A school communication platform that a blind parent cannot navigate is not a communication platform for that family — it is a wall with a logo on it. Districts know this, which is why accessibility documentation has moved from a nice-to-have to a standard line in technology procurement. What most evaluation teams don’t get is a straight explanation of what the documentation actually means.
The document to ask for is a VPAT
A VPAT — Voluntary Product Accessibility Template — is the standard format vendors use to report how their product measures against WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), the criteria behind most accessibility law and policy, including Section 508 and the ADA Title II web rule now bearing down on public entities.
A completed VPAT (formally an Accessibility Conformance Report) walks through each WCAG criterion — text alternatives, contrast, keyboard access, screen-reader semantics, and dozens more — and declares one of four levels: Supports, Partially Supports, Does Not Support, or Not Applicable, with remarks explaining each.
Here’s the part that surprises people: a trustworthy VPAT almost never says “Supports” on every line. Real software has real gaps, and the document format exists precisely to disclose them. A VPAT that’s all green is usually a marketing artifact, not an engineering one.
How to read one like a reviewer
Three habits separate a useful read from a checkbox exercise:
Read the remarks, not the ratings. “Partially Supports” is meaningless on its own. “Partially Supports — 144 of 160 in-scope icon buttons carry accessible names; coverage is being extended to remaining feature areas” tells you the vendor counted. Specificity in the remarks is the strongest signal that the evaluation was real.
Check the date against the product. Software changes monthly; a VPAT from three years ago describes a product that no longer exists. Ask when it was last reissued and whether the vendor commits to keeping it current.
Ask what the evaluation method was. A code-level audit, automated testing, and live assistive-technology testing (VoiceOver, TalkBack, JAWS, NVDA) each catch different problems. A vendor who tells you which of these they’ve done — and which they haven’t yet — is telling you the truth.
What we publish, and what’s in it
Bloomz maintains a WCAG 2.1 Accessibility Conformance Report (VPAT 2.3) covering the iOS and Android apps and the web client, and this year’s release reflects the largest accessibility pass in the product’s history:
- Every interactive control announces itself. A sweep across the entire app gave screen-reader users a real name for every button, icon, and input — not “button, button, button.”
- Nothing relies on color alone. Unread indicators, sign-up status, behavior flags, and form errors all pair their color with a text, icon, or shape cue.
- Keyboard and focus behavior is deliberate. Dialogs close with Escape and return focus to where you were; focus order follows the visual layout.
- Contrast and tap-target sizes are enforced by automated tests — computed against every color token in the palette, not spot-checked — so a future redesign can’t quietly regress them.
- Reduced motion is respected. Looping animations stop when the operating system says the user prefers less movement.
And because an honest report discloses gaps: ours does. In-app videos don’t yet carry synchronized caption tracks, and our code-level audit is due to be complemented by live assistive-technology testing. Those items are on the remediation program’s list, and the report says so — because a district that discovers a gap in month three of a contract should have been able to read about it in the procurement packet.
The question that sorts vendors quickly
If you take one thing into your next RFP, make it this question: “Send us your current VPAT, and tell us what changed in it over the last year.”
A vendor with a living accessibility program answers in a day, and the diff is real work. A vendor with a badge on their website and no program behind it will send you a PDF whose date they’d rather you didn’t check. The families relying on assistive technology in your district deserve the first kind.
The accessibility remediation pass ships in the 2026-27 Bloomz release for all subscribed customers — see everything that’s new. Current conformance documentation is available to any district on request.