These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between School Workbench, LLC, a Rhode Island limited liability company based in Lincoln, Rhode Island ("we", "us", "our"), and the person or organization that accesses or uses the School Workbench service (the "Service"). By accessing or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
Order of precedence. Where a school, district, or other institution ("School") has entered into a separate written agreement with us for the Service (a "School Agreement", which may include a data protection or student-data-privacy addendum), that School Agreement governs for that deployment, and these Terms apply to individual users within it only to the extent they do not conflict with the School Agreement. In case of conflict, the School Agreement controls.
The Service connects to a User's Connected Account, with that User's (or the School's) authorization, and reads Classroom data, plus any optional connections enabled for the School's deployment, on a read-only basis using the official Google APIs. It presents an organized view of assignments and due dates, lets a User mark their own assignments as done and add their own to-dos and calendar events within the Service, and lets a User ask the AI features to make changes for them within the Service (see Section 14b).
The Service does not send, post, reply to, delete, or otherwise modify anything in a Connected Account. It does not act on the User's behalf in Google, and it does not use, store, or scan data beyond what is described in the Privacy Policy. The Service is an organizational aid; it is not an authoritative system of record for grades, attendance, deadlines, or any academic obligation.
Access is granted through a Connected Account and, in a School deployment, is subject to the School's authorization. Users must use their own account and keep their credentials secure; you are responsible for activity that occurs through your account.
Minors. The Service is designed for use by students, who may be under 18 and in some cases under 13. Where a User is a minor, the Service is made available only through, and under the authority and supervision of, the User's School and/or parent or guardian, consistent with the School's policies and applicable law. We do not knowingly permit a minor to create an independent account outside of a School deployment or verified parental authorization. If you believe a minor has used the Service without proper authorization, contact us and we will investigate and, where appropriate, delete the associated data.
In a School deployment, the School directs and controls the collection and use of School Data for its Users. We process School Data solely to provide and support the Service, on the School's behalf and under its instructions, and not for our own purposes. The School is responsible for obtaining any consents and providing any notices required for its Users (including parental consent where the law requires it), and for authorizing which Users may access the Service.
Where the Service processes education records on behalf of a School, we intend to act as a "school official" with a legitimate educational interest under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act ("FERPA", 20 U.S.C. § 1232g), performing a service the School would otherwise perform itself, and we use and re-disclose Student Data only as permitted by the School Agreement and FERPA.
To the extent the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA") applies, we rely on the School to provide the requisite consent on behalf of parents for the collection of personal information from students under 13 for a school-authorized educational purpose, as permitted by the FTC's guidance. We do not use Student Data to build profiles for advertising, sell Student Data, or use it for targeted advertising.
We will comply with the student-data-privacy laws applicable in the state(s) where a School operates, as set out in the applicable School Agreement and the Data Processing Addendum, and will execute any state-required data-privacy exhibit a School reasonably requires. We do not process Student Data for any commercial purpose unrelated to the Service, consistent with Rhode Island's student-data law (R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 16-104) and similar laws elsewhere.
The Service's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements. We access only read-only scopes, use the data only to provide user-facing features of the Service, do not transfer or sell it, and do not use it for advertising. Your use of the Service is also subject to Google's own terms for your Connected Account.
As between the parties, the User and/or the School own their School Data and User Content. We claim no ownership of either. You grant us a limited, non-exclusive license to access, process, and display School Data and User Content solely to operate, secure, and support the Service for you, and for no other purpose. We do not sell School Data or User Content or use them to train third-party or general-purpose AI models. The Service's automatic importance ranking and date extraction are performed by deterministic, rule-based logic.
Our handling of personal data is described in our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into and forms part of these Terms.
The Service, including its software, design, and content (excluding School Data), is owned by us and our licensors and is protected by intellectual-property laws. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, revocable, non-transferable, non-exclusive right to use the Service. All rights not expressly granted are reserved. "School Workbench" and our logos are our marks and may not be used without permission. If you send us suggestions or feedback about the Service, we may use them without restriction or obligation to you.
The Service depends on third-party services, including Google and any Integration a School connects (see Section 12c). We are not responsible for third-party services, their availability, or their terms, and your use of a Connected Account or an Integration remains governed by that provider's terms.
Each School decides which Integrations to use. Integrations are independent of one another and optional, except that Google Classroom is on by default and may be turned off by the School. A School connects an Integration from its administrator panel using approvals or credentials from that system and may disconnect it at any time. By connecting an Integration, the School confirms that it is authorized to do so and to have that system's data shared with us for the Service, and that its own agreement with that system's provider allows it. We access an Integration read-only, only for the purposes in the Privacy Policy, and stop when the School disconnects it. The connected system remains the School's system of record; information shown in the Service (for example an assignment's due date or whether work is marked handed in) is a copy that may lag behind it, and a student remains responsible for submitting work where the School requires. We are not responsible for another provider's system, its availability, or changes it makes that affect an Integration, and we may suspend an Integration that stops working correctly or safely until it is fixed. A new Integration we add is off for every School until that School turns it on.
Where a School enables the parent panel, parents and guardians the School's records link to a student may view information about that student. With Blackbaud, that is the student's schedule, classes, assignments, grades, attendance, and outstanding forms; without Blackbaud, the School links parents from its rostering provider, student information system, or an uploaded file, and parents see the more limited view described in the Privacy Policy. Who may see which student, and whether grades are visible, is decided by the School's records, not by us; with Blackbaud we honor the parental-access flags the School maintains there. Grades are read only with a parent's own Blackbaud ID, which the parent may link and unlink at will. The panel is read-only and is not a system of record: the School's own system remains authoritative for grades, attendance, and forms, and forms are completed there. The School's administrator can see a log of which student pages each parent viewed. The parent panel is an add-on to a School Agreement and may be enabled or withdrawn by the School.
The Service is also offered as an app for iPhone through Apple's App Store. These Terms govern your use of the app; Apple is not a party to them, has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app, and is not responsible for any claim relating to it, though Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of this Section and may enforce it against you. To the extent Apple's minimum terms for app developers require different terms, those apply. The app's reminders are optional, are scheduled on your device only, and can be turned off at any time; see the Privacy Policy. You must comply with any applicable third-party terms when using the app.
For School deployments, fees, payment terms, and the subscription period are set out in the applicable School Agreement or order form. Except as required by law or expressly stated in the School Agreement, fees are non-refundable.
We provide the Service on an "as available" basis and may modify, add, or discontinue features. Because the Service depends on third-party systems (including Google), we do not guarantee uninterrupted availability or that all data will always be captured, current, or complete. Any service-level commitments, if offered, are stated only in a School Agreement. Features labeled beta, preview, or evaluation are provided without any warranty and may change or be withdrawn.
The AI features (the Coach, also called Gabriel; photo reading; email summaries; smart search; and study-material generation) run on shared computing capacity in our own Amazon Web Services account (Anthropic’s Claude model, through Amazon Bedrock). To keep them responsive for every student at a School, they are subject to usage limits: a cap on the number of AI requests each account may make per minute and per rolling 24-hour period, a limit of one AI request in progress per account at a time, a time limit per request, and a daily ceiling for a deployment as a whole. One message can use more than one request when the Coach takes steps for you or reads a photo. When a limit is reached the request is declined with an explanatory message and the limit resets automatically; the rest of the Service continues to work. Current limits are shown in the app (Settings → AI features) and on our error reference. We may adjust limits to protect availability, and a School Agreement may specify different limits. Attempting to circumvent these limits is a breach of Section 8.
The AI features generate text from a language model. That output may be inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date, and it is not advice from your teacher or School. You are responsible for your own work and for checking AI output against your assignment's actual instructions. Your School's academic-integrity and acceptable-use policies govern how you may use AI features, and, as described in the Privacy Policy, School staff can view Coach conversations. We do not claim ownership of the AI output produced for you; you may use it subject to these Terms and your School's policies.
Changes the AI features make for you. When you ask, the Coach can make changes within your own School Workbench account, such as adjusting your plan, adding a to-do or calendar event, or changing a setting. It has only the access you have and cannot do anything you could not do yourself. It can misunderstand a request, so you are responsible for checking the result. Deleting something or recording attendance takes effect only after you confirm it. These changes stay inside the Service: the Coach cannot submit work for you, change a grade or a due date set by a teacher or School, or change anything in a Connected Account or an Integration.
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. The Service is an organizational aid and not a system of record; Users remain solely responsible for their own deadlines, assignments, and academic obligations. We do not warrant that the Service will be error-free or that dates or messages shown will be accurate or complete.
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, NEITHER PARTY WILL BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, DATA, OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE. Our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Service is limited as set out in the applicable School Agreement or, absent one, to the greater of the fees paid for the Service in the 12 months before the claim, or US$100. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you.
To the extent permitted by law, and subject to any different allocation in a School Agreement, each party will defend and indemnify the other against third-party claims arising from that party's breach of these Terms or violation of law, subject to prompt notice, sole control of the defense, and reasonable cooperation. Where a party (such as a public School) is legally unable to provide indemnification, this Section applies to it only to the extent the law permits.
We may suspend a User's or a School's access, in whole or in part, where reasonably necessary to protect the Service or other users — for example, in response to a security threat, suspected unauthorized access, or a material breach of these Terms. Where practical we will give notice and restore access promptly once the issue is resolved.
These Terms apply while you use the Service. A User or School may stop using the Service at any time, disconnect a Connected Account, and request deletion of stored School Data. On termination of a School Agreement, we will delete or return School Data as described in that agreement and the Privacy Policy, subject to any short retention required for backups, security, or law. Disconnecting a Connected Account revokes the Service's access token and stops further reading of that account.
Each party will protect the other's non-public information disclosed in connection with the Service, using it only to perform under these Terms and protecting it with reasonable care. This does not apply to information that is public through no fault of the receiving party, independently developed, or required to be disclosed by law (with notice where permitted).
We may update these Terms from time to time. For material changes, we will provide reasonable notice (for example, by updating the "Last updated" date and, in a School deployment, notifying the School). Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance. Where a School Agreement governs, changes to it are made only as that agreement provides.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Rhode Island, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The parties submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Providence County, Rhode Island, except that a School Agreement may specify a different governing law, venue, or dispute-resolution process, which will control for that deployment.
If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger or sale of assets. Neither party is liable for delays caused by events beyond its reasonable control. We will not name a School as a customer, or use its name or logo, in marketing without its written consent. Except as stated in Section 12a, there are no third-party beneficiaries of these Terms. Notices to us should be sent to the contact below. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any applicable School Agreement and Data Processing Addendum, are the entire agreement between the parties regarding the Service. Sections on data ownership, privacy, confidentiality, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, deletion of data, and governing law survive termination.
Accessibility. We aim for the Service to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA and will work to fix accessibility problems reported to us at support@schoolworkbench.com.
Questions about these Terms: support@schoolworkbench.com, School Workbench, LLC, Lincoln, Rhode Island.