[Athen] Section 508 Refresh - Now In Effect?

[Chagnon | PubCom]

And here's what the judges say...

"The Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of A Special Education Student"
"School districts must give students with disabilities the chance to make
meaningful, "appropriately ambitious" progress, the Supreme Court said
Wednesday in an 8-0 ruling."

Wow. 8-0 ruling. Now that is precedent!

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/03/22/521094752/the-supreme-court-rules-
in-favor-of-a-special-education-student 

--Bevi Chagnon 

-----Original Message-----
From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On
Behalf Of Bourne, Sarah (MASSIT)
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2017 8:56 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Section 508 Refresh - Now In Effect?

In today's edition of "I am not a lawyer but I work a lot of them" the
actual answer to "Does 508 apply to me?" is "It depends."

For instance, the Assistive Technology Act specifies that funding recipients
must comply with Section 508.  The  University System of Georgia believes
that this could mean all IT under their Board of Regents has to comply with
Section 508 regulations [1].   Oklahoma believes is may apply to all State
programs. [2]  Other federal funding and grant programs carry similar
stipulations.  So to answer the question, you would need to know about all
federal monies received and their requirements, and a lawyer or two to sort
it all out.

Rather than trying to figure out just which laws apply to the hundreds of
programs in state government and having different standards for based on
that, our approach to meet both state and federal legal obligations is to
harmonize with the federal standards.  Also, using the same standards make
it easier for vendors and developers understand and comply with the
requirements.

[1]
http://www.usg.edu/siteinfo/higher_education_the_americans_with_disabilities
_act_and_section_508
[2] PDF:
https://www.ok.gov/abletech/documents/Section%20508%20of%20the%20Rehab%20Act
.pdf
sb
Sarah E. Bourne
Director of IT Accessibility, MassIT 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
1 Ashburton Pl. rm 811 Boston MA 02108
617-626-4502 
sarah.bourne at mass.gov 
http://www.mass.gov/MassIT