we want to know, and we'll work to fix it. Contact us at marciab80@gmail.com or via our Contact page, and please include the web page and a description of the issue. We aim to respond to accessibility feedback within a reasonable time and will do our best to provide the information you need in an alternative format if the barrier can't be fixed immediately.

Technical Specifications

Accessibility of School Circle Network relies on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript rendered by your browser, along with the WAI-ARIA techniques described in WCAG 2.2. These technologies are relied upon for conformance with the accessibility standards used.