Let's be honest — disability services offices aren't short on commitment. They're short on time, staff, and systems that actually work together. And with updated Title II regulations now requiring every publicly funded institution to meet WCAG digital accessibility standards, that gap is about to matter a whole lot more.
The good news? You don't have to overhaul everything at once. Start with your workflows. Here are three places to focus your audit:
1. If It Lives in a Spreadsheet, That's Your First Problem
Spreadsheets have held disability services offices together for years. Respect where it's due. But they were never built for what you're asking them to do, and under Title II, that's a liability.
When accommodation requests are scattered across tabs, inboxes, and shared drives, there's no reliable way to demonstrate that each one was handled consistently, accessibly, and on time. That's exactly what auditors and legal teams will want to see if your institution ever comes under scrutiny.
Standardizing your documentation doesn't mean just going paperless. It means moving to a centralized digital system where every request, letter, approval, and communication is captured in one place — structured, searchable, and accessible. When your records are clean, you're not just better protected. Less time digging = more time supporting students!
2. Your Tech Stack Is Only As Compliant As Its Weakest Link
A lot of institutions assume Title II is primarily a web team problem. It isn't. It applies to every digital tool your campus uses, including every platform your disability services office runs on.
That intake form. The portal where students upload documentation. The system you use to notify faculty. All of it has to meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards. With nearly half of U.S. universities relying on just one or two staff to manage technology accessibility (per a 2023 Educause survey), most offices simply don't have the bandwidth to catch every gap on their own.
Make vendors do the work! Ask each one for a current Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). Ask how they handle updates when standards change. Ask what their accessibility roadmap looks like. Silence or vague answers? That tells you something. Federal regulations are pushing the market to get serious about this — but verified compliance beats assumed compliance every time. See if your vendor is keeping you Title II ready ⤵️
3. Stop Doing Manually What a Platform Can Do for You
Here's a question worth sitting with: how much of your team's day is spent on tasks that shouldn't require a human at all?
Chasing faculty to acknowledge accommodation letters. Manually drafting and sending notifications. Following up on incomplete student submissions. These aren't value-add activities — they're friction. And they create exactly the kind of inconsistency that makes Title II compliance harder to demonstrate.
Only 22% of instructors consider accessibility when designing course materials, and a third have no awareness of the new federal requirements, according to research cited in Inside Higher Ed. Automation doesn't fix awareness overnight, but it does mean students aren't left waiting while your team plays catch-up. Auto-generated accessible letters, automated reminders, built-in audit trails — the right platform handles all of it without anyone having to manually maintain a thing.
Where to Begin
You don't need a perfect plan. You need a starting point. Pick one workflow — documentation, vendor review, or a single manual process — and work from there. Institutions that take meaningful steps toward compliance now are far better positioned than those waiting for a complete solution. Start with an overview of your system today to find where you should be taking first steps to improve:
