VPAT
A VPAT — Voluntary Product Accessibility Template — is a reporting format maintained by the Information Technology Industry Council. A completed VPAT is called an Accessibility Conformance Report, and it states, criterion by criterion, how a product performs against an accessibility standard.
| Answer | Means | Credible only if it also says |
|---|---|---|
| Supports | The product meets the criterion without known defects | Which product version and which surfaces were tested |
| Partially Supports | Some functionality does not meet the criterion | Exactly what fails, where, and the remediation date |
| Does Not Support | The majority of functionality does not meet it | The workaround offered in the meantime |
| Not Applicable | The criterion is irrelevant to this product | Why — "no video content" is a reason, silence is not |
| Not Evaluated | Only permitted for Level AAA criteria | Nothing; if it appears against A or AA rows the report is incomplete |
Editions, and which one to ask for
The template comes in editions, and a report against the wrong one is not useful:
- WCAG edition — the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines alone.
- Revised Section 508 edition — the US federal procurement standard, which incorporates WCAG and adds hardware, software and documentation provisions.
- EN 301 549 edition — the European standard.
- INT edition — all three in one document.
A US school district evaluating a web application should ask for WCAG 2.1 Level AA coverage at minimum, since that is what the Title II rule names. The Section 508 or INT edition gives more, and costs the vendor nothing extra if the work was done properly.
The word "voluntary" refers to the template, not to the accessibility obligation. Nobody has to use this format. The obligation to provide accessible content exists regardless of whether anyone fills in a form.
Ten questions that expose a weak report
Most procurement teams have fifteen minutes for this. Spend it here:
- What is the report's date, and which product version does it cover?
- Who wrote it — the vendor, or a named third party?
- What was the evaluation method: automated scan only, manual testing, assistive-technology testing, or a combination?
- Which surfaces are in scope? Staff console, family web view and mobile app are separate products.
- Does every Level A and AA row have an answer, with no "Not Evaluated"?
- Does every "Partially Supports" describe the specific defect, or does it restate the criterion?
- Are there any remediation dates, and have previous ones been met?
- Does the report mention keyboard-only operation and screen-reader testing by name?
- Is content authored by our staff in scope, or only the vendor's own interface?
- Will the vendor accept the report's contents as a contractual representation?
The single strongest signal. A report where every row says "Supports" is not a good report. Real software has defects, and a vendor who has actually tested will have found some. An ACR with no "Partially Supports" anywhere usually means the template was filled in by someone reading the criteria for the first time.
Our own position
Kastr does not have a VPAT. No Accessibility Conformance Report exists for our product, in any edition, and we have not commissioned an audit. We do not run automated accessibility checks in our build pipeline either. We are pre-launch, and publishing a self-completed template full of "Supports" would be the exact behaviour this page warns you about.
If your RFP requires a current ACR at submission — and after the Title II rule, more of them do — we do not meet that requirement this year. That is a real reason to exclude us, and we would rather you exclude us on it than discover it in implementation.
What we would say to a district weighing this: an ACR is evidence about a vendor's process, not a guarantee about your compliance. The accessibility failures that generate complaints in school districts are overwhelmingly in district-authored content — untagged PDFs, uncaptioned video, images with no alternative text — and no vendor's report touches those. Score the ACR, then score the authoring workflow, which is the part you control and the part that recurs weekly.
This entry describes what the rule says. Whether and how it applies to your district is a question for your own counsel, not for a vendor.
Questions people actually ask
Is a VPAT a certification?
No. It is a reporting template, usually completed by the vendor itself. There is no certifying body, no pass mark and no expiry. It is a structured self-assessment whose value depends entirely on who did the testing and how.
Who writes a VPAT, the vendor or an auditor?
Either. Most are vendor-written. A report prepared or reviewed by a named independent firm is materially stronger, and a vendor that used one will say so on the cover page. If the report does not say who evaluated it, assume the vendor did.
Which VPAT edition should a district request?
At minimum an edition covering WCAG 2.1 Level AA, since that is the standard named in the ADA Title II rule. The Revised Section 508 or INT editions cover more and cost a prepared vendor nothing additional to supply.
What does 'Partially Supports' actually mean?
That some functionality fails the criterion. On its own it tells you nothing useful; it is only informative when the accompanying remarks name the specific defect, the surface it affects and a remediation date. A report full of unexplained partial support is a report that has not been tested.
One price. Every feature. Locked for three years.
$3.50 per student per year under 5,000 students. No tiers, no add-on modules, no per-message fees. Published on the site because you should not have to book a call to learn a price.