Terms of Use

The short version

These Terms of Use ("Terms") are an agreement between you and Lauren Fulton, LLC ("TeacherPuzzle", "we", "us"). Lauren Fulton, LLC also makes The Game Room and The Arcade. They cover the TeacherPuzzle iPhone app and the website at teacherpuzzle.com (together, the "Service"). By visiting or using TeacherPuzzle, including by creating an account or by playing without one, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which explains what we collect and why.

If you do not agree, please do not use TeacherPuzzle.

Who can use TeacherPuzzle

• Teachers and school staff. TeacherPuzzle is made for teachers, educators and other school staff. It is not for students, and there are no student accounts.
• You tell us you are one. When you sign up, you check a box confirming that you are a teacher or school staff member and that you agree to these Terms and the Privacy Policy. We rely on that confirmation; we do not verify your employment. If we learn that an account belongs to a student or to someone who is not an educator, we may delete it.
• Your school email. Please use your school email where you can. A personal address works too; we do not check the address.
• Anyone can play today's puzzles without an account. Without an account you do not see your rank, and nothing about you is stored on our servers.

Accounts and signing in

• Email codes, no passwords. You sign in with your email address. We send a 6-digit code to that address; it expires after 15 minutes. There is no password to create or remember.
• One account per person. Please use a single account, in your own name. Do not create accounts for other people, and do not share your account with anyone.
• Keep your email secure. Anyone who can read your email can sign in to your TeacherPuzzle account. Protect your email account, and tell us at [email protected] if you think someone else has used your account.
• Staying signed in. Once you sign in, you stay signed in on that phone or browser for up to 10 years, unless you go a full year without opening TeacherPuzzle, sign out, or delete your account. Use Sign out in Settings on a shared device.
• Accurate details. Your first name is required and is shown to other teachers in the places described under "Your content". Everything else in your profile (role, grade band, subject, country, US state, school) is optional. Keep what you enter truthful.

TeacherPuzzle is free

Every puzzle, every rank and every feature is free. There are no purchases, subscriptions or in-app payments, and we never ask for payment details.

We may offer optional paid features in the future. Anything paid will be clearly marked as paid, and it will never be required to play the free daily puzzles.

If you download the app from the Apple App Store, Apple's App Store terms also apply to the download itself. Apple is not a party to these Terms and has no responsibility for the Service, its content or any claim about it; Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

Acceptable use

TeacherPuzzle works because teachers play honestly against each other. Please do not:

• Cheat. Do not use scripts, bots, solvers, browser automation or anything else that plays for you or submits scores you did not earn. Do not look up or share a day's answers before midnight Eastern Time, when that day's grades lock.
• Game the rankings. Do not create extra accounts to push your percentile up or someone else's down.
• Choose abusive names. Your first name, your school name, and any Staff Room name you create are seen by other teachers. Do not use names that are offensive, hateful, sexual, misleading or that target another person. We may change or remove any name.
• Impersonate anyone. Do not pretend to be another teacher, a school, TeacherPuzzle, or the makers of The Game Room or The Arcade.
• Break in. Do not try to access another teacher's account, our servers, or data that is not yours; do not probe, scan or overload the Service; do not interfere with anyone else's use of it.
• Copy the Service. Do not scrape, bulk-download, republish or resell the puzzles, the apps or the website, or use them to build a competing product (see "Puzzles and brand" below for what you may do).
• Enter student data. TeacherPuzzle is for you, not your students. Never enter information about students anywhere in the Service.
• Break the law. Do not use TeacherPuzzle for anything unlawful.

If you break these rules we may correct or remove your scores, rename or remove content, suspend your account, or delete it (see "Availability, changes and ending your account").

Your content

You give us a small amount of content: your first name and the optional profile details, the name and school of any Staff Room you create, and the challenge links you make on the website. You keep ownership of it.

So that TeacherPuzzle can work, you give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to store that content and to show it inside the Service, in the ways these Terms and the Privacy Policy describe:

• Your first name and daily results are shown to the members of any Staff Room you have joined.
• Your first name and one result are shown to anyone who opens a challenge link you created.
• Your results count, anonymously, toward the percentiles every other teacher sees.
• A Staff Room's name, code and school are shown to its members. If you created a room and later delete your account, the room stays if other teachers are still in it.

This licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for content that must remain for other teachers (a Staff Room that still has members) and the anonymous part your results play in percentiles already calculated. We never show your email, school, role, subject or state to other teachers.

You are responsible for what you enter. Do not enter anything you do not have the right to share, and nothing that breaks the "Acceptable use" rules.

Puzzles and brand

The puzzles (including The Curve, Code Word, Equate, Between Bells, Red Pen, Seating Chart and Letterman), their questions, answers, word lists and designs, the TeacherPuzzle name and logo, the apps, the website, the artwork and the code all belong to TeacherPuzzle or its licensors and are protected by copyright and trademark law. Third-party fonts, libraries and fact sources are credited under "Credits" below.

What you may do

• Play the puzzles for your own personal, non-commercial enjoyment, on the app and the website.
• Share your result cards and challenge links anywhere you like. They are made for sharing.
• Use puzzles in your classroom. You may show or use a puzzle with your own students in class, on a screen or printed, as part of your teaching. Please credit "TeacherPuzzle" when you do. You may not resell or republish puzzle sets.

What you may not do

• Copy, republish, sell or license the puzzles or any collection of them, in any medium, outside the Service.
• Use the TeacherPuzzle name, logo or designs to suggest that your product, page or service is ours or is endorsed by us.
• Remove copyright or trademark notices, or decompile, reverse engineer or modify the app or website, except where the law allows it regardless of these Terms.

If you send us an idea or suggestion (a puzzle idea, a feature, a fix), you agree we may use it without owing you anything. We appreciate every one.

Scores, ranks and leaderboards

• How ranks work. Your percentile for a puzzle compares your result with every other teacher who played that puzzle. Where you have given a grade band and US state, we also show how you compare with teachers in the same grade band and state. Letter grades come from your percentile.
• Grades lock at midnight. A puzzle's final percentiles are settled after its day ends (midnight Eastern Time). Until then the numbers you see are provisional and move as more teachers play.
• We may recalculate or correct. If we find an error in a puzzle, a grading bug, or scores that were not earned fairly, we may recalculate percentiles, correct or remove results, and adjust streaks and Staff Room standings. We will try to be fair and transparent when we do.
• Streaks and stats depend on the dates you play, in Eastern Time. Travelling across time zones can shift what counts as "today".
• No prizes. There are no prizes or contests. Ranks, grades, streaks and leaderboards are for fun and bragging rights in the staff room. They have no cash value and are not a reward program.

Emails we send

• Sign-in codes and account emails. We email you a code each time you sign in, and we may email you about your account or important changes to the Service or these Terms. You cannot turn these off while you have an account, because the Service cannot work without them.
• The daily rank email (optional). If you turn it on, the morning after you play (around 6 AM Eastern Time) we email you your final percentiles, your best game and your streak, with a link to today's puzzles. It is on by default when you create an account; you can turn it off at any time in Settings › Emails, or with the one-click unsubscribe link in every email. Turning it off is recorded in your consent history. The email may include one sponsored message from another company, always clearly labeled "Sponsored" and kept separate from your results. We do not give sponsors your address or any other information about you.
• News from the makers (optional). If you tick the box (it is never pre-ticked), we may email you about events like the Engage conference, new games, and classroom resources from The Game Room and The Arcade, which are also made by Lauren Fulton, LLC. Every one has a one-click unsubscribe link, and you can turn them off at any time in Settings › Emails.
• Texts (optional, US and Canadian numbers only). If you add your mobile number, confirm it with the code we text you, and choose to get texts, we may text you about the same kind of news. Texts are sent only between 8 AM and 9 PM your time (see the Privacy Policy), message and data rates may apply, and you can reply STOP to any text to stop them. Changing or removing your number turns texts off.

Every email we send comes from a teacherpuzzle.com address: sign-in codes from [email protected], the daily rank email from [email protected] and news from [email protected]. Replies reach our team. Our emails use open and click tracking, linked to your account, as the Privacy Policy describes. We do not send email for other companies, and we do not sell or rent your address. A sponsored message in the daily rank email is part of our own email.

Text messages

These terms apply if you sign up for TeacherPuzzle texts.

• What they are. TeacherPuzzle texts are recurring marketing texts about events, new games and offers from TeacherPuzzle, The Game Room and The Arcade (all made by Lauren Fulton, LLC). Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply.
• Signing up. Add your mobile number in Settings, confirm it with the 6-digit code we text you, and turn on "Text me news and offers". By turning it on you agree to receive recurring marketing texts from TeacherPuzzle at that number. Consent is not a condition of using TeacherPuzzle or of any purchase. Only US and Canadian (+1) mobile numbers can sign up, and you must be the account holder or regular user of the number.
• Stopping. Reply STOP to any text to cancel. You may receive one final text confirming that you are unsubscribed; after that we send no more marketing texts to that number unless you sign up again. Turning texts off in Settings, or changing or removing your number, also stops them.
• Help. Reply HELP to any text, or email [email protected].
• Timing and delivery. We only text between 8 AM and 9 PM your time. Texts are delivered by our provider, Pingram, through the mobile carriers. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages, and we do not guarantee delivery.
• Privacy. We do not sell or share your mobile number or text opt-in for anyone else's marketing. See "Text messages" in the Privacy Policy.

House ads for The Game Room and The Arcade

TeacherPuzzle shows cards that promote The Game Room (classgameroom.com) and The Arcade. These are our own products: Lauren Fulton, LLC makes all three. In the app and on the website they are the only advertising: there are no third-party ads and no ad networks. The only other advertising is the optional sponsored message that the daily rank email may include (see "Emails we send"). We do not record whether you see or tap a card. When you are signed in, The Game Room link includes a random identifier that is not your email (see the Privacy Policy).

Tapping a card opens that product's website in your browser. Those websites have their own terms and privacy policies, which apply once you are there. We do not pass your email, name or other TeacherPuzzle account details to them.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time, by yourself, from Settings in the app (Me › Settings › "Delete my account…") or on the website (Account settings › Delete my account). We ask you to confirm, because deletion is immediate and cannot be undone. Deleting removes:

• your profile, results and Curve estimates;
• your consent records and email and text preferences (which also stops the daily rank email, news and texts);
• your mobile number, and the open, click and delivery records and message copies linked to your account;
• your Staff Room memberships (a room you created is removed too if nobody else is left in it);
• challenge links you created;
• your push notification tokens;
• your sign-in sessions, codes and account record, including your email address.

One thing stays: a one-way hash (SHA-256) of your email address, marked "account deleted", with the date. It cannot be turned back into your address. We keep it so that your address is never added back to a mailing list by mistake. Your scores stop counting toward anyone's percentile. After deletion you can still play today's puzzles without an account, and you are welcome to create a new account later; your old streak and history will not come back.

You can also email [email protected] from your account address and we will delete the account for you within 30 days.

Availability, changes and ending your account

• Changes to the Service. TeacherPuzzle is a small, free product and it will keep changing. We may add, change, pause or retire games and features, change how ranks are calculated, or change the daily schedule, at any time. Where a change matters to you, we will try to tell you in the app first.
• Downtime. We aim to publish new puzzles every day, but we do not promise that the Service will always be available or error-free. Puzzles are sometimes published as generated, before a human has reviewed them, and may contain mistakes.
• Ending it. We may stop offering TeacherPuzzle altogether. If we do, we will give notice in the app or by email where we can, and the Privacy Policy explains what happens to your data. We will give at least 30 days' notice.
• Suspending or closing your account. We may suspend or delete an account that breaks these Terms, that we reasonably believe belongs to a student or to someone who is not a teacher or school staff member, or that we are required to close by law. Where it is reasonable to do so, we will tell you why. We never delete an account for inactivity; only the sign-in session ends after a year unused, and signing in again brings everything back.
• Leaving. You can stop using TeacherPuzzle at any time. Deleting your account ends these Terms for you, except for the sections that by their nature should survive (your content licence for what remains, "Puzzles and brand", "Disclaimers and limitation of liability", and "Governing law").

Disclaimers and limitation of liability

TeacherPuzzle is provided free of charge, "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent the law allows, we make no warranties, express or implied, about the Service, including that it will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, that puzzle answers are correct, or that ranks and scores are accurate. We do not warrant that the Service will suit any particular purpose, including any use in your teaching.

To the fullest extent the law allows, TeacherPuzzle and the people who make it will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, goodwill or opportunity, arising from your use of, or inability to use, the Service. Our total liability to you for all claims relating to the Service is limited to US $100.

Some places do not allow some of these limitations. Where that applies to you, the limitations apply only as far as the law permits, and nothing in these Terms removes rights that you have as a consumer which cannot be limited by contract.

You agree to use the Service in line with these Terms. If your breach of these Terms causes a claim against us by someone else, you agree to cover the reasonable costs, including reasonable legal fees, that the claim causes us, to the extent the claim arises from your breach.

Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute that we cannot resolve informally will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Smith County, Texas, and you and we agree to the jurisdiction of those courts. There is no arbitration requirement and no class-action waiver in these Terms. If you live outside the United States, local consumer law may give you additional rights that this section does not take away.

Before going to court, please email us. Most problems can be fixed in a day with a conversation.

Changes to these Terms

When we change these Terms, we update the dates at the top. If a change is significant, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect, and we may ask you to accept the new version before you continue. Your acceptance, with the wording version you accepted, is recorded in your consent history (Settings › Consent history). If you do not agree to a change, stop using the Service and delete your account.

Credits

• Fonts. Oswald, Quantico and Allison are used under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. Roboto is used under the Apache License 2.0. The licence texts ship inside the app.
• Libraries. The website uses the Convex client (Apache License 2.0) and qrcodejs by davidshimjs (MIT License); their licence files are published with the site.
• Facts. Each question in The Curve names its public source (for example the National Park Service, NASA or the Library of Congress) next to the answer. Those facts belong to their sources; the questions, scoring and curves are ours.

Other terms

• These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service.
• If a court finds part of these Terms unenforceable, the rest still applies.
• If we do not enforce a term right away, we can still enforce it later.
• You may not transfer your account or these Terms to anyone else. If TeacherPuzzle is ever transferred to another operator, these Terms transfer with it, and we will tell you first.

Contact

Lauren Fulton, LLC
[email protected]
3320 Troup Hwy Unit 132831
Tyler, TX 75713, United States