For education
Every department keeps its editor.
Keep departments publishing in WordPress while we rebuild your public websites with shared templates. We test real pages for accessibility and plan the launch around your academic calendar. We review the sites, page types, and plugins across your network before agreeing what needs to be rebuilt.
What we see
The work your web team is juggling
Hundreds of sites, one small team
Princeton's central platform supports more than 1,000 websites and the University of Washington's hosts 247. Content stays with departments. Consistency and accessibility fall to a central web team that cannot review every page by hand.
Inconsistent page templates
As departments add themes, page builders, and plugins, the same page type can look and behave differently across the network. Each variation gives your web team more to check and maintain.
An accessibility deadline
The Department of Justice rule sets WCAG 2.1 AA as the standard for public institutions. Binghamton University audited nearly 250 websites and more than 60,000 files to prepare. The first step is knowing what your own team needs to review.
Pages that load slowly
Only 23.5% of WordPress sites have a good server response time on mobile, per HTTP Archive's August 2026 data. Building pages ahead of time removes the wait for WordPress to assemble each page when someone visits.
The rules that apply
Accessibility requirements to plan for
Public institutions have specific accessibility requirements and deadlines. Many private schools have obligations under Title III; coverage and other requirements depend on the institution. Students and families need to be able to use the site in either case.
WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the standard
The Department of Justice rule under ADA Title II names WCAG 2.1 AA as the technical standard for state and local government web content and mobile apps, and it lists public schools, community colleges, and public universities among the entities covered.
Source: ADA.gov, Fact sheet: new rule on the accessibility of web content and mobile apps provided by state and local governments. Checked .
The first deadline is 26 April 2027
An interim final rule in April 2026 moved the compliance dates by a year: 26 April 2027 for entities serving 50,000 or more people, and 26 April 2028 for smaller entities and special districts. The rule says its substantive requirements bind covered entities no matter the deadline, and the National Federation of the Blind has sued to restore the original dates.
Source: Federal Register, Interim final rule extending the ADA Title II web accessibility compliance dates. Checked .
Accessibility needs more than a widget
The FTC fined accessiBe $1 million in 2025 and barred it from claiming its widget makes a site WCAG-compliant without evidence. The accessibility community's Overlay Fact Sheet says no overlay can make a site fully compliant. We address accessibility in the templates and test real pages before launch.
Source: Federal Trade Commission, FTC approves final order requiring accessiBe to pay $1 million. Checked .
Student records stay out of the public site
FERPA governs the education records a school maintains. Student records and portals stay in your existing systems. We review forms separately with your institution and do not pull student records into the public website build.
Source: US Department of Education, Directory information. Checked .
Stays the same
What your team keeps
- Departments keep editing in WordPress, with the roles, workflows, and multisite network they already have
- Faculty profiles, news, events, and program pages stay in the fields your editors use today
- Your SEO plugin, custom fields, and media library carry over
- Student portals, the learning management system, and application systems stay on their own platforms, linked from the site
Changes
What the rebuild replaces
- Every public template is rebuilt once in Astro, tested against WCAG 2.1 AA, and shared by every site on the network
- Pages are built ahead of time and served from a content delivery network
- Page-builder layouts are recreated as templates, with accessibility checked during the rebuild
- Previews and publishing are connected and tested, with an agreed delay between publishing and the live site updating
How it runs
How we rebuild your school or university site
Review your sites
We list the sites, templates, and plugins on your network. Together, we identify shared page types and the ones a department needs for its own work.
Choose the page templates
We agree which page types your departments need, then design or recreate each one. Shared templates let departments use the same accessibility improvements across their sites.
Connect and preview
We connect the Astro site to your WordPress network and test previews and publishing with your editors. We agree how long an update can take to appear on the live site.
Test, redirect, launch
We test real pages for accessibility and check existing addresses. Changed addresses redirect to relevant replacements where available; removed pages without replacements return 404 or 410. The launch plan fits your academic calendar.
Questions
What education teams ask first
Short answers here. The full picture comes from a review of your site.
Are private colleges covered by the Department of Justice rule?
Title II applies to state and local government. Many private schools have obligations under Title III, with exceptions including religious institutions. Coverage and other requirements depend on your institution. We plan accessibility work around the requirements your team identifies.
Can we keep WordPress multisite?
Yes. The network stays as it is. The Astro front end reads each site's content and serves it through the shared templates. You keep the admin, the roles, and the plugins that manage content.
What about the sites that use a page builder?
We rebuild their layouts as templates rather than importing the page builder's output. We account for that work in the project plan and check the new templates for accessibility. Our builder guides explain what carries over.
Do you fix the accessibility of our content too?
We fix templates, navigation, forms, and components, and test real pages. Your editors remain responsible for the content they add, including image descriptions and heading order. We show them what to check.
How long does this take?
The number of different page types matters more than the number of sites. Five hundred sites sharing twelve templates can take less work than thirty sites with separate designs. We review your network before agreeing the schedule.
Sources
Tell us what your website needs.
Send us your website address and what you’d like to change. We’ll take a look and reply by email.