Legal

Terms of Service

These terms cover Pondra’s website and its AI assistant for K–12 schools. They are written in plain English. Schools also sign a separate agreement, and that agreement takes priority over these terms.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Who these terms cover

These terms apply to everyone who uses Pondra’s website at pondra.ai or the Pondra AI assistant. That includes:

  • website visitors;
  • schools and districts that use Pondra (“schools”);
  • teachers, administrators and other staff at those schools; and
  • students who use Pondra through a school account.

“Pondra,” “we” and “us” mean Pondra, a company based in the United States. By using the website or the assistant, you agree to these terms. A school accepts them for itself and for its students and staff. If you accept them for a school, you confirm that you have the authority to do so.

The school agreement

Every school that uses Pondra has an agreement with us. It is made up of an order form and our Student Data Privacy Addendum. Together we call them the “school agreement.” If the school agreement and these terms disagree, the school agreement controls. For anything involving student data, the Addendum controls over everything else.

Website visitors are covered by these terms alone.

Student data

The school owns and controls its student data. Pondra uses it only to provide the service to that school. We never sell it, never use it for ads or targeted advertising, never use it to build profiles for non-educational purposes, and never use it to train AI models, ours or anyone else’s. We share it only with the subprocessors listed on our trust page under written contract, at the school’s direction, or when the law requires.

Pondra staff read student conversations only for support or safety at the school’s request, or when the law requires. The Addendum has the full commitments, and our privacy policy explains what we collect and why. The website itself collects only what people send us in demo requests, plus basic server logs. It uses no cookies, analytics or ad trackers.

Eligibility and accounts

  • Students use Pondra only through a school account. They sign in with the single sign-on tools their school already uses, and they can’t sign up on their own.
  • Schools confirm that they have the authority to consent for their students, including students under 13, to use Pondra for educational purposes. Under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the school gives that consent on parents’ behalf, for educational use only. Schools also confirm that they give families the notices the law requires.
  • Staff may use Pondra only as their school authorizes.
  • Everyone should keep accounts secure and not share them. Schools should tell us promptly if they think an account has been misused.
  • The website is for adults. Please don’t send us a demo request if you’re under 18.

What schools are responsible for

Each school agrees to:

  • keep rosters and account information accurate, and remove accounts for students and staff who leave;
  • choose safety settings that fit its students and its own policies;
  • follow its own AI, acceptable-use and student-conduct policies, and tell students and staff how Pondra may be used; and
  • give families the notices the law requires.

Pondra helps with rollout, including an AI policy template and safety settings. These are starting points. The school decides what to adopt and is responsible for its own policies.

Acceptable use

These rules apply to students and staff alike. Don’t:

  • try to get around Pondra’s safety filters or settings;
  • harass, bully, threaten or demean anyone;
  • create, upload or ask for illegal or harmful content, including sexual content or content that promotes violence, hate or drug use;
  • share other people’s personal information;
  • misuse accounts, for example by logging in as someone else, sharing a login or letting others use yours;
  • reverse engineer, decompile or copy the software, or try to extract its source code or models;
  • scrape, crawl or bulk download the website or the service by automated means; or
  • interfere with the service, overload it, or probe it for weaknesses.

If you find a security problem, please tell us at security@pondra.ai instead of testing it further. Schools deal with student misconduct under their own policies. If someone breaks these rules, we may limit or suspend access as described below.

AI output and its limits

Students are always told that they are talking to an AI. Pondra guides students with questions and hints instead of handing over final answers, and it declines unsafe requests. But AI is not perfect.

  • Answers can be wrong, incomplete or out of date. Students should check their work with their teachers.
  • Pondra helps with learning. It does not give professional, medical, legal or mental-health advice.
  • Safety filters and the guided-help approach reduce risk. They cannot remove it.

Pondra is not a crisis service and does not replace counselors, teachers or mandated reporters. In an emergency, call 911, or call or text 988. Schools remain responsible for supervising students and meeting their legal duties, including mandated reporting.

Ownership and licenses

  • Pondra’s property. Pondra owns the software, the website and everything in them, apart from school and student content. A school gets a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use Pondra for its own educational purposes while its school agreement is in effect.
  • Your content. Schools and students own what they put into Pondra, including what students write. Students and schools can use Pondra’s answers for schoolwork and teaching.
  • Our license. Schools and students give Pondra a limited license to host, process and display that content, only as needed to provide the service to the school. The license ends when the content is deleted. It does not allow ads, AI training or any other use the Addendum prohibits.
  • Feedback. If you send us ideas or suggestions about Pondra, we can use them without paying or crediting you. Please don’t include student personal information in feedback.

Fees

Schools pay the fees set out in their order form, including the amounts, billing schedule and payment terms. Fees can change only as the order form allows. The website is free to use.

Suspension and termination

  • A school can stop using Pondra, and either side can end the school agreement, as the order form allows.
  • We may suspend an account, or a school’s access, when that is needed to protect students, the service or the law, or when the school breaks these terms or doesn’t pay as the order form requires. We limit a suspension to what is necessary and tell the school quickly, so we can fix the problem together.
  • We may block website visitors who misuse the site.

What happens to student data. When a school agreement ends, we offer the school an export, then delete its student data within 60 days and purge it from backups within 90 days. A school can also ask for deletion at any time, and we complete it within 30 days of the request. On request, we give the school written certification of deletion. The Addendum has the details.

Parts of these terms that are meant to last continue after the agreement ends. That includes ownership, disclaimers, limits on liability, governing law and our student data commitments.

Disclaimers

Pondra is provided “as is” and “as available.” To the extent the law allows, we make no warranties other than those in a school agreement, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. We don’t promise that Pondra will be uninterrupted or error-free, that AI answers will be accurate, or that safety filters will catch everything.

Limitation of liability

  • Website visitors. To the extent the law allows, Pondra’s total liability to you for anything connected to the website is limited to $100, and we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages.
  • Schools. The limit of liability is set in the school agreement.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that can’t be limited by law.

Indemnity and governing law

These terms do not require a public school to indemnify Pondra.

Delaware law governs these terms, except that a public school’s own state law governs where its law requires. If you have a problem, please write to us first. Most issues can be sorted out by talking.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. The date at the top shows the latest version. For changes that matter, we give schools at least 30 days’ notice by email to the school’s contact on file before the change applies to them. For website visitors, changes apply when we post them. A change to these terms never overrides a signed school agreement.

Contact

Questions about these terms, the school agreement or student data: privacy@pondra.ai. Security concerns: security@pondra.ai. You can also read our privacy policy, our trust page and our Student Data Privacy Addendum.