Unlocking Accessibility: Five Minutes with CAST

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Hi, this is Aurora from the Educating All Learners Alliance,
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and today we're speaking to Michelle Soriano for 5 Minutes with CAS.
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CAS is a non-profit education and research development organization that created
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the Universal Design for Learning, or UDL, framework to make learning more inclusive.
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CAS is dedicated to creating inclusive educational environments through UDL
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and innovative accessibility solutions.
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The CASS Accessibility Solutions team specializes in helping institutions integrate
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accessible technologies and materials, ensuring that all learners have equal
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opportunities to succeed.
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Joining us today is Michelle Soriano. She's a professional learning specialist
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on the accessibility team at CASS, who is passionate about all things inclusive
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and accessible education.
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Great to have you here today, Michelle. Thanks for joining us.
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Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here. I love everything ILA and talking
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everything inclusive practices.
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I love that energy. And I love some of the other interviews that I've seen you
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do with with Cass around this topic.
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So let's dive right in and, you know, tell us more in your own words about your
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organization and the work that you're doing.
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Yeah, absolutely. So I am a professional learning specialist on the accessibility team at CAST.
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And as you mentioned, CAST, we are the founders of Universal Design for Learning.
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But the great thing about my role is that you cannot have Universal Design for
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Learning without accessibility.
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And so I get the opportunity to really support educators and agencies in really
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understanding what is accessibility, why does it matter, and how do you do it?
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I love that. But that's not to say that there aren't challenges and issues facing
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us in the world of education today. It feels like, you know,
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we've got a lot of uphill challenges. So what would you say have a big issue,
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the main issue that you feel like CAST is trying to tackle right now?
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Well, the main issue, and I'm going to speak specifically about our accessibility
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to CAST, because CAST has so many different departments.
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But I will tell you, leading on that you don't know what you don't know,
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and keeping up with the compliance pieces,
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the mandates of accessibility, There is the Department of Justice Title II of
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ADA updates that were released in April of 2024.
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And I would say that this right now is a big focal point for educators across
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the world because it mandates that all of our websites,
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all of our mobile apps, everything has to be compliant with the web content
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accessibility guidelines.
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And a lot of people say, so what is that? How do we know what that means? What do we do?
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Is that one more thing that we have to initiate?
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And so just being able to...
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Be down to earth, be real, help people understand what do we mean when we say
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web content accessibility guidelines are WCAG.
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And how can I take that information and implement it into my role,
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my organization, my agency has been a big goal of ours.
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And so just meeting everybody where they are and helping them grow together
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so that we can make things more accessible and inclusive and universal for all of our learners.
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What are some of the big wins you've had through this work?
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You know, every small win is a big win in my eyes, and I know the eyes of Cass,
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because we have to celebrate every single moment.
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We've done a lot of work around systems change with state agencies and other education agencies.
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And I will say that a big win is, one, getting everybody to meet together,
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come up with common language and understanding, but then building that to where
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it's scaling into making changes in policies,
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making sure that when we're looking at written guidelines, when we're looking
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at how we're implementing things, that we have accessibility at the forefront,
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when we're purchasing curriculum, that we're thinking about accessibility as
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we're going through that process so that we're spending money appropriately
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and effectively and we're getting resources and materials that every single
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child can leverage and use and be successful with.
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So how can folks get involved or stay informed?
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You know, how can folks access some of this awesome work that you're doing. Oh, yeah.
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Well, if you want to reach out, friends, you can email us at AEM,
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that's A-E-M, at cast.org.
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You can find us on any and all social media platforms. We're on LinkedIn.
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We're on X. We're on Blue Sky.
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You name it, we're there. Just look for Cast UDL. And then you can also visit our website.
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It is aematcast.org.
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And feel free to look at our accessibility solutions, how we can support you.
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Reach out. We want to be that partner that collaborates, that really helps you think through things.
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And the sky's the limit when we work together.
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I love that. That's awesome. That's it for us today.
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Those five minutes go by fast. Thank you so much for joining us today,
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Michelle. It was great to have you.
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Thanks so much. I cannot wait to collaborate.
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Thank you so much to Michelle Soriano from CAST. I'm Aurora from ILA,
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and this was 5 Minutes with CAST.