At Outschool, we strive to provide a seamless and consistent experience for families and learners, and we have policies in place to support this. Teachers are expected to respond to enrolled families in a timely manner to ensure clear communication and a positive class experience. If you need to make changes to one of your classes, including but not limited to canceling a section or meeting, withdrawing a learner, handling late and/or low enrollments, please refer to our policies below for guidance.

Repeatedly missing, canceling, or starting class late without notifying families, along with failing to respond to parent inquiries about enrollment, results in a negative class experience that does not meet parents' expectations when enrolling. Should these issues continue, Outschool may issue a Teacher Policy Incident on your account. Accumulating multiple incidents could lead to restrictions or removal from the platform.

The changes described here affect the overall class section, while the changes in the below section apply to individual meetings within a class section. If you need to cancel a section for any reason, you must do so more than 24 hours prior to the scheduled class start time (exceptions apply for an emergency or an extenuating circumstance). You are responsible for canceling a section for any other reason more than 24 hours prior to the scheduled class start time. In most cases, Outschool will automatically cancel sections with no enrollments 24 hours ahead of start time, so you generally will not need to take action on your side.

You are, however, responsible for canceling sections in the following cases, as these types of sections are not automatically canceled 24 hours ahead of start time, even when there are no enrollments:

All class meetings within a section should occur as planned, whenever possible. Canceling or rescheduling a class meeting within 24 hours of start time violates Outschool policy, with the following exceptions:

When canceling or rescheduling a meeting in a fixed-length class with a syllabus, teachers have the following options:

When rescheduling a meeting, families will not receive an email notification, so it is the teacher's responsibility to communicate any schedule changes directly to them. In cases where a family cannot attend the rescheduled meeting, they are eligible for a refund.

When canceling a meeting, teachers must issue refunds to families who have already paid or have a weekly payment scheduled for the impacted meeting.

Teachers must contact Support to request the cancellation of a section if they have already received payment. This will allow support to refund families and stop any further weekly payments.

Any teacher-initiated cancellation in a tutoring class results in an automatic refund to the family. This includes schedule changes, unexpected emergencies, or cases where you cannot proceed with the session.

To avoid a missed class, you can propose a rescheduled time for a single meeting or all upcoming meetings. The parent must approve the change. If the reschedule is not approved and the meeting is not canceled, it will count as a missed class.

If your class depends on learner-provided content, we recommend setting clear expectations with parents in advance. You may require families to submit materials at least 24 hours before class so that you can cancel with at least 24 hours' notice if necessary. Late cancellations (less than 24 hours' notice) may result in an incident.

For parent-initiated cancellations, families should cancel using the parent instructions outlined here. Refunds will be processed automatically if they qualify under Outschool’s refund policies. Parents and teachers may also reschedule meetings up to 48 hours in advance as an alternative.

Families often request transfers or withdrawals for learners. These should be handled promptly for a positive experience. Withdrawals or transfers should only occur at families' requests. If a learner misses 3 consecutive classes without communication, the teacher may cancel the class or withdraw the learner. Teachers should inform families that learners lose access to content upon withdrawal. Transferring or withdrawing learners without parental consent violates Outschool policy.

If you do not cancel an open section with 0 enrolled learners at least 24 hours ahead of start time (see above for sections that are not automatically canceled), you are still responsible for teaching any last-minute learners. In some cases, learners can enroll and join class up to 5 minutes into class start time. Please make sure that your email settings are set to notify you of all new enrollments.

When your class section has fewer than the minimum enrollments set when creating your class listing, you are still always expected to either:

When your class remains open to enrollments at the 24-hour ahead mark, you are expected to teach. Failure to start the Zoom meeting and remain in it for 10 minutes is a policy violation.

Teachers should aim for the following response times when parents contact them about their learner’s enrollment or other concerns. Timely teacher communication builds trust and keeps parents informed about their learners’ enrollment and progress.

While we understand that circumstances can vary, here are general guidelines for optimal response times:

Teachers must respond to at least 50% of parents who have active enrollments in their class within four days. Failure to meet this standard may result in an incident. Please note that this metric is unrelated to teacher badges.