ATU711 – NCADEMI with Cynthia Curry

Hi, this is Cynthia Curry and I’m the director of the National Center on Accessible Digital Educational Materials and Instruction or Academy, and this is your Assistive Technology update.

Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update. A weekly dose of information that keeps you up-to-date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson, with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads. Welcome to episode 711 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on January 10th, 2025. Listeners, there’s a new Department of Justice rule related to the accessibility of digital materials, apps, and websites for state and local educational agencies. This new rule sets tight deadlines on achieving new standards, and this, while an immensely important rule, can put stress on these agencies to comply. Our special guest today is Cynthia Curry from the National Center on Accessible Digital Education Materials and Instruction or NCADEMI. And she is here to help ease that stress and explain the new rule to us. Cynthia, welcome to the show.

Thanks for the invitation, Josh. I’m happy to be here.

Yeah, I’m excited to get into talking about this topic, but before we do, could you tell our listeners a little bit about you and your background?

Sure. I am currently, as you mentioned, the director of what we call NCADEMI at Utah State University. So we’re funded by the US Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs. I’ve been with Utah State University and specifically within Utah’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities or UCEDD. Every state has a UCEDD, very well resourced and interconnected network of university centers, and it’s within Utah’s UCEDD that NCADEMI lives and where we deliver our resources from. We are fairly dispersed team across the country. I actually live in Portland, Maine, so I am remote, along with several of my colleagues, but this is a national technical assistance center.

So we find it to be pretty effective way to provide a distributed level of technical assistance. I have been doing work in the state of Maine for a long time. I was originally on contract as a trainer with the State’s Assistive Technology Act project, MainSite. And I also, together alongside that contract with MainSite, I worked for the main Department of Education as a statewide technology integration mentor. So it was a really exciting way to be able to provide training and technical assistance to school districts around the state on how to use one-to-one devices. The main learning technology initiative at the main department of Ed was the first in the country to deploy one-to-one devices statewide. So I was a integration mentor as well as an assistive technology support for school districts across the state.

I originally was a science teacher, so I look at this from that perspective of making sure that general ed teachers have what they need to understand accessibility and assistive technology to ensure that students with disabilities are able to meet the least restrictive environment and a free and appropriate public education. So this has been my area of interest since 2000. So I’m doing this for a long time. And just before joining Utah State University, I was director of technical assistance at CAST. And was a principal investigator and project director of OSEP funded TA centers there.

Awesome. Well, that is an amazing background with tons of things that I know we touched. We’ve had folks from CAST here. We are the AT ACT provider for Indiana and also work in the school so I can relate to a lot of that and I would love to probably expand on most of that, but that’s not why we have you here today. We do have you here today to talk about the new rule handed down by the Department of Justice. Because, I guess, just start us off by telling us what is the rule and how does it relate to accessible digital materials, apps and websites?

So the title two final rule was really necessary because as you know, the Americans with Disabilities Act having been signed in 1990, was before the internet became commonly used by folks who were shopping, by folks who were getting an education, folks who needed to pay their bills. So it was well before the internet became part of everyday commerce and everyday life and people’s ability to be able to fully participate in society and the Department of Justice, the Office for Civil Rights under the Department of Education have really been providing some guidance around what makes a website accessible in the public domain for people who are needing to fulfill their education requirements, people to pay their bills, people to get their medical records, so all of these public services that are available to us that you could also go to your city hall and take care of.

But as we know, increasingly, people are doing these things online, including people with disabilities. So without having any specific requirements, it was very difficult both for enforcement of accessibility and protecting the rights of people with disabilities as well as for people, the public who are running websites and developing digital content difficult in order to know how do I comply with the rules, so Title II final rule is really intended to bring some clarity for both the consumers as well as the developers. So now we have understanding and a shared understanding that the web accessibility, mobile app accessibility meets the web content accessibility guidelines. Version 2.1 at level AA at a minimum, and we also know some of the exceptions to that. So now we have a common understanding just as we would if we were, had expectations of going into a public building or any public space, and as individuals who require accessibility, that looks different online, it looks different digitally than it does in a physical space. And now we have more clarity about what that distinction looks like and what the expectations and requirements are.

How can school districts prepare to meet the compliance deadline and to make sure that they are compliant with these rules?

Right, because the timeline is deceivingly short, I think people look at a two or three year timeline and think, well, I can wait a year. I can wait even maybe a year and a half and start doing something about that. But this does take a runway in order, to your point, to make sure that we are in compliance, especially when we’re talking about educational agencies where decisions are being made now about the technology that’s going to be used, in use at the time the conformance deadline passes. So for larger governmental entities, whether state or local state entities are going to be larger. So that deadline is April of 2026. So a two-year timeline from the date that the final rule was published in April of 2024. And for smaller governmental entities, the timeline is April of 2027. And the justification of the rationale there was because smaller entities are less resourced, may have fewer staff and need more time in order to skill up and in order to meet the deadlines.

So whether it’s a state educational agency, a large school district that is obviously, that timeline is closing into about under a year and a half. For smaller school districts, it’s closer to two years, but there’s still an urgency to this. So at NCADEMI, we have a roadmap that states and school districts can adopt, and it provides a timeline or tiers of activities. And by tiers, I mean T-I-E-R-S, not T-E-A-R-S. We know this is really hard work. So we have broken down activities by tiers. Tier one is really about those types of activities that have a sense of urgency to them. They have the most urgent activities focusing on mobilizing leadership, communicating internally and externally, and really addressing the inaccessibility of current technology and preventing the purchase or the adoption of inaccessible technology in the immediate future. Because as I mentioned, the types of technology that school districts and states are going to be purchasing and adopting now are typically going to be in that adoption cycle.

A lot of states and school districts adopt materials on a 3, 4, 5 year cycle. So the types of decisions that are being made now, those products are going to be in the inventory in 2026 or 2027. So that’s why it’s really important to be building these practices and these decisions into your policies and procedures now in your current adoption cycle. So for tier one, we have things such as establishing across disciplinary steering committee. So important to make sure that people across the system who have any involvement in the materials that are used in education are part of that team. And it’s really important for people to understand that this is not special education technology. So it’s not looking at, well, what are we adopting for special education? It’s about general education curriculum and making sure that the people who are responsible for those decisions, for those who are using those technologies in general education are part of that committee and are able to put some input and feedback on the process.

So in the road map, we offer some examples of who those representatives might be, but in any given context, those positions, those roles and responsibilities are going to differ. So it’s really important for any agency to do some internal reflection to determine who are the right people on that cross disciplinary team. We also having in that first year communicating internally and externally. So what is it that internal staff need to know and prepare for to make sure they understand what the requirements are. And again, that’s both special education and general education and ed tech and IT and assistive technology. Legal would also be important. So your legal counsel being able to provide some guidance is always smart when you have something that leaves your agency vulnerable to a complaint by any population, creating an inventory of all current ed tech products and making some baseline self assessments on what is the accessibility of these products, and then addressing accessibility and decisions.

So do we already have accessibility requirements as part of our procurement processes or do we need to add those? Are we clear that and are we consistent with the ADA Title II final rule, which is different from section 508. So if there are listeners who have had accessibility language in policies for a number of years, it may be aligned to section 508, which is WCAG 2.0, double A, and Title II is 2.1. And the other important thing to remember is Title II is a minimum guideline. As an educational agency, schools and states have the freedom, have the autonomy to set their requirements. So 2.1 double A is the minimum. There’s nothing that would stop an agency from having higher expectations. So that’s tier one.

Tier two goes into those activities that focus on developing policies and procedures so that we put in tier two because it takes a little bit more time to develop policies and procedures, whether at the state or the local level. And then tier three focuses on ensuring those long-term successes, such as developing an implementation plan. And that implementation plan is really all about enacting a digital accessibility policy and making sure that the agency is collecting feedback consistently and routinely along the way to make sure changes are being made that address any gaps, inadvertent gaps that may be in the system. So the Title II roadmap that Academy has on our website is really catered and customized for state and local education agency context.

No, that’s great. I love how you dig in, not just to the tiers, but when I think about everything just in tier one, and I’m glad you went between tier and crying tears, just because I do know for some folks that it does bring it, but I like how you give all that information ’cause I feel like for so many folks, whenever you talk about accessibility or anything like that, they’re like, oh, I can run it through an online tool and it’ll tell me whether it’s accessible. It’s like, well, yeah, that’s part of it. But I like how you dig into the planning, the picking the technology in the future that’s going to be accessible, the planning ahead, the putting everything in policies and just really digging in and well, I mean, not to steal your word, but making a roadmap to not just complying it right now, but to staying accessible and even facing some of the challenges that may come up in the future.

That’s right. And within each tier, those activities that we have aren’t meant to be completed consecutively, but really more in parallel. And there may be some activities that the educational agencies really, many have been doing this work for a long time. As I said, many have these accessibility policies, they just may not be aligned to title 2, in which case it requires some fine-tuning and some, looking at those policies with a fresh outlook. But to your point about the evaluating for accessibility is just one component of a much larger system. So in our roadmap, evaluating for accessibility appears under tier two, and we offer some specific examples of tools to do that, such as the Wave tool from WebAIM. WebAIM is part of academy, so their staff is part of the academy team. So we are able to pull in some pre-existing tools and guidance that is already freely available. And over time, Academy is only, we’re about two and a half months old now, so we’ll be developing and building out more resources and tools to help supplement the roadmap.

So you’ve been doing this a while, maybe not in Academy, but in different roles, just in what you’ve seen, where do you see the biggest gaps in accessibility?

I think the biggest gap is primarily leadership, understanding what accessibility means, and that’s been my experience. It’s not a criticism of leadership within educational agencies. It’s more of a lack of experience in that particular area of providing educational services. So when, in my experience of doing this for almost 25 years, when I’m talking to a group of special educators or assistive technology providers and the word accessibility or accessible is being used, everyone pretty much is on the same page. Understanding what accessibility means in the context and in the context of disability and thinking about equity from the, I guess the shared definition that I like to promote for accessibility is the definition from the joint guidance from the Department of Education and the Department of Justice that essentially focuses on equity in the same information, the same activities, the same interactions, and those key terms of equally effective, equally integrated, substantially equivalent, ease of use.

So we’re talking about making sure that access is provided at the same time and with very few barriers, with as few barriers, if any as possible. We want to make sure that we’re removing burden from students with disabilities. We’re removing the burden from special educators, AT providers, from families of students with disabilities. When I have those conversations about accessibility within educational context, special educators, AT providers really immediately understand what we’re talking about when we’re talking about accessibility beyond the boundaries of individuals, professionals who support students with disabilities, sometimes there’s a misunderstanding of what accessibility means.

And sometimes because accessible is often used interchangeably with terms such as usable or available or affordable, we often have to back up and build some clarity and common knowledge in order to make sure we’re all talking about accessibility, particularly when it’s technology. If we’re talking about something that has existed for a long time around how you make something accessible to individuals with disabilities versus making it available or making technology usable or making technology affordable in terms of boxes and wires, broadband, for example, making sure that students have access to the devices they need to access the curriculum, all of which is essential and really important for equity and making sure that all students are able to make progress graduate from K-twelve and go on to meet future goals.

But I think getting to that level of understanding about what accessible means, it takes work, it takes planning. It’s not something that happens by accident. If we are thinking about inclusive learning environments, well that’s different sometimes. Then making sure the environment is accessible to students with disabilities. So for me, the biggest barrier really has been a shared understanding and shared communication about what accessible means.

Here at INDATA, we’re the ATACT provider here for the state of Indiana. How can the ATACT programs assist the different educational agencies in maybe meeting these requirements?

I’m so glad you asked that. ATACT programs play such a critical role within their states and within their communities. And ATACT programs have a responsibility to serve individuals with disabilities across the lifespan. And that lifespan includes K-12, but it’s so much more than that, and we often ask a lot of our ATACT programs to have staff with knowledge and skills across all of these different areas. The needs of a middle school blind student could be very, obviously, very different from the needs of a toddler with a physical disability. Both, so the disability is very different. The developmental level is very different, and yet ATACT programs are responsible for both age ranges as well as well into our seniors who are in assisted living environments, as well as people who are in vocational settings. So we ask a lot of our ATACT programs.

One of the ways that ATAC programs can have a role in digital accessibility within the K-twelve environment is with partnering with their state educational agency and with school districts. And of course that’s building partnerships and making those connections is easier said than done. I know with the ATAP AT3, last year, there was a series of the Peer Action Learning Group, and the whole focus of that was to support ATACT programs and state educational agencies to connect and come together around these issues that are specific to providing assistive technology and accessible educational materials under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which is our nation’s special education law. So where there’s an intersection between assistive technology, accessibility, and K-12, well, that’s IDA.

And partnering with state and local special education leaders around what is it that the ATACT program can provide to help support students with disabilities who are in that, between essentially pre-K and high school graduation. What are those needs and what role can an ATACT program play? And as I mentioned, that’s where I started, and I feel fortunate. I didn’t know at the time that I was working for both the state of Maine’s ATACT program and the Maine Department of Education. I really didn’t know that that model was not universal to other ATAC programs and state departments of education at the time. So I had obviously a very unique experience of understanding how the ATAC program and the state can work together. For example, while I was with Maine’s site, we were able to collaborate with the Maine Department of Education to have what were then accessible instructional materials included in the state IEP form.

Nice.

So that was very unique. I didn’t know at the time just how profound that was, but clearly partnerships like that can be very impactful. So finding ways, that intersection between assistive technology, the IDA, and the types of policies that state education agencies need. And then what are the supports, what are the technical assistance, where are the training and services that an ATAC program can provide would be hugely helpful to schools and families.

I’ll make sure to put a link down in the show notes to where folks can find out about all the ATACTs. Then also Cynthia, folks want to find out a little bit more about the guidance and everything from NCADEMI. What’s a great way for them to do that?

So they can find us at NCADEMI.org. So that’s N-C-A-D-E-M-I or National Center on Accessible Digital Educational Materials. I is instruction, so NCADEMI.org, they can also reach us at info at NCADEMI.org. We will be sending out, through our website there’s, on our home page there is a link to sign up for email notifications. We’ve already hosted some webinars, so under the events section of our website, you can find recordings of those webinars. We’ll be hosting another webinar in January that really introduces the center. We haven’t done that yet. Our webinars this month here in December of 2024, we’re just a couple of months old and we were really under a sense of urgency to get information out to states and schools regarding the ADA Title II, final rule. So that was the topic of our first webinar series. So we’re going to be introducing NCADEMI in January when we’ll have a series of surveys ready to distribute.

We’re having listening tours in February, and we’re also hosting a number of focus groups, and the ATAP AT-III Center will be one of those focus groups. So we are really wanting to partner with ATACT programs to find out how can we better support you all? What resources can NCADEMI be providing to help you all better provide services and supports to your SCAs, and then vice versa, how can we help your SCAs at the same time make those connections with their ATAC programs? So we know, like I said, how much work it is for an ATAC program to cover all of these different topic areas across populations. So we want to partner on that. So we will be hosting focus groups with ATAC programs in addition to a number of other associations between March and April and all of that you can follow by signing up for email notifications from our homepage.

Awesome. We’ll put that down in the show notes as well. Well, Cynthia, thank you so much for coming on today. For telling us all this great information. Hopefully at least giving people ideas, if not quelling, some of those fears they might have about all the different changes and the deadlines coming up in the not too distant future. So thank you so much again for coming on.

Thanks again for having me, and I look forward to providing supports to everyone in this area. Really important and critical. Thanks again.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at tech at eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter at InData Project. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or Intrack. You can find out more about Intrack at RelayIndiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show is produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easter Seals Crossroads, our supporting partners or this host. This was your assistive technology update. I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.