If you've just joined us, welcome! Now is a great time to get involved and discover the fun of participating! To get started, here are some quick tips and important guidelines.

Before you sign up, please be aware of the following policies, including who can participate at ProTeacher, and our strict view on commercial messages, public service, blog and website announcements:

Who Can Participate

All of our boards are intended exclusively for professional teachers and staff (including classroom teachers, specialists, substitute teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, and student teachers) working in early childhood, elementary grades K-6 and middle school. We also welcome retired and former PreK-8 teachers with a continuing professional interest in teaching. We are NOT a homeschooling site.

Reporters, authors, students, parents, and all other non-teachers seeking teacher opinions should contact ProTeacher for permission prior to posting. Student teachers in classroom teaching experiences are welcome to post. Education majors are welcome to post on certain boards, but should wait until their student teaching begins before posting on other boards (although they are always welcome to listen in!) See our Participation Guidelines for a special note to Future Teachers.

Advertisers, Individuals and Organizations

Advertisers, individuals, and organizations with news relevant to elementary school teaching are invited to post ONE announcement on our Advertisements Board, a link to which can be found on our Home page. Advertisers are further invited to read our Advertising Information page for other promotional opportunities.

All other commercial messages and public service announcements are not allowed and shall be removed promptly. Contacting our visitors for commercial purposes except as mentioned above is not allowed. In particular, unauthorized collection and/or use of email addresses is strictly not allowed.

You are considered an advertiser if you are promoting something such as a product, a service, a website, a blog, an organization, an event -even yourself- regardless of whether your intent is commercial or noncommercial. Do the right and proper thing. Click here to post on the Advertisements board.

Speakers and Authors of Books, Blogs & Websites

See 'Advertisers' section above.

Participate, but do not promote. If you are a teacher, you may share ideas with us, but you must NOT mention your service, product, book, blog, or website. Treat us as friends and colleagues, not as an opportunity!

Please do not announce your website or blog on ProTeacher regardless of whether or not your site is commercial. To preserve the friendly community atmosphere, ALL web site and blog announcements are strictly not allowed* (contact ProTeacher via the suggestions link on the home page to suggest your site or blog for inclusion in the Directory portion of the site). (*One exception only: Teachers are welcome to share their class websites or classroom blogs for the purpose of sharing ideas and getting feedback. A class website or classroom blog is a website created expressly for communicating with one's own students and their parents.) Similarly, avatars and other images or attachments you post may not be used as vehicles for advertising.

See our Participation Guidelines page for more guidelines for participating at ProTeacher. Visitor understands that our Participation Guidelines may be revised and updated from time to time without notice. Visitor agrees to abide by ProTeacher Community guidelines and rules.

Avatars

Avatars are small images that appear under your User Name when you post a message. Avatars may not contain web addresses, product or company names, or other words or symbols of a promotional nature.

While all our boards are intended exclusively for professional teachers (including classroom teachers, specialists, substitute teachers, administrators, and student teachers), please keep in mind that ProTeacher is a public venue. As such, parents, and even students can (and do) occasionally access and read our discussions.

With this in mind, it is important to never mention real names of students, parents, or colleagues. Also, we should be especially careful when engaging in talk about others.

American humorist Will Rogers is quoted as saying, "Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip".

We think that's very good advice for discussions on ProTeacher and elsewhere.

Reproduction of messages is granted for personal use only. Messages may not be republished or exchanged in print or electronic forms without the express written permission of ProTeacher and the respective authors. Do not post other people's messages on web site(s) or transmit them to others through email or newsletters. In particular, all commercial and/or organizational use is strictly forbidden.

Graphics including but not limited to the 'post a message' pencil design are strictly copyrighted and may not be used elsewhere. ProTeacher and the "PT" logo are registered service marks (trademarks).

By posting messages here, you grant ProTeacher the royalty-free non-exclusive perpetual right to compile, edit, modify, adapt, archive, reproduce, display, distribute, license to others, create derivative works of, and publish your messages in this and all other forms now in existence or hereafter devised (both electronic and print) at our discretion without any liability or obligation of any kind to you. BusyBoard messages are routinely saved for the future benefit of ProTeacher, the ProTeacher Community, our visitors, members and teachers everywhere. All other rights remain with you.

ProTeacher respects the intellectual property rights (copyright) of others. Please only post material that you write or create yourself. ProTeacher will investigate instances of alleged infringement when they are brought to our attention.