Legal

OUSD Multi-Stakeholder Engagement Group ("OUSD MSEG")

Last updated: April 29, 2026

Welcome. These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of the participatory engagement platform operated by the OUSD Multi-Stakeholder Engagement Group ("OUSD MSEG," "the Group," "we," "us," or "our") at ousd-mseg.org (the "Platform").

These Terms of Service work alongside our Privacy Policy. By creating an account or using the Platform, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Platform.

We've tried to write these in plain language. They are still a legal agreement. If something here matters to you, read it carefully.

1. Who We Are

OUSD MSEG is an independent volunteer group of Oakland Unified School District ("OUSD") parents, caregivers, students, staff, and community members convened to support meaningful community engagement around district decisions, including but not limited to OUSD's Financial Stabilization Plan.

OUSD MSEG is not Oakland Unified School District. We are not a department, agency, or official body of OUSD. We do not speak for the district, the Board of Education, or its administration. Communications, proposals, votes, comments, and decisions made on this Platform are not official OUSD actions and do not bind the district to any course of conduct.

2. What the Platform Is For

The Platform is a community engagement tool. It exists so that OUSD families and community members can:

• learn about district decisions and the conditions that shape them,

• share input through proposals, comments, surveys, meetings, and other participatory components,

• track how that input is reflected (or not) in subsequent work, and

• coordinate with other community members who care about OUSD.

The Platform runs on Decidim, an open-source participatory democracy framework. We use Decidim as licensed under its open-source license; we do not own that underlying software.

3. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to create an account on the Platform.

If you are under 18, you represent that your parent or legal guardian is aware of and consents to your use of the Platform. We encourage parents and guardians to review these Terms with younger users.

The Platform is intended for community engagement, not for sharing personal information about individual students. Do not post personally identifiable information about minors — including names, schools, schedules, photographs, medical or disciplinary information, or other details that could identify a specific child — without that child's parent or guardian's express permission, and never about a child who is not your own.

By using the Platform you also represent that you are not barred from doing so under applicable law and that any information you provide is accurate.

4. Your Account

To participate beyond reading public content, you'll need to register an account. When you do:

• You'll provide an email address. We use this to verify your account, send you transactional messages (password resets, account confirmations), deliver notifications you opt into, and send newsletters from the Group.

• You'll choose a username or display name. It can be your real name or a reasonable pseudonym. Don't impersonate another person, OUSD staff, or a public figure.

• You're responsible for keeping your password confidential and for activity on your account. If you think someone else has accessed your account, contact us promptly.

• You can delete your account at any time through your account settings or by contacting us.

We may verify accounts through additional steps (for example, confirming Oakland residency or OUSD affiliation) for participation in specific processes. Verification requirements will be disclosed in the relevant participatory space.

5. Email, Data, and Privacy

We collect and use information consistent with our Privacy Policy. In summary, and without limiting what's in the Privacy Policy:

• What we collect: the email address and display name you provide; the content you post (proposals, comments, survey responses, meeting registrations); optional profile information you choose to add; and basic technical data (IP address, browser, timestamps) for security and platform operations. If you participate in optional demographic surveys, we collect what you choose to share.

• What we do with it: we use this information to operate the Platform, communicate with you, send newsletters and notifications you've opted into, understand who is and isn't being reached by our engagement work (in aggregate), and protect the Platform from abuse.

• What we don't do: we don't sell your personal information. We don't share your individual responses with OUSD, the Board of Education, or anyone else outside the Group's operational team without your consent, except as required by law or to protect the safety of users.

• Newsletters: when you register, you may opt in to receive newsletters from us. Every newsletter contains an unsubscribe link, and you can change your preferences in your account settings at any time.

• Public content: content you post in public participatory spaces (proposals, public comments, etc.) is, by design, public. Do not post anything in those spaces that you would not want associated with your username permanently and publicly.

6. Acceptable Use

The Platform exists to enable genuine engagement. It is not a venue for harassment, intimidation, or political combat by other means. While using the Platform, you agree not to:

a. harass, threaten, dox, or discriminate against any person, including on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or immigration status;

b. post content that is unlawful, defamatory, obscene, sexually explicit, or that constitutes incitement to violence;

c. post personally identifiable information about minors, individual students, or specific OUSD employees in a manner intended to harass or expose them;

d. impersonate another person, organization, OUSD staff member, or public official;

e. submit content that you do not have the right to share, including copyrighted material you do not own or have permission to use;

f. use the Platform to send spam, conduct commercial advertising, or solicit funds for purposes unrelated to the Group's work;

g. attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Platform, other users' accounts, or any underlying systems;

h. interfere with the Platform's operation, including through automated scraping at a scale that burdens the service, denial-of-service attacks, or attempts to circumvent moderation tools;

i. use the Platform to organize or coordinate illegal activity; or

j. submit deliberately false information in a context where accuracy matters (for example, falsely claiming to be an OUSD employee in order to lend false weight to a comment).

Robust disagreement, pointed criticism of public officials and public bodies, and direct advocacy are welcome. The line is between vigorous public discourse and personal attacks or unlawful conduct.

7. Your Content

You retain ownership of the content you post on the Platform. By posting content, you grant OUSD MSEG a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to host, store, reproduce, display, distribute, and adapt that content solely for the purposes of operating the Platform, conducting the Group's engagement work, and reporting on community input (including in summary form to OUSD, the Board of Education, the public, and the press).

This license continues for content posted in public participatory spaces even if you delete your account, because removing comments retroactively from an ongoing public deliberation can mislead the record. You may, however, request that your username be disassociated from your content, and we will do so where technically feasible.

You represent that you have the right to post the content you submit and that your content does not violate these Terms or anyone else's rights.

8. Moderation

We may, at our discretion:

• remove content that violates these Terms,

• suspend or terminate accounts that engage in repeated or serious violations,

• decline to publish proposals or comments that are off-topic, duplicative, or that fall outside the scope of the relevant participatory space, and

• temporarily restrict participation in specific processes when needed to maintain a constructive environment.

Where practical, we will notify users of moderation actions and provide an opportunity to revise content before removal. Moderation decisions are made by Group volunteers and are not appealable to OUSD or any government body.

9. Independence from OUSD; No Official Status

To say it again because it matters: the Platform is not an official OUSD channel, and content on the Platform is not an official OUSD record, decision, or position. Posts by users — including users who identify themselves as OUSD employees, board members, or officials — represent only the views of the individuals posting them unless explicitly designated otherwise by OUSD itself through OUSD's own official channels.

OUSD MSEG may share aggregated input, summaries, and reports with OUSD staff, the Board of Education, and the public. We do not represent that any specific input will be acted upon by the district.

10. Intellectual Property in the Platform Itself

The Decidim software is open-source software made available under its applicable license (currently AGPLv3). The Group's logos, branding, and original written content on the Platform are owned by OUSD MSEG or the volunteers who created them. You may quote and link to public content on the Platform for the purpose of public discussion, journalism, research, or civic engagement consistent with fair use.

11. Third-Party Services and Links

The Platform may include links to third-party websites (OUSD's website, OpenOUSD, news outlets, state agency pages, etc.) and may use third-party services for things like email delivery, analytics, and hosting. We don't control third-party sites or services and aren't responsible for their content or practices. Your use of third-party sites is governed by their terms.

12. Disclaimers

The Platform is provided "as is" and "as available." OUSD MSEG is a volunteer group operating a community-engagement tool; we are not a software vendor, a law firm, or a financial advisor.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, and uninterrupted availability. We do not warrant that the Platform will be free of errors, that defects will be corrected, or that the Platform or its servers will be free of viruses or other harmful components.

Information on the Platform — including information shared by users, summaries of district documents, and references to law, policy, or budget — is provided for civic-engagement purposes and is not legal, financial, educational, or professional advice. Don't rely on it for those purposes. Verify with the appropriate professional or official source before taking action.

13. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, OUSD MSEG, its volunteers, organizers, and any contributors will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenues, data, goodwill, or other intangible losses, arising from or related to your use of the Platform.

In no event will the total liability of OUSD MSEG and its volunteers to you for all claims relating to the Platform exceed one hundred U.S. dollars ($100.00) or the amount you have paid us in the prior twelve months (which, for a free community-engagement platform, is typically zero), whichever is greater.

Some jurisdictions don't allow these kinds of limitations, in which case the limitations apply to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.

14. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless OUSD MSEG and its volunteers from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of (a) content you post, (b) your violation of these Terms, or (c) your violation of any law or third-party right. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defense of any matter for which you owe us indemnification, in which case you'll cooperate with us in asserting any available defenses.

15. Termination

You may stop using the Platform and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access at any time for violation of these Terms, conduct that creates risk or legal exposure for the Group or other users, or — for inactive accounts — operational reasons, with reasonable notice where practical.

Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 18, and 19) will survive.

16. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will post the updated Terms on the Platform with a new "Last updated" date and, where appropriate, notify registered users by email or through the Platform. Continued use of the Platform after the effective date of updated Terms constitutes acceptance of the changes. If you don't agree with the updated Terms, your remedy is to stop using the Platform and, if you wish, delete your account.

17. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-law principles. You and OUSD MSEG agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Platform will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Alameda County, California, and you consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.

Before filing a formal complaint, we strongly encourage you to contact us first so we can try to resolve the issue directly. Most disputes between community members and a community engagement project can be worked out by talking.

18. Miscellaneous

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and OUSD MSEG regarding the Platform.

Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision of these Terms is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later.

Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms to a successor entity that continues the Group's engagement work.

No agency. Nothing in these Terms creates an agency, partnership, joint venture, or employment relationship between you and OUSD MSEG.

19. Contact

Questions, concerns, requests for content removal, or reports of violations:

OUSD Multi-Stakeholder Engagement Group Email: engage@ousd-mseg.org

For privacy-specific requests (access, correction, deletion of your personal data), see the contact information in our Privacy Policy.