TERMS OF SERVICE
Homeschool Family

ASK Homeschool Community (hereafter referred to as ASKhc) Usage Agreement

By submitting your request to join ASKhc, you understand and agree to the following terms and conditions.

ASKhc Commitment (what ASKhc will do for you)

1. ASKhc Mission
   • Be the voice of the average family, advocating the need for affordable quality educational resources for parents to teach their children at home.
      
   • Provide personalized curricula and resource opportunities to all families at an affordable cost. 
      
   • Have companies that work with ASKhc be instilled with pride knowing they had a hand in providing quality education to families that wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford it.
      
   • To be honest and to follow any rules set by the terms of service of any website. ASKhc will never intentionally break the rules listed under the terms of service of any website, and we ask that all ASKhc members do the same. 
      
2. ASKhc Services 
   • Initiate contact with companies to establish a working relationship for the purpose of providing resources to ASKhc members.
      
   • Communicate these opportunities and costs to ASKhc members via one or more of the following: 
     • ASKhc website
     • ASKhc Facebook group
     • ASKhc Weekly Newsletter
     • ASKhc It's Time to Renew emails
        
   • Collect cost-share payments from ASKhc members to pay for the resources they've signed up for, and ensure those funds are delivered to each company on behalf of ASKhc members.
      
   • Set up purchased student, teacher, classroom, and/or family accounts or inform members how to set up access for accounts purchased through ASKhc.
      
   • Welcome emails will be sent to the teacher email address you provided ASKhc on the signup form you submitted. Welcome emails will have all the necessary information for ASKhc members to access the resource they've purchased and will be sent from [email protected].
      
   • Support for any resource purchased through ASKhc will be offered by emailing [email protected]. As mentioned in the Members section below, you must contact ASKhc for any issues with any resource you paid for through ASKhc. If you paid the company directly, please contact them for any technical support needed.
      
3. ASKhc Membership
   • Membership to ASKhc.org will provide access to all ASKhc sign-up forms and a place to keep records of resources joined for easy recordkeeping. Our hope is families can easily find resources that will enhance their homeschool journey and an easy place to see what they've previously purchased.
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   • There are currently no annual fees for any family to join ASKhc but this may change if we're unable to raise enough to cover the costs necessary to cover the ASKhc resources (website, Cheddar Up, Zoom, plus other resources required to make ASKhc run smoothly). Just a reminder, ASKhc is run entirely by volunteers and no one receives any compensation for their time or services provided to ASKhc. All volunteers, including the director, pay their own cost-shares, plus any fees required to get their cost-share to ASKhc.
      
   • In the future, if we need to gather funds for the website we may ask that all members pay a cost-share of approximately $10 per family to keep the ASKhc.org website active or add a per-resource, website fee to cost-shares. Like all other ASKhc costs, this will depend on how many choose to continue their membership and will be cheaper the more families that choose to stay. (For example: less than 210 families = $10 per family, 350 families = $6 per family, 500 families = $4 per family)
     • If you choose to not renew with ASKhc.org, the resources you have paid for will continue until the expiration date mentioned on the confirmed spreadsheet or the welcome email you received with your access. You will still receive support for any paid resources and you will still be expected to abide by these terms until all paid resources you've purchased through ASKhc have expired. 
     • If you choose to renew with ASKhc.org, you will be able to continue purchasing resources through ASKhc and renew any resources you previously purchased with ASKhc. 
        
4. Cost-Share Payment
   • ASKhc is an unregistered not-for-profit organization that doesn't add any fees to cover services rendered to its members. When signing up for a resource offered through ASKhc, any official cost-share listed is the amount that the company will charge ASKhc for your access. The amount of your PayPal invoice includes your cost-share plus any fees I'll be charged for using that platform. Cheddar Up will charge each member these fees and is generally cheaper than PayPal.
      
   • When allowed, ASKhc will add students and/or teachers after a resource has already been paid for. When this occurs, each family’s cost-share will go to ASKhc Fund and will be used for the following and in this order: 1) Pay for the resources ASKhc needs to keep running. 2) Help ASKhc families in need afford their cost-share. 3) Help lower cost-shares when needed so ASKhc families can better afford the resource. 4) Purchase additional resources/tools to help ASKhc run more smoothly. Any donation to the ASKhc Fund is used for ASKhc and no money ever goes to any ASKhc volunteer, including the admin. Donations are accepted with your cost-share but also through the Cheddar Up fundraiser. If you’d like more information, please email [email protected].
      
5. ASKhc Termination
   • ASKhc reserves the right to suspend or terminate access to ASKhc.org for any Member who is more than 7-14 days past due for any outstanding cost-shares. Any resources that have previously been paid for will continue, as well as any resource support needed until their access expires but the member may not be granted the opportunity to renew.
     This does not apply to any Member who has contacted ASKhc by emailing [email protected] to ask for a payment extension.
      
   • ASKhc reserves the right to suspend or terminate access to any resource for any Member that has violated the ASKhc usage agreement or any company's terms of service for that resource. This includes signing up for a resource but asking to be removed after cost-share information has been sent. Please see ASKhc Etiquette in the Member's section below. 
      

Member Commitment (what you need to do as a member of ASKhc)

The Member agrees to follow the rules and etiquette outlined below. The Member also recognizes ASKhc's need to uphold the law and website standards set forth and agrees to the following:

1. No Direct Contact
   • By requesting to join ASKhc, the Member agrees to not contact any company before, during, or after a group purchase opportunity but to send all questions to [email protected]. Contacting companies can jeopardize a company’s willingness to conduct business with homeschool groups. Please contact the Admin if you need specific examples of companies that refuse to work any longer with homeschool groups for this and other reasons.
      
2. No Sharing Forms or Spreadsheets
   • Signup forms & spreadsheets are for ASKhc members only. The Member agrees to not share these links with any friends, family, or groups but will instead share the link to ASKhc.org with anyone interested in joining.
      
3. Family Use Only
   • Unless otherwise stated, all opportunities organized by ASKhc are for family use only. By requesting to join ASKhc.org, the Member agrees to use any purchased programs with their immediate family unless the company grants other permission. Companies like Generation Genius, Moby Max, Acellus, and many more no longer work with homeschool groups due to many groups going against their terms of service.
      
4. No Email or Pop-up Support
   • The Member agrees to email [email protected] for any issues with a resource purchased through ASKhc. Most companies provide ASKhc with a dedicated service manager to manage our account and this is the reason we receive a discount. It helps companies to only deal with one person instead of hundreds of families at a time. In fact, some companies now refuse to deal with homeschool groups due to families contacting the companies instead of contacting the organizer. Therefore, every member of ASKhc must abide by this rule as it can jeopardize a company's willingness to allow us to use their program.
      
5. ASKhc Etiquette
   • When submitting an ASKhc signup form, you are committing your intent to purchase the program you’re signing up for. The majority of signup forms allow you to choose your cost-share limit (the highest price you are willing to pay) for a resource. If our official cost-share is at or lower than the cost-share limit you choose, other families are trusting that you will fulfill your obligation to pay your share of the resource cost. Any member who signs up for a buy but doesn't pay their part will cause the count and cost-share split to be inaccurate. This can make a buy be short on funding and even cause it to be canceled. If you decide against a buy or need to make changes to your form, please contact [email protected] as soon as possible and specifically prior to the cost-share tally date. Please take time to research a program before completing the signup form to avoid the possibility of your ASKhc membership being suspended or terminated. 
      
6. Responsibility
   • Each member is responsible for keeping track of their own ASKhc sign-up form answers (Google sends a confirmation of each form submitted to the email address you choose), purchases, usernames, passwords, emails, etc. While ASKhc does keep these records, it takes time and effort to locate and email them to you. 
      
   • The Member is responsible for taking the time to read the materials provided for them. No matter how much we love to communicate with you, much of the information you are looking for is provided somewhere on this site. Please take time to read the registration page, sign-up form, welcome announcements/emails, and/or the forums/posts to help us be available for the questions that aren't answered there. 
      
   • When posting and emailing be polite, patient, and helpful. Please remember ASKhc is run solely by volunteers and each buy offered or even checked on has several steps that must be done to make it even possible. We do our best to get each task done in a timely manner, but we do have many other responsibilities. You are also a big part of the group so please, if you know an answer or have a question that would be beneficial for the group post in a forum.

Lastly, we thank you for wanting to be a part of ASK Homeschool Community! Our effort to make educational resources affordable for all could not happen without your participation.