Teaching · Special Education

Make the PDF form fillable by everyone.

Check the document, then tab through every field. The review lists what fails with its basis and keeps a log of the fields still to fix.

$12one-time · every device you sign in on

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Special Education toolkit, $99 for 100 items.

The form review

One record per form and version. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · Special Education$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
Failures with their WCAG or PDF/UA basis, the problem fields still open and the next fix.
Who it is for
Accessibility leads, special education staff, registration and office staff and district communications staff.
Format
Browser checklist. One saved record per form; printed for whoever edits the PDF or as a blank form; CSV; export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Special Education toolkit ($99) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Special Education space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.
123each box named, in order
Drawn for this page. A screen reader user meets a form one field at a time; each field needs a name and its place in the order.

How to use it

  1. Start a record with a short form code.
  2. Check tags, title, language and reading order in your PDF editor.
  3. Tab through every field; note any without a name or out of order.
  4. Fill the form once with a screen reader.
  5. Fix, then copy the record to a new date and review again.

Review a form

What the review checks

Why PDFs fail

Fillable PDFs are often made by drawing boxes on a scanned or exported page. Without tags, field names and a set tab order, a screen reader user hears “edit text, blank” for every box and may jump around the page.

The standards

PDF/UA (ISO 14289) sets requirements for accessible PDFs; WCAG 2.2 applies to PDFs posted on the web. The U.S. Department of Justice’s 2024 rule requires state and local government web content, including documents, to meet WCAG 2.1 AA on a phased schedule.

Another way

Until a form is fixed, families need another way to complete it: a web form, an accessible document, or help by phone or in person.

Sources

  1. ISO 14289-1:2014. Document management applications: Electronic document file format enhancement for accessibility (PDF/UA-1).
  2. W3C. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, and PDF Techniques for WCAG (PDF1, PDF3, PDF10, PDF12).
  3. U.S. Department of Justice. Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities, 28 CFR Part 35, Subpart H (2024).
  4. Section508.gov (U.S. General Services Administration). Create accessible PDFs.

The example form is made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.