Review Guidelines
Parent and caregiver reviews help other families understand a school’s special education support. We welcome positive, mixed and negative experiences. These guidelines help keep reviews useful, fair and respectful of children’s privacy.
Who may write a review
You may review a school if you are a parent or caregiver with firsthand experience of your child attending that school and receiving its special education services. Share your own experience rather than someone else’s account.
What makes a review helpful
- Describe what worked and what did not, including communication, classroom support, therapies, inclusion and staff follow-through.
- You may discuss IEP or ARD (admission, review and dismissal) meetings without sharing private records or identifying details.
- Share a general timeframe, such as an approximate school year, only if doing so will not identify your child.
- Be specific about what you observed, separate facts from opinions, and keep your comments focused on the school’s services.
Protect children’s and families’ privacy
Reviews are public. Do not include:
- Children’s names, exact ages, diagnoses, medical information, or copies of student or medical records.
- Details that could identify your child or family when combined, such as an exact incident date, grade, classroom or unusual event.
- Names or identifying descriptions of other students.
- Names of individual teachers or staff. Use a general role, such as “the special education teacher.”
- Personal phone numbers, email addresses, home addresses or other private contact information.
Keep participation fair
Submit no more than one review per family per school. To update an existing review, contact us instead of submitting a second one. If you have a relevant connection to the school, such as working there or a family relationship with staff, please say so without naming anyone.
Content we do not allow
- Made-up experiences, impersonation, or reviews of schools your child did not attend.
- Reviews submitted on a school’s behalf, coordinated attempts to manipulate ratings, or reviews written in exchange for payment, gifts or other rewards.
- Threats, harassment, profanity, advertising, or accusations presented as established facts.
How we handle reviews
Reviews appear on the site when they are submitted. We check them after posting for relevance, privacy and these guidelines, and we handle reports about them quickly. We apply the same standards to every review, whatever its rating or viewpoint.
We may remove personal or identifying details without changing the reviewer’s meaning or rating. If a review needs larger changes, we may ask the reviewer to revise it. We may remove reviews that do not follow these guidelines.
We do not verify every statement in a review. Reviews describe individual families’ experiences and opinions, and publishing them does not mean LearningDifferences.Info® endorses them. Parent reviews and ratings are separate from the SPED Support Score and do not change it; that score is based on Texas Education Agency data.
Update, remove or report a review
To update or remove your own review, or to report a review that may break these guidelines, email [email protected]. Include the school name and a link to the review, or its date if you don’t have a link.
We may ask for information to confirm that you wrote a review before changing or removing it. Please don’t send details that identify a child. We aim to respond within five business days, and we handle reports that expose a child’s information first. Some reviews may take longer to look into.