The Thesis:
Before a school district signs a contract for a learning management system. Before a university adopts an online testing platform. Before any institution with students who have disabilities brings a digital product into its environment, someone should be asking for the VPAT. In most procurement processes, nobody does.
What a VPAT Actually Is:
A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template is a document that software vendors use to disclose how well their product meets established accessibility standards, primarily Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the World Wide Web Consortium. A completed VPAT tells a prospective buyer, in technical detail, where a product meets those standards, where it partially meets them, and where it does not meet them at all.
Why "Voluntary" Is a Problem:
No federal law requires private vendors to produce a VPAT before selling to educational institutions. The expectation embedded in procurement frameworks is that accessibility should be evaluated before purchase, but the mechanism for that evaluation is largely left to the market. This means VPAT quality varies enormously. A vendor who produces a thorough, honest VPAT is operating above the baseline the market requires. It also means a VPAT can be used to create the appearance of accessibility compliance without actually demonstrating it.
Key Strategic Advantages of Reading It Correctly:
- The "Partially Supports" Flag: This is where the most important information is buried. A product that partially supports a criterion affecting screen reader compatibility may be functionally unusable for students who depend on those features, regardless of how the notation sounds.
- The Remarks Section: Honest vendors use this space to explain the nature of the gap with technical specificity. Vendors less committed to genuine compliance insert language vague enough to obscure it. The quality of the remarks tells you almost everything.
- The Date: Accessibility conformance is not static. A VPAT produced three years ago may have no bearing on the current state of the product.
- The Auditor: A VPAT produced internally by the vendor carries different weight than one reviewed by an independent accessibility auditor. Know the difference before you act on it.
How to Use It:
A VPAT is a starting point, not a destination. Institutions that take accessibility seriously will request it, evaluate it critically, conduct independent testing with representative users including users with disabilities, and build accessibility requirements into the contract language itself. When a vendor cannot or will not produce a current VPAT for a product being sold to a school or university, that is material information about the vendor's commitment and the institutional risk being accepted.
The Resource:
Center on Online Learning Solutions maintains a library of procurement guidance for institutions navigating edtech decisions. For VPAT evaluation frameworks, accessibility audit protocols, and contract language recommendations, visit centerononlinelearning.org.
