Accessibility

Last updated 5 September 2026

This is a self-assessment, not a third-party audit, and we are not claiming conformance to WCAG 2.1 AA or Section 508. Below is what works today, what does not, and how to report a barrier.

What works

Every control is a real button. There are no clickable divs anywhere in the application, so everything can be reached with the Tab key and activated with Enter or Space, including the spinner in the middle of the name wheel.
Visible focus. Keyboard focus draws a high-contrast outline on buttons, inputs, selects, and list rows.
Keyboard shortcuts for the things you do mid-lesson. Space acts on whatever is in front of you, spinning the picker or starting and stopping a timer. Escape backs out one layer at a time. Arrow keys step days on the Agenda. D toggles the pen on the Board. Shortcuts do not fire while you are typing in a text box.
A High Contrast theme alongside Dark, Light, and Chalkboard, chosen under Settings, then Look.
Three display sizes. Laptop, Board, and Big board scale type and touch targets up for a projector or an interactive panel rather than only zooming the page.
Touch targets grow on touch devices. Interactive rows and close buttons expand to at least 44 by 44 pixels on a touch screen, which is what a Promethean or ViewSonic panel reports.
Reduced motion is honoured. If your operating system is set to reduce motion, animations are cut back.
Audio is optional. Timer chimes, alarm sounds, spoken warnings, and the picker click can each be turned off. Nothing plays sound on page load.
Labels on icon-only controls. Buttons without visible text carry accessible names, and decorative graphics are hidden from assistive technology.
The page declares its language and scales properly when you zoom the browser.

Known limitations

Drag and drop is pointer-only. In the Groups tab you can drag a name into a group card with a mouse or finger, and that specific gesture has no keyboard equivalent. Every result it produces is reachable another way: Fill the rest deals unplaced students out, the x on a name returns it to the list, and Clear empties a group. So nothing is unreachable, but a keyboard user works differently from a mouse user here.
Floating tool windows are moved and resized by pointer. There is no keyboard gesture to drag a window. Every tool in a window is also a full tab of its own, so a keyboard user can reach the same timer, picker, clock, and groups without touching a window.
Not tested with screen readers. The markup uses real buttons and accessible names, which is a good foundation, but no testing has been done with JAWS, NVDA, or VoiceOver. We will not claim it works well until someone has actually tried it.
No formal audit. No automated or manual WCAG evaluation has been commissioned.
Colour contrast is untested against a formal ratio. The High Contrast theme exists for this reason, but the four themes have not been measured against WCAG contrast thresholds.
Phones are not supported by design. Below 640 pixels wide, the app shows an explanation instead of a broken layout. Class Dash is meant for a laptop, a Chromebook, or a classroom display.
The drawing layer is inherently visual. Freehand annotation on the Board has no non-visual equivalent, in the same way a whiteboard does not.

What we would fix first

If a teacher or student using assistive technology hits a wall, that moves to the front of the queue ahead of any new feature. The two items we already expect to tackle are keyboard placement of students into groups, and a screen reader pass over the Board and Agenda.

Telling us about a problem

Use the contact form and describe what you were trying to do, what happened, and what you were using, including the assistive technology and browser if that is relevant. Accessibility reports are prioritised ahead of feature work.

For district accessibility reviewers

If you need a completed VPAT or an Accessibility Conformance Report, we do not have one, and we would rather say so than supply a document we cannot stand behind. If a VPAT is a hard requirement for your resource library, Class Dash will not pass that gate today. If you are able to evaluate the notes above on their merits, or you are willing to run your own evaluation, get in touch and we will answer any question about the implementation directly.