These Terms govern your use of the Teach for a Cause website and program (the “Program”). By creating an account you agree to these Terms, our Privacy Policy, and — depending on your role — the Parent/Guardian Consent, Tutor Agreement, Messaging Guidelines, and Code of Conduct. If you do not agree, do not use the Program.
1. What the Program is
Teach for a Cause is a student-led volunteer program. High school students in grades 9–12 (“Tutors”) volunteer to teach band and orchestra instruments to middle school students (“Students”) over Google Meet, free of charge. The Program is not a school, a commercial tutoring service, or an employer, and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by any school or school district.
2. Who can use it
- Parent accounts are created by a parent or legal guardian (18 or older), who adds and manages up to six Students (middle school students in grades 6–8) and signs the consent form for each. A Student cannot create their own account; a Student who tries can only ask us to email their parent an invitation. A parent account is created only after the parent enters a code we email to them. Until consent is signed, a Student cannot request lessons, message anyone, or be seen by Tutors.
- Tutor accounts are for high school students in grades 9–12. A Tutor must sign the Tutor Agreement and give a parent or guardian’s name and email. That parent or guardian must approve the Tutor’s participation from the link we email them, and the Tutor’s account must pass the Program’s automated account check (section 8), before the Tutor is shown to Students. Accounts the check can’t clear are reviewed by a Program administrator. A parent or guardian can withdraw their approval at any time, which pauses the Tutor. Tutors may be paused or removed at any time (see section 8).
- Administrators sign in with a password and a code from an authenticator app.
- The Program operates in North Carolina. Lessons are scheduled and shown in Eastern Time.
3. Lessons are free — and online only
- Lessons are always free. No one may request, offer, or accept payment, gifts, or anything of value for a lesson.
- All lessons take place on Google Meet. In-person meetings arranged through the Program are prohibited.
- Lessons may not be recorded by anyone, by any means.
- A Student’s parent or guardian must be home or nearby and reachable by phone or text for the full duration of every lesson. Before joining, the family confirms this on the site.
- The Tutor’s Google Meet link is shown only from 15 minutes before a booked lesson until 15 minutes after it ends, and is never sent by email.
- Requests, lessons, and messages involving a Student are shared with the Student’s parent or guardian, including through the parent’s private link.
4. Donations
Families may choose to donate to the Program’s current nonprofit partner. Donations are made directly on the partner’s own website, are entirely optional, and are never a condition of, or exchange for, lessons. Teach for a Cause never collects, holds, processes, or transfers money of any kind. Questions about a donation, including receipts and tax treatment, should be directed to the nonprofit that received it.
5. Volunteer hours
Hours are verified in two steps. After a lesson ends, the Tutor logs whether it happened, and the next time the Student’s account (or their parent’s) opens the site, it asks whether the Tutor was there (step 1). Our nonprofit partner (or, until a partner is confirmed, the Program administrator) then reviews student-verified lessons weekly and certifies them (step 2). Only certified hours appear on a Tutor’s printable record and verification link. If the Student says the Tutor wasn’t there, the lesson does not count and is reviewed by the Program. The Program does not guarantee that any school, honor society, or other organization will accept these hours toward its requirements. Hours that are not confirmed, or that are rejected on review, are not counted. A Tutor may create a private link that lets an organization they choose see their verified totals, and can turn it off at any time.
6. Matching and skill information
Tutor skill levels and experience are self-reported and are not independently verified. Match scores are a suggestion based on the information users provide (such as instruments, level, availability, goals, and interests). Students and parents decide which Tutor to request, and Tutors decide which requests to accept. Tutors may offer to teach a Student or propose a lesson time; nothing is booked unless the Student or parent accepts.
7. Your responsibilities
- Provide accurate information and keep it up to date.
- Answer truthfully whenever the site asks you to confirm something, including whether a lesson happened. Tutors confirm each lesson log is truthful, and Students and parents confirm each attendance answer is truthful. A false log or answer affects someone’s official volunteer record and may lead to removal from the Program; we may tell the nonprofit partner verifying hours.
- Keep your password secure and do not share your account. Sign out on shared devices.
- Follow the Messaging Guidelines and Code of Conduct.
- Keep all Program communication on the Program’s messaging system.
- Report any concern immediately using “Report a concern” in your dashboard. In an emergency, call 911 first.
8. Automated checks, safety reviews, pausing, and removal
Tutor account check. Every Tutor account is checked automatically when the Tutor signs up or changes their profile, and again every day. The check reads the Tutor’s names, their parent or guardian’s name and email, school, grade, bio, and Google Meet link; every message in the Tutor’s conversations from the last 30 days; open safety flags and reports involving the Tutor; and lesson attendance records. It looks for things like faked parent approval, contact details or payment requests in a profile, unsafe language, patterns of concern across a conversation, a Student asking the Tutor to stop, and Students repeatedly saying the Tutor wasn’t at a logged lesson. A Tutor who passes goes live once their parent has approved. A Tutor who doesn’t pass waits, or, for a serious safety signal, is paused and their upcoming lessons are cancelled. In both cases a Program administrator reviews the account. The check never lifts a pause; only a person does. If you think a decision about your account is wrong, contact chouksey.arnav@gmail.com or use “Report a concern,” and a person will review it.
The Program may review messages, lesson records, and reports to keep participants safe. Messages are checked automatically by software that runs on our own systems, without sending message contents to any outside or artificial-intelligence service; flagged messages may be hidden and are reviewed by a Program administrator. We may pause or remove any account at any time, including while a concern is being investigated. A safety report from a connected Student or parent, or a serious automated safety flag, may automatically pause the Tutor and cancel their upcoming lessons until it is reviewed. Automated checks are an extra layer of protection, not a guarantee; please always report anything that worries you.
9. Third-party services
Lessons take place on Google Meet, which is operated by Google under Google’s own terms and privacy policy. The Program does not control Google Meet. The website is hosted with service providers listed in the Privacy Policy.
10. Disclaimers and limitation of liability
The Program is provided by volunteers “as is” and “as available.” To the fullest extent permitted by law, Teach for a Cause, its organizers, volunteers, and partners disclaim all warranties and are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from use of the Program. Parents and guardians remain responsible for supervising their children’s participation. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited under North Carolina law.
11. Ending your participation
You may stop participating at any time. A parent or guardian may withdraw consent at any time — from their dashboard or from the private link we emailed them — which cancels upcoming lessons. A parent or guardian of a Student account can also delete that account from the private link. For any other deletion request, contact chouksey.arnav@gmail.com.
12. Changes
We may update these Terms. When we make material changes we will update the version and effective date, and may ask you to accept the new version before continuing to use the Program.
13. Governing law and contact
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina. Questions: chouksey.arnav@gmail.com.