Accessibility Statement

The Arkansas Department of Education (ADE): Arkansas School for the Deaf (ASD) is committed to making its electronic and information technologies accessible to individuals with disabilities by meeting or exceeding the requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. 794d), as amended in 1998. Section 508 is a federal law that requires agencies to provide individuals with disabilities equal access to electronic information and data comparable to those who do not have disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency. The Section 508 standards are the technical requirements and criteria that are used to measure conformance within this law. More information on Section 508 and the technical standards can be found at www.section508.gov.

If you would like to report an accessibility problem with the ASD website, please e-mail the ASD Webmaster using the form below. Be sure to specify the web page or file being referenced in reporting the accessibility issue.

Section 508/Accessibility

In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Inaccessible technology interferes with an individual′s ability to obtain and use information quickly and easily. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508 (29 USC 794d), agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.

Assistance with Accessing ASD Information

Act 1227 of 1999 required the Arkansas State Departments to develop Non-visual Standards for Arkansas that ensures the needs of Arkansans who are blind or visually impaired are met through reasonable accommodation in the information technology products and services of the state. Information technology products and services include data, voice, and video technologies, as well as information dissemination methods such as the Internet. In essence, this means that Arkansas Government or state funded entities, including ASD website are equally accessible to blind or visually impaired visitors. For instance, websites provided text equivalents for all non-text elements such as images, animation, audio, and video. We strive to make every effort to comply with these new guidelines on the State of Arkansas website.

ADE: ASD is committed to providing resources that are accessible to people of all abilities. If you find that any of our information products, including what you see on this site, are not in compliance with Section 508, please contact us by using the above form or phone at 501-682-4475. When you contact us, please refer to the specific information found to be non-compliant. This will help us address the issue more quickly.

Accessibility Strategies

We use three (3) step approach for this:

• By developing and deploying a Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) compatible Content Management System (CMS).
• IT Dev-Ops team that understands accessibility, ADA compliance, User Interface, and User Experience (UI/UX) methodologies and techniques.
• Implementing Userway.org AI tool for automatic code-level remediations and fixing A. AA and AAA level issues. Userway's AI-Powered Accessibility Widget leverages advanced artificial intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and computer vision technologies to provide compliance and accessibility. These automated technologies coupled with human review and approvals ("Human in the Loop") ensure this site meets, and exceeds, WCAG 2.1 AA standards.

Note: The accessibility page was deployed on April 18, 2023.