Terms
How to use
this site.
Short, and in plain language, because the audience includes fourteen-year-olds and there is no reason to write it any other way.
Information and argument, not advice
The official document governsThis site explains what New Jersey’s statute and NJDOE’s guidance say, and argues that one part of the guidance should change. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for your own district’s policy, which is the document that actually applies to you.
Where a restatement here and an official document differ, the official document governs. Every one of them is linked, with the date it was last checked, on the sources page.
The district tracker records what a district has published, sourced and dated. It is not complete, and a district that is not listed is one we have not checked, never one we are reporting as unrestricted.
Why we cannot tell you your rule
Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent a board of education from adopting a policy … that is more stringent than the guidelines developed by the commissioner…s.2.e
So your district’s policy can go further than anything described here, and reading this page is not a defence for breaching it.s.2.d
Accuracy, and its limits
Staleness is publishedEvery factual claim is cited and checked against the source text, and the checking process is described on the methodology page.
Even so, guidance gets revised, districts adopt new policies, and pages go stale. Sources overdue for re-checking are flagged publicly rather than left to look current, which is the honest version of a disclaimer: not “we make no warranty”, but a date next to every claim and a flag on the ones that have aged.
The official documents are not ours
The statute, the guidance and the FAQs are publications of the State of New Jersey. We quote from them, restate them, and link to the originals. Quotation is not endorsement in either direction: nothing here implies the Department or the Legislature agrees with the argument this site makes, and this site disagrees with part of what those documents say.
The writing, the design and the code of the site itself are ours.
What you send us, and what happens to it
Read by a person firstComments and district submissions are read by a person before anything appears publicly, and free text is screened for details that could identify whoever wrote it. Survey answers are published only as aggregates, never as individual responses. Anything published from a comment appears as an anonymous contribution: there is no name to attach, because none was collected.
By sending something you are allowing it to be published here in that form, possibly shortened or redacted. Nothing you send is sold, shared with a school or district, or used to work out who you are. What is stored and what is not is set out on the privacy page.