Editorial Policy

1. Our Editorial Mission

U.S. K-12 governance is famously fragmented. Federal, state, and local layers each publish their own portals, set their own rules, and run their own complaint processes. Add 50 different state academic standards, 13,000+ school districts with their own elected boards, and a federal regulatory framework that updates with each administration — and finding the right office for a parent question, an educator question, or a citizen question turns into a research project.

Our editorial mission is to publish practical, step-by-step guides — manually verified against the live portal — for every U.S. state’s K-12 governance system. The reader leaves a state page knowing the State Board’s URL and meeting schedule, where the state Department of Education’s complaint forms are, how the state’s open-meetings act applies to local school boards, and which federal office handles which complaint type.

2. Quality Standards Every State Page Meets

• The State Board of Education URL is verified live and points to the actual board page (not a generic state homepage)
• The state Department of Education / State Education Agency URL is verified, with the current commissioner or state superintendent named
• The state’s open-meetings statute is identified by name and citation, with the posting requirement and public-comment rule summarized
• The state’s public-records procedure is identified with the agency that handles requests
• The state’s IDEA Part B office (typically the Special Education Division within the state DOE) is identified with the URL for due-process and state-complaint procedures
• The state’s Title IX coordinator at the state DOE level (where one exists) is named
• The OCR regional office that covers the state is identified
• State board member composition (elected, appointed, hybrid) is described with current term lengths
• “Last reviewed” date appears on every page
• The FERPA carve-out (we don’t host student records) is reachable from every state page

3. Source Hierarchy — Six Tiers

Full hierarchy with named sources, URLs, and how each is used is on the Sources & Methodology page.

4. Verification — Our Seven-Step Process

1. Identify the right authoritative source. We start with the State Board of Education and state Department of Education — confirmed against USA.gov’s directory and the U.S. Department of Education’s State Contacts list at ed.gov.
2. Verify the URL is current. State agency portals get migrated, redirected, or replaced. We click through every link before publication and confirm the destination is the actual page.
3. Locate live procedures and documents. For meeting agendas, we confirm the agenda-posting page actually loads with the most recent meetings shown. For complaint forms, we confirm the current form is downloadable.
4. Document the steps from the actual interface. Walkthroughs are written from the on-screen labels and field names, quoted verbatim where we describe them.
5. Cross-check the legal framework. For procedures governed by statute (open-meetings, public records, IDEA, Title IX), we cite the statute by name and section number.
6. Note current procedural details. Captured with a “last reviewed” date and re-verified each quarter.
7. Editor sign-off. A second editor reviews the page end-to-end before it goes live, including a fresh check on the named state board chair and state superintendent — these change frequently.

5. Update Cycles

6. Corrections Process

1. You report it. Email info@boardofeducations.org with subject “Correction” and the page URL.
2. We acknowledge. Response within seven business days confirms receipt.
3. We verify. An editor goes back to the official source and confirms the current position.
4. We correct. If confirmed, the page is updated. Substantive corrections — wrong URL, wrong commissioner, wrong meeting day — trigger a published correction note dated and described in plain English.
5. We tell you. The reporter is notified once the correction is live.

7. FERPA Editorial Policy

8. AI Tools and Authorship

• AI tools may be used for first drafts, summarization of agency pages, formatting consistency, and language polish
• Every state walkthrough is run against the live portal by a human editor before publication — AI cannot substitute for live verification
• Portal URLs, commissioner names, board chairs, statute citations, and procedures are confirmed against the agency’s own page by a human
• AI-generated text that turns out to misstate a procedure is corrected through the standard corrections process
• We do not allow AI to invent state-specific procedures, fabricate statute citations, or describe agencies that don’t exist

9. Editorial Independence

We do not take payment from any state Board of Education, state Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Education, NASBE, CCSSO, NSBA, or any school district in exchange for editorial coverage. We do not take payment from any commercial education-services provider, EdTech vendor, advocacy organization, or law firm in exchange for being mentioned, recommended, or omitted on state pages. The site is funded by display advertising on the principle that advertising and editorial are separate functions.

10. Advertising and FTC §255

• Display advertisements are visually distinct from editorial content and labeled where required
• Where any commercial relationship exists with a service relevant to our audience, it is disclosed in context per the FTC’s Endorsement Guides at 16 C.F.R. Part 255
• Sponsored content, if it ever appears, is clearly identified as paid-for
• We do not insert commercial links above the verified state agency links on a state page; the official source always comes first

FTC endorsement guidance: ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking.

11. Conflicts of Interest

• The editorial team is not employed by, contracted to, or financially connected to any state Board of Education, state Department of Education, or school district
• The editorial team is not employed by, contracted to, or financially connected to any commercial education-services provider
• We don’t accept gifts, hospitality, or considerations from these organizations in exchange for coverage

12. Sensitive Topics

K-12 governance content intersects with several sensitive areas. We try to handle them fairly:

• Politically contested topics (curriculum debates, parental rights legislation, library content policies, transgender student policies). We describe what state law and federal regulations require, who decides, and how the public can participate — not which side is right.
• Special-education disputes. We point parents to the IDEA procedural safeguards and to specialized advocacy resources without taking sides in any specific case.
• Title IX and sex-discrimination matters. We describe the current federal framework and direct readers to OCR and to the school’s published Title IX procedure; we do not editorialize on contested investigations.
• School discipline and student rights. We point to the school’s discipline policy, the state’s due-process requirements, and where appeals lie.
• Students and identifying information. We never use real-student names, even in walkthrough examples; sample searches use fictional names or published de-identified data.

13. Reader Feedback

Substantive feedback — corrections, suggestions, broken-link reports — is logged and addressed within seven business days. Educators, school board members, education attorneys, special-education advocates, parents, and reporters who use these portals daily often spot inconsistencies before our quarterly review catches them. Feedback that is abusive, threatening, or harassing is not engaged with and may be reported under our Terms of Service.

14. Language, Tone, and Accessibility

• State pages are written in plain English at a level intended to be accessible to a general adult audience, including parents who are not education-policy professionals
• Acronyms are spelled out on first use (FERPA, IDEA, ESSA, IEP, 504, OCR, OSEP, ED, NASBE, CCSSO, NSBA, SEA, LEA, SBE, FAPE, LRE)
• Where Spanish is the dominant language for a substantial portion of a state’s families, we link the state DOE’s Spanish-language pages where they exist
• We follow our Accessibility Statement, including WCAG 2.1 AA targets and Section 504 considerations