Terms of Use

Acceptance

By using PlainSchools, you agree to these terms. If you disagree, please discontinue use.

Service Description

PlainSchools is a free informational service that presents publicly available education data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). We do not generate ratings, rankings, or recommendations for individual schools.

Data Accuracy

Data is sourced from official US government datasets and presented as-is. While we strive for accuracy, we cannot guarantee that all data is current, complete, or error-free. NCES data may contain reporting gaps, especially for smaller schools or districts.

No Professional Advice

Information on PlainSchools is for general informational purposes only. It does not constitute educational, legal, financial, or any other form of professional advice. School enrollment, housing, and relocation decisions should be made with appropriate professional guidance.

Limitation of Liability

PlainSchools is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. Our total liability for any claims arising from use of this service is $0. We are not responsible for decisions made based on information presented on this site.

Not Affiliated

PlainSchools is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the US Department of Education, NCES, or any government agency.

Changes

We may modify these terms at any time. Continued use constitutes acceptance.

Contact

Questions: legal@plainschools.com

Data Accuracy and Verification

PlainSchools aggregates and reformats information that originates from public government agencies, regulatory filings, and other openly available sources. While we take reasonable steps to ingest, normalize, and refresh this data, upstream records may contain clerical errors, lag behind real-world changes, or omit relevant context. You are solely responsible for verifying any fact that influences a legal, medical, financial, educational, safety, or similarly consequential decision. Cross-reference the official source before acting on anything you read here.

Acceptable Use

You may browse, read, and share PlainSchools content for personal, journalistic, academic, and non-commercial research use. You may cite specific records with attribution and a link back to the page on plainschools.com. You may not (a) systematically scrape, crawl, or download the dataset in bulk without prior written permission; (b) resell, sublicense, or redistribute derived data products that compete with PlainSchools; (c) use our pages to harass, defame, or misrepresent any individual or organization appearing in the data; (d) remove, obscure, or mislabel source attribution; or (e) attempt to bypass rate limits, security controls, or authentication mechanisms.

Plain-Language Transformation and Editorial Role

PlainSchools combines raw public data with plain-language summaries, explainers, and comparisons. Narrative sections are drafted by our editorial team from source data and reviewed before publication. We do not alter underlying numbers or filings — those are loaded directly from the upstream source. If you spot a summary that misreads the data, please email the correction link on our contact page.

Intellectual Property

The underlying public records surfaced on PlainSchools are in the public domain or otherwise freely licensed by the issuing agency — you are free to use those raw facts. However, our site design, layout, navigation structure, original editorial copy, category taxonomies, comparison tables, and curated rankings are the copyrighted work of PlainSchools. These creative elements may not be reproduced in whole or substantial part without permission.

Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms of Use from time to time to reflect changes in our data sources, product features, legal environment, or advertising relationships. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date above and — when appropriate — surface a brief notice on the homepage. Continued use of the site after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised terms. We encourage you to revisit this page periodically.

Governing Law and Disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the United States and the jurisdiction in which PlainSchools is domiciled, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Any dispute arising from or relating to your use of PlainSchools will first be addressed through good-faith informal negotiation. If that fails, both parties agree to resolve the dispute in the courts with jurisdiction over PlainSchools' principal place of business. Nothing in these terms limits your statutory consumer-protection rights under applicable local law.

For formal legal notices, DMCA takedown requests, subpoenas, law-enforcement requests, or correspondence regarding these terms, email legal@plainschools.com. General questions, data corrections, and feedback should use the contact page so they reach the editorial team promptly.