Privacy Policy

Last revised: January 01, 2020

First and Foremost: The Security of Your Most Sensitive Data

Follow this link to read about how we keep your billing information secure.

1. Introduction

Protecting your private information is our priority at Lesson Planet. We want our Members to know about and understand our privacy practices, so we’ve created this document to explain the measures we take to keep our website and services a safe and secure environment for everyone.

Education Planet, Inc., d/b/a Lesson Planet, (“Lesson Planet, “we,” “us,” or “our”) connects educators with relevant Open Educational Resources by providing Members with reviews and ratings from our team of credentialed teachers. We also provide Members with educational technology professional development through online courses and EdTech Tuesday videos. For schools and districts, we create custom blended (online and live) professional development programs on an array of topics from EdTech how-to to classroom and district-wide implementation. Members also have the opportunity to participate online in a variety of ways, including commenting on resources and sharing collections with the Lesson Planet community. Our membership is composed of teachers, student teachers, and school administrators in the K-12 public and private school markets, as well as homeschooling parents.

This Privacy Policy describes what information we collect when you visit Lesson Planet and use our services, how we use that information, and what choices we offer you to update and control it. This Privacy Policy does not apply to any information that may be collected through other sources.

This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and is subject to the Lesson Planet Terms of Use. By using the Lesson Planet website, products, tools, and/or services, you consent to the collection, use, storage, and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy applies regardless of the type of device you use to access Lesson Planet and whether you are accessing the service as a Member or otherwise.

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at support@LessonPlanet.com or by calling (888) 909-9035 (M-F 8:00am – 12:00pm, 1:00pm – 4:30pm PT).

2. Consent

By using the Lesson Planet website, products, tools, and/or services, you consent to the collection and use of your information as outlined in this Privacy Policy, and you consent to our Terms of Use.

3. Types of Information We Collect

Personally Identifiable Information

Personally Identifiable Information is information that can be used to uniquely identify or contact you, and may include, but may not be limited to, your first and last names, title, email address, phone numbers, mail and school addresses, and payment method or other billing information. You can choose not to provide Personally Identifiable Information we may request of you, but, in general, most of the Personally Identifiable Information we request is required in order to provide our services, and the lack of such information will prevent us from doing so.

Aggregate Information

Aggregate Information is data we collect about a group or category of resources, services, or Members. We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose information that does not permit direct association with you. For instance, information about how you use a service might be collected and combined with information about how others use the same service, or information about the curriculum resources you link to from Lesson Planet might be collected and combined with information about the resources chosen by others.

GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation

Lesson Planet proudly protects our visitors and customers with the highest level of data privacy and security. Lesson Planet’s policies for data protection, processing, export, transfer, removal and breach reporting are in full compliance of the General Data Protection Regulation legislation. Response procedures for all requests are available upon request.

4. How We Collect and Use Information

We receive and store information, including Personally Identifiable Information, about you and your use of Lesson Planet. We gather this information in a number of ways, including when you enter it on our website and interact with the Lesson Planet website, products, tools, and/or services.

Information You Provide to Us

Registration
When you sign up for a 10-Day Free Trial for a Premium Membership (access to all Lesson Planet tools, services, and products), Lesson Planet will take steps to validate the payment method and billing information supplied to us to ensure it is accurate. We also use this information to determine your eligibility for our Free Trial offer.

When you join Lesson Planet, if you are not already a Member of Lesson Planet, we’ll ask you to enter your name and email address. Your email address will be verified by an email we send you that contains a unique link. If that link is visited, we know that you control the email address. If you have a Lesson Planet membership, you are automatically able to discuss resources with the Lesson Planet community via comments on resources.

Comments and Profile Information
We understand that you want to share your professional perspective and experiences, freely and safely, on Lesson Planet. We are committed to providing an environment that supports positive collaboration among educators, and we value your contributions to the Lesson Planet community.

We collect information that you voluntarily provide, share, or upload through our site or services, including but not limited to reviews, ratings, comments, posts, responses, messages, feedback, testimonials, files, photos, videos, images, or other contributions through media that are publicly visible (“Comments and Profile Information”). Comments and Profile Information are subject to our Terms of Use. We may store and link Comments and Profile Information to your Member Account.

Member Comments will be moderated or edited by our editorial staff. We will delete or refuse to publish any comments that appear to be on a completely unrelated topic, blatantly and wholly self-promotional, a duplicate posting, otherwise spammy in nature, or inappropriate. We may edit comments for grammatical and spelling errors. You own the copyright and are liable for the contents of your Comments and Profile Information; however, by posting Comments and Profile Information on our site, you give us the rights to publish or republish them in any format at any time we wish, indefinitely and without contacting or compensating you in the future.

Please keep in mind that if you directly disclose Personally Identifiable Information through Lesson Planet comments or Profile Information, this information may be collected and used by others. Information that you voluntarily post in publicly visible parts of Lesson Planet (whether you are signed in as a Member or visiting but not signed in) is considered to be public, even if it would otherwise be considered Personally Identifiable Information. Your Comments may remain even after you cancel your account.

Contests, Sweepstakes, Surveys, and Testing
To participate in certain service-related promotions, including but not limited to contests, sweepstakes, and surveys, there may be a separate registration process that may require/ask you to submit both Personally Identifiable Information and additional information (including your full name, email address, mailing address, phone number, demographic or profile information, etc.). We will use any such information you provide to conduct the promotion (for example, to contact you if you have won).

We are committed to continually improving our services. We may conduct surveys and ask Members to volunteer demographic information to be used on an aggregate basis for internal market research. We use such information to improve our offerings and personalize the services offered to our Members.

Email
If you are a registered Member of Lesson Planet, we may occasionally send you emails to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up-to-date with what’s going on with Lesson Planet, our website, products, tools, and/or services. If you do not want to receive such communications, you may opt out by following the ‘unsubscribe’ instructions in the email, or by changing your email preferences. You can opt out of promotional emails at any time, but you will still receive communications such as receipts, confirmation emails, renewal reminders, and Member Success Team updates that are considered necessary to provide our services to you.

If you correspond with us or provide feedback by email, we may retain the content of your email messages, your email address, and our responses. If you send us a request (for example via an email to Member Success Team or one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to use and/or publish it in order to help us clarify or respond to your request, to help us support other Members, to develop the most useful services and features possible, and to market our services to others.

Social Media
Lesson Planet includes social media features on our site, such as the Facebook “Like” button and the Pinterest “Pinit” button. These features may collect information such as your IP address and which page you are visiting on our site, and they may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. If you use any third-party social media services that are integrated with our products and services, we may receive Personally Identifiable Information that you have made available via those services. Social media features are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our site. Your interactions with these features are governed by the Privacy Policy of the company providing them.

Member Success Team
We collect personal information when you submit comments, questions, or suggestions to our Member Success department through our feedback tab, or by email, phone, or live chat. We are committed to improving our services, and your feedback and suggestions are essential to helping us do so. We use information you provide to respond to your submission and may use your feedback to improve our services.

Supplemental Information We May Collect from Other Sources
We may supplement information you provide us with information from other sources, such as information to validate or update your address or payment method.

School Edition Accounts
If you have a School Edition account, your administrator may be able to do the following:

  • access information in and about your School Edition account;
  • disclose, restrict, or access information that you have provided or that is made available to you when using your School Edition account; and
  • control how your School Edition account may be activated, accessed, or deleted.

Information Collected Automatically

When you use Lesson Planet, we or our service providers may collect and analyze certain types of information including, but not limited to, information related to the ways you access or interact with the service. We may also gather other data, such as keyword searches you conduct and your search results. The information helps us provide improved services, including customized email notifications.

Cookies

Most Aggregate Information is collected via cookies, web beacons, and other technical methods.

A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. A cookie contains a unique number that allows Lesson Planet to recognize your computer. We use both session (temporary) and persistent cookies. A session cookie tracks visitor activity during a session or visit and expires when you close your browser. We use them to provide continuity for your visit as you navigate website pages. A persistent cookie remains on your computer after you close your browser so that it can be used by your browser on subsequent visits to the service. Persistent cookies, for example, allow us to keep track of your username and password (if you are a Member), so you don’t have to re-enter that information each time you visit.

Persistent cookies can be removed by following your web browser’s directions. The Help function on most Internet browsers contains information on how to set your web browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some features of Lesson Planet may not function properly if cookies are disabled.

We use web beacons (also known as clear gifs) on some of our website pages in conjunction with cookies to compile statistics about site usage. Web beacons are small pieces of code that are embedded on the pages of websites or applications so we can detect when they have been viewed. We or our service providers use these technical methods to analyze the traffic patterns on Lesson Planet, such as the frequency with which our Members visit various parts of our website or use our other products and services, such as mobile applications, and to measure site effectiveness.

We also use web beacons in HTML emails that we send our Members and visitors to determine whether recipients have opened those emails and/or clicked on links in those emails.

When you post comments on resources, we record the IP address from which your posts originate. We also may retain server logs which include the IP address of every request to our server. We use this information to safeguard the Community from harmful behavior and to determine, generally, the regional makeup of our membership.

On their own, cookies and web beacons do not contain or reveal any Personally Identifiable Information. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. However, if you choose to furnish Lesson Planet with Personally Identifiable Information, for example by subscribing to Lesson Planet, this information can be associated with the data collected using cookies or web beacons. These technical methods, which may involve the transmission of information either directly to us or to our service providers, allow us to make our website and services, and any emails you have agreed to receive, more relevant to you.

We use third party vendors, including Google, to direct online advertisements about Lesson Planet to visitors to our site who we think might benefit from our services. Third party vendors, including Google, display our ads on sites across the Internet. They use cookies to serve select advertisements based on previous visits to Lesson Planet. To learn how to opt out of such services, click here.

As we adopt additional technology, we may also gather additional information through other methods.

5. How and to Whom We Disclose Your Information

Ensuring your privacy is important to us. We do not give, sell, trade, or rent your personal information to third parties except with your explicit consent or as outlined in this Policy.

Third-Party Service Providers

We use other companies, agents, or contractors to perform services on our behalf. Examples include, but are not limited to, processing payment method transactions, sending postal mail and email, analyzing data, processing surveys, and providing marketing assistance. They have access to personal information needed only to perform the services we request, in accordance with this Privacy Policy. We do not authorize these companies to use or disclose your personal information except to provide the services we request of them.

Business Transfers

Information about our Members, including Personally Identifiable Information, might be disclosed as part of any merger, acquisition, debt financing, or sale of company assets, as well as in the unlikely event of an insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership in which Personally Identifiable information could be transferred as one of the business assets of the company. Any party who acquires our assets may continue to use your information as set forth in this Privacy Policy.

As Required by Law

Lesson Planet may access or disclose information without providing you a choice in response to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, to the extent permitted and as restricted by law; when disclosure is required to maintain the security and integrity of this service, or to protect any Member’s security or the security of other persons, consistent with applicable laws; to comply with laws and regulations, including the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM of 2003); or to enforce our Terms of Use.

6. How We Keep Your Information Secure

The security of your most sensitive information is of the utmost importance to us. Lesson Planet uses industry-standard electronic, administrative, and physical procedures to safeguard the confidentiality of your Personally Identifiable Information, including Secure Sockets Layer (“SSL”) technology to encrypt your payment method information when it is being transmitted over the Internet. We deliver your payment method information to be stored with our payment providers and do not maintain it in our system. We run a full security scan of our site monthly so that we can immediately address any discovered issues to continue to best protect the confidentiality of our Members’ information.

We take several steps to protect your personal information in our facilities. Only employees who need access to your personal information to perform a specific job are granted access to that information. Finally, we rely on third-party service providers for the physical security of some of our computer hardware. Their security procedures ensure that your information is as secure as possible. For example, when you visit Lesson Planet, you access servers that are kept in a secure physical environment, behind a locked cage and an electronic firewall.

While we use industry-standard precautions to safeguard your personal information, we cannot guarantee complete security. 100% complete security does not presently exist anywhere online or offline.

Your Lesson Planet account is protected by a password for your privacy and security. You can help protect against unauthorized access to your account and Personally Identifiable Information by selecting and protecting your password appropriately and limiting access to your computer and browser by signing off after you have finished accessing your account.

If, despite our extensive efforts to protect the security of your information, we believe a security breach has taken place, we will notify any potentially affected Members by email or through the Lesson Planet website.

7. Your Choices About What Happens to Your Information

By accessing, interacting with, launching, downloading, uploading, or otherwise using Lesson Planet, and providing and/or making available to us your contact information, you expressly choose to receive certain communications from us as described in this Privacy Policy, and you expressly agree to the privacy practices described in it.

If you have elected to receive information about our products or services and would like at any time to unsubscribe from receiving this information, please follow the specific instructions included in such communications, adjust your email preferences, or send us an email detailing your specific request to support@LessonPlanet.com. Please note that ‘opt out’ and ‘unsubscribe’ requests may not take effect immediately and may take a reasonable amount of time to receive, process, and apply, during which time your information shall remain subject to the terms and conditions herein. Also, please note that in order to keep you informed about the operation of the service and related services, we reserve the right to send you emails and announcements that are needed for the proper functioning and administration of our services.

If you ask Lesson Planet to stop using your Personally Identifiable Information, we will honor that request while retaining a record of it as necessary to comply with applicable federal, state, or local laws.

To opt out of third-party vendors’ use of cookies to deliver ads based on what websites you visit, go to the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.

8. Children Under 13

Our services are not directed to children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect Personally Identifiable Information from children under 13. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at support@LessonPlanet.com.

Lesson Planet contains links to third-party websites, and any information you provide to those sites will be covered by their privacy policies. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of websites you choose to link to from Lesson Planet so that you can understand how they collect, use, and share your information. Lesson Planet is not responsible for the privacy statements, practices, or other content on websites outside of Lesson Planet.

10. International Users

Lesson Planet is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, US. If you are located outside of the United States, the Personally Identifiable Information you provide to us will be transferred to the United States and governed by applicable US laws and regulations and this Privacy Policy. Some of this information may be transferred to, processed, and stored temporarily by our service providers in other countries. By submitting your personal information, you consent to its transfer to and storage in the United States and other countries designated by Lesson Planet, its governance by US laws and regulations, and its use in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

11. California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights

This section provides additional details about the personal information LessonPlanet.com, EducationPlanet.com, LearningExplorer.com and other Education Planet owned domains [“Education Planet Website(s)”, “Education Planet”] collect about California consumers and the rights afforded to them under the California Consumer Privacy Act or “CCPA.”

The Education Planet website(s) uses cookies to improve your experience for the purposes of, but no limited to, analytics, functionality, personalization, content and targeted advertising. Cookie based advertising from The Education Planet website(s) is a service provided by us to you as the consumer and is not an act of selling information to a third party for their use. By using these websites you agree with the use of these cookies.

The Education Planet website(s) does not sell (as such term is defined in the CCPA) the personal information we collect (and will not sell it without providing a right to opt out) including third party websites, services and data brokers. Please note that we do use third-party cookies for our advertising purposes as further described in our Cookie Policy.

Subject to certain limitations, the CCPA provides California consumers the right to request to know more details about the categories or specific pieces of personal information we collect (including how we use and disclose this information), to delete their personal information, to opt out of any “sales” that may be occurring, and to not be discriminated against for exercising these rights.

California consumers may make a request pursuant to their rights under the CCPA by contacting us at support@LessonPlanet.com. We will verify your request using the information associated with your account, including email address. Government issued identification may be required to verify any and all Right to Know or Right to Delete requests. Consumers can also designate an authorized agent to exercise these rights on their behalf.

The Education Planet website(s) CCPA policy cannot apply to any third parties, including our customers’ websites, source content sites and any social media platforms to which our website links as Education Planet has no control over any third party websites and associated data privacy policies. We recommend you read and understand the individual privacy policies for other sites and platforms and direct any related inquires directly to them.

Regarding California Civil Code Section 1789.83: At Lesson Planet, it is our policy not to disclose Members’ Personally Identifiable Information to third parties for those parties’ direct marketing purposes unless you first affirmatively agree to such a disclosure. Further, you have the right to prevent disclosure of personal information for such purposes. To do so, please contact us at support@LessonPlanet.com.

12. Changes to This Privacy Policy

This version of the Lesson Planet Privacy Policy is effective as of September 23, 2014. As we improve and expand our website and services, this policy may change, so please refer back to it whenever you visit Lesson Planet to see if it has been updated since your last visit.

13. Additional Questions

Please contact us with any questions regarding our Privacy Policy.
This version of our Privacy Policy is effective as of September 23, 2014.