Policy language for districts, boards and schools
Change-Ready
Policy.
The AI you approved keeps changing. Your policy was written for the tool as it stood on the day you adopted it, and your signed agreement contains a clause saying the vendor’s terms control.
The gap
Most districts now have an AI policy. Many adopted a state model or an association template on a deadline, which satisfied the requirement and cost nothing. A template describes AI tools in general, as of the day it was adopted. It cannot say what your tools do now, or who acts when they change.
Your policy says the district controls its students’ data. The agreement says the vendor may revise its terms on notice, and its order-of-precedence clause says the vendor’s terms control where the two conflict. Both documents are in your file. They do not say the same thing. Each revision can move the tool further from the policy written for it, and no decision point opens when it does. We find where the documents diverge, show it in the vendor’s own words, and build policy language that names who acts when the next change arrives.
Families expect the school to know this. A parent who asks what an AI tool does with their child’s work, whether a feature is on by default, or how to keep their child out of it expects a direct answer, and expects the school to act on what they decide. In many cases the school agreed to the tool on the family’s behalf, which makes the school the only party in a position to answer. Policy that cannot say what a tool does now, or who carries out a family’s wishes once it changes, leaves that promise to whoever happens to take the call.
What we offer
Every engagement begins by reading three things against each other: the policy you adopted, the agreements you executed, and what your tools do now. The policy work follows from that read, never from a template, and is built to hold as the tools keep moving. Policy Rollout Training for your staff is available as an add-on to any engagement below.
Policy language audit and development
We read your adopted policy against your executed vendor agreements, the current state of the tools they cover, state requirements, and student data protection standards. We name every place they disagree about who is accountable, then develop the district or building policy that accounts for what those agreements actually permit, including what happens when a vendor revises its terms or switches on a new AI capability.
Built in · AI Tool Registration Protocol
A method for starting, then keeping, the record of every AI tool in your building that operates on student data, is student-facing, or takes in student or family data. We begin the record with you: the tools already in use, logged and assigned to a named reader. The protocol then sets the order in which each tool is reviewed again for AI-related additions, updates, and integrations, so the record shows not only what is in-house, but what has changed since adoption and when each tool is next due.
You keep: a findings memo that cites the exact clause behind every conflict; a policy in which each obligation carries a named owner, a trigger that fires when a tool changes, and a review date; and The Language Firm’s tool register and guidebook, included. The register lives on your own systems, under your own access controls: no third-party platform hosts it, no vendor handles the data in it, and there is no subscription or per-student fee. Every entry carries a named reader and a date, so your board or an auditor can see who checked each tool, and when. Policy that keeps up with the tools it governs, not just policy that was adopted.
Adoption and change criteria
The criteria your district applies to AI and edtech tools when they are adopted, and again when they change: which revisions to terms, defaults, data use or AI capability reopen review, and what a tool must show to stay approved. Grounded in vendor language and the mechanisms that give a district direct control of its students’ data.
You keep: criteria applied as findings, not impressions, at adoption and at every change that reopens review. When a vendor’s documents do not answer a criterion, the record says Not Met; silence is never a pass.
Leadership guidance
Guidance for district and building leaders on governing teacher-facing tool procurement, pairing teacher input on pedagogy and instructional needs with vendor language and district control of student data.
You keep: decision rights in writing: who can request a tool, who reads it, who approves it, who is told when it changes, and who answers for it afterward.
Policy Rollout Training Add-on
Professional development that teaches staff how to operationalize the policy your school or district adopted: what it asks of them in daily practice, with the teacher-facing tools and services they use, what to do when one of those tools changes, and in the personal governance practices they hold themselves to. A policy becomes governance only when the people it names carry it out. This training is what lets your district make that claim truthfully.
You keep: staff who can show the policy in practice, not just confirm they have read it.
Added to a policy, procurement, or leadership engagement rather than booked on its own, so the training teaches the policy your school or district has actually adopted.
On file is not in force
Most AI policy work ends when a document is adopted, read, and filed. That proves a policy existed on the day it was adopted. It does not prove anyone governs the tools as they change.
Every offering here ends in something your district can show working: obligations with owners and triggers, a register that names who checked each tool, what changed, and when it is due again, criteria that record a finding instead of an impression, and staff who can demonstrate the policy in practice. That is the difference between saying you have governance and being able to prove it.
What this work is not
It is not legal advice. The firm reads language and documents what the language does. Counsel advises on liability, drafts and negotiates terms, and interprets what the law requires of your district.
It is not a compliance certification. A policy we develop is governance your district adopts. It does not warrant that your district is in compliance with any statute or regulation.
It does not change what you have signed. We read your executed agreements and report what they permit. Amending or renegotiating them is work for your district and its counsel.
How an engagement runs
Three clear steps, no surprises: we scope it, put it in writing, and only begin once the terms are accepted.
STEP IScope & sessions
Inquiry
Fill out the contact form with a brief description of your needs. We reach out on your scheduled day for your free introductory consultation.
Scoping call
We confirm fit, define the scope, and agree on sessions and timeline. Policy Rollout Training sessions, if you want them, are added to the scope here.
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STEP IIConfirmation in writing
Engagement confirmation
You receive a written confirmation of scope, fees, and timeline after the call, with any add-on sessions itemized separately.
Acceptance
You return a signed confirmation or purchase order.
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STEP IIIInvoice, payment & kick-off
Invoice
We issue an invoice referencing the executed engagement.
Kick-off
Upon payment or PO receipt, we schedule a brief intake and begin work.
Pricing
One price box for each offering: flat throughout, priced per deliverable for the policy work and per session for the training, with school and district rates stated up front. Policy Rollout Training is priced as an add-on to an engagement.
Policy language audit and development
Your adopted policy read against your executed agreements, a findings memo naming each conflict, the policy development that follows from it, and the AI Tool Registration Protocol, with The Language Firm’s tool register included.
Individual school$7,500.00
District$11,000.00
Adoption and change criteria
The criteria applied to AI and edtech tools at adoption and whenever a change reopens review.
Individual school$3,500.00
District$5,500.00
Leadership guidance
Working sessions for district and building leaders responsible for adopting and enforcing the policy.
Three working sessions$2,400.00
Additional hours$250.00 / hr
Policy Rollout Training Add-on
Training that teaches staff to operationalize the policy your school or district adopted, so governance is a claim your district can truthfully make. Added to an engagement, not sold separately.
Single session, 90 min$1,200.00
District set of three$3,000.00
Policy Rollout Training sessions are added to an engagement and itemized on the same confirmation. Final scope, fees, and timeline arrive in your engagement confirmation, before any work begins.
Looking for teacher capability rather than policy rollout?
Policy Rollout Training teaches the policy your district has already adopted. If what you want instead is educators who can read a vendor’s documents themselves, that is
The Language Detective: a five-course sequence in The Forensic Read, jurisdiction-neutral, booked on its own rather than as an add-on.
Need the vendors read, not the policy?
This page builds the policy language. Reading individual vendors against it, and watching them for the moment the terms move, is
Vendor Vetting & Ongoing Protection: a Primary Engagement to vet what is in front of you, and a Primary Retainer to keep the record current.