This is a beta program. These terms will be updated more frequently than is typical as the program evolves. You are responsible for checking back frequently until we announce the beta period has ended. Once the beta period has ended, terms updates will adhere to standard notice processes.
Effective November 22, 2023
Program Purpose
The purpose of the Premier Publisher Program is to identify Publishers of superior pedagogy, design skill, and knowledge whose materials meet the curricular, privacy, and security requirements of public schools. Premier Publishers are included in programs requiring stricter criteria, including large school and organizational sales. These terms supplement all other applicable Terms and Conditions applicable to Publishers.
Participants in the Premier Publisher Program will participate in the Boom Passport subscription product, marketed and sold by the Boom Learning sales and marketing teams to districts, schools, and organizations. This is an opportunity to earn additional, new revenue from curricular resources that would otherwise be out of reach for the individual Publisher. Boom Learning takes care of the legal, vendor, security, and other requirements necessary to make these sales happen.
Program Participation
Participation in the Premier Publisher Program is by invitation and application. To be selected you will be evaluated against a selection criteria rubric. We may from time to time invite external parties with relevant education, experience, and expertise to assist with evaluations. The final decision is at the sole discretion of Boom Learning. You may decline an invitation to join the program.
Selection Criteria
Selection criteria will be applied on a non-discriminatory basis. Failure to meet the selection criteria at any time after acceptance into the program will result in immediate termination from the program. We rely on a combination of self-reporting, administrative review, and random auditing to confirm that publishers meet and continue to meet the selection criteria.
| Category | Element | Minimum Standard |
| Pedagogy and materials quality | The use of sound, evidence-based pedagogy in the development and implementation of the materials. | Product descriptions must include relevant standards (if applicable), instructional targets, and/or pedagogical methods. All products must have a meaningful description. Example: "Fun game to teach math facts" would NOT qualify. "Fun game to teach math facts to satisfy 3rd-grade math fact fluency under [state the standard]" would qualify. As would "fun game to teach math facts using CVI design for low vision students." Be specific about how it meets the needs of students if it is not a general ed product. In the first year, we are looking for Publishers who already have some standards and who commit to making steady progress on marking relevant content with standards. Materials that teach basic reading skills for English first learners must follow the science of reading principles. "Balanced literacy, whole language, embedded phonics, and cueing" are all concepts that are not permitted. We encourage authors who teach reading using phonemes, graphemes, phonemic awareness, and analytic or synthetic phonics to apply. Sight word materials should focus on phonics-based learning of high-frequency words. |
| Materials produced align with the research relied upon. | If there is a claim of research alignment, a review of the materials establishes that the research underlying the concept is implemented in the materials. | |
| Factual accuracy | All factual claims are accurate and verifiable from reputable sources. | |
| Does not use discredited or harmful methods. | In particular, reading instruction methods (such as guesses and use of cues) proven to have adverse outcomes on reading are prohibited. Specifically, we will not accept reading materials that are based on the following philosophies: whole language method, look-say, whole-word, balanced literacy, cueing, and embedded phonics. Reading instruction materials must align with the science of reading principles and include one or more of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. | |
| Credentials | If the Publisher produces materials in an area with enhanced credentials or special training (such as Reading Intervention, CVI, or SLP), the Publisher has received the applicable credential and has maintained it if active maintenance is required. If the author is retired, the author must demonstrate how they have remained informed of current developments in the practice area. Publishers must have three years of experience delivering services or instruction in the listed area. | Includes a description, where applicable, of the relevant credentials to create the materials in all author descriptions. If claiming a credential: Providing proof of current credentials OR Providing proof of prior credential, loss of credential for failure to maintain and not for disciplinary reasons, and proof of attendance at continuing education in the field since the loss of the credential. A Publisher may not include material outside of credential or experience area. So for example, if you claim to be an elementary ELL specialist, your store will be disqualified if you add middle school science content without relating how your skills and abilities apply to the new content. Be sure your category use complies with the requirements for special categories specified in our Optimizing Your Content FAQ. Tagging outside your expertise in a field requiring special qualifications will disqualify your application. To make our catalog useful to school practitioners certain products can only have one Subject special credentials tag. We know speech-language pathologists sometimes work beyond core speech and language services. If the material would be searched for and used by a speech-language pathologist and was created by a speech-language pathologist - it must be tagged "Speech and Language" and may not be cross-tagged as Special Education & ABA. If the material would be searched for and used by a special education service provider who may or may not be a speech-language pathologist, such as behavior materials, and the material does not require speech-language pathology skills to deliver, it may be marked as "Special Education & ABA" instead of "Speech and Language" if created by a speech-language pathologist, but may not be cross tagged as "Speech and Language". Choose the tag carefully. We will require proof from any SLP taggined with SPED that they have at least 3 years of experience providing special education services that are not merely core speech and language therapies, such as autism behavioral therapies. Only trained and certified Occupational Therapists with the required 3 years of experience may use the "Occupational Therapy" subject tag. Special Education Educators may use the subtag of Pre-Vocational skills under the OT category, but should not select the top-level OT category when using the Pre-Vocational skills subcategory. |
| The Publisher can provide proof of at least 3 years of active classroom or therapy experience. | Proof of the required experience. The Publisher must describe the years of experience and fields of experience in the Publisher description (your biography). | |
| If the Publisher claims other credentials of high quality, such as significant experience as an author in the education or textbook space, the Publisher provides proof of such credentials. | Satisfactory proof of the claim. The basis of the claims should be included in the Publisher description. | |
| Other claims. | The Publisher makes no claims that cannot be verified. All claims are subject to audit at any time. | |
| Design Quality | Images are self-made or licensed and credited. | All images used are either self-made or licensed and credited. Use of Pixabay, Canva, Pexels, FreePix, or other stock sources will require proof of a license to use the materials for commercial use. AI images must follow our AI FAQ guidelines and must be disclosed as AI generated images with the generating tool named. |
| Minimum store size | 22 deck minimum | |
| The products have a consistent and common visual design. | The materials have a consistent and common visual design in each material. There are no discordant design elements. There may not be routine formatting errors in covers or decks, such as text overflow, blurry images, or distorted images. If errors are identified, the Publisher demonstrates prompt error correction. | |
| The design is age and subject-appropriate. | The design of the materials should be appropriate to the targeted developmental age of the students to which it is directed. | |
| Accessibility | Materials either use all accessibility features in the student player or the author commits to bring materials into accessibility compliance. | The Publisher has provided alt text for images. All videos have captions. The author has confirmed that the z-order supports tabbed navigation. If materials are not accessible, the Publisher commits to add accessibility elements at a steady pace during the participation period, with a focus on the most popular materials first. |
| Author Reputation | No strikes | Publishers who have received strikes for violating the Acceptable Use Policy (copyright, DMCA, keyword stuffing, harassment) are barred from the program. With sufficient passage of time (at least one year), Publishers who have been barred may be considered at the discretion of the Integrity Department. Among other factors, Integrity will evaluate whether errors were inadvertent or deliberate, the level of cooperation in correcting materials, the seriousness of the offense relative to school requirements, and the risk to Boom of a repeated offense. The decision of the Integrity is final and is not subject to appeal. |
| No controversy | Authors must not be engaged in public controversy on social media, in the news, or in other offline formats. Accusations of controversial behavior shall be investigated and a determination of whether the conduct is unsuitable for the program shall be made in the sole determination of Boom Learning and is not subject to appeal. | |
| Compliance | No HREF links (hyperlinks) in publisher or product descriptions. No reference to other marketplaces. | Any live links added to author or product descriptions make an author immediately ineligible for the program due to security commitments. References in the description, biography, or other location to any external marketplace will immediately make a Publisher in eligible. The only permitted reference to an external marketplace are links added to image acknowledgments to comply with credit requirements imposed by the image author. |
| No advertisements in decks | Any links to videos that serve an advertisement are immediately disqualifying. No YouTube videos. | |
| No content that teaches a religion as a religion. | The target for this program is secular purchasing entities that require that content be secular. It is okay to include a survey of world religions content. It not okay to include content that teaches the theology of a particular religion. Once the ability to exclude content from a catalog is launched, Publishers who make religious studies content can participate if they exclude all religious studies content. | |
| Not biased or discriminatory | Content must not make claims that are biased or have discriminatory content. Review your materials for use of outdated content, particularly concerning American and First Nations Indigenous peoples, and for evidence of explicit or implicit bias. No content may assert the superiority of a class of individuals over other classes based on immutable characteristics such as race or sex. A report to Integrity of any single deck for biased content will result in withdrawal from the program and require a full review of all decks and certification of full review along with an Integrity team review before the Publisher can reapply. | |
| Other failures to meet the needs of public schools. | School regulations and laws change from time to time. If a rule or law changes that make content no longer suitable, it will be withdrawn from the program. |
Benefits
Authors selected for the Premier Publisher Program will receive the following benefits:
- A badge on their products and listings.
- Quality nudges in search results.
- Inclusion in the Boom+ Pass Subscription product sold to schools and organizations.
- Opportunities for recurring revenue.
- Enhanced support.
Marketing
Premier Publishers agree that we can use their names and product names in marketing materials to schools. They further agree to provide curriculum maps, teacher guides, and other supporting materials upon request to the Boom Sales Team. They agree that Boom Learning may offer free trials of the Boom Passport for up to 90 days (a "pilot") to schools who are considering the program and that there will be no compensation for usage during the free trial.
Compensation
Premier Publishers are required to participate in the Boom Passport subscription product when it launches.
The Boom Passport subscription is sold to schools, organizations, and resellers. It is a flat-rate product advertised, marketed, and sold by Boom Learning. Proceeds from the sales are split between Boom Learning and participating Premier Authors. Boom Learning is responsible for all marketing, sales, contracting, collection, and related duties.
Premier Publishers are compensated from a royalty pool distributed among participating Premier Authors "account-wise" based on use.
"Account-wise" means that each Premier Publisher is compensated from the "pool" created by buyers who use the Publisher's product. We do not publicize which "accounts" a Premier Publisher participates in to prevent misconduct. "Use" means a product was used by a teacher or student for instruction. We do not publicize our full criteria for what is credited as a use to prevent misconduct.
Pool payments will be distributed monthly. The amount of the pool to be distributed each month will be based on usage. A true-up distribution of undistributed amounts is made at the end of the 12-month period to eligible Publishers.
Example:
- Kinder Author and SLP Author join the program.
- SLP Company and Giga School buy Premier Publisher Subscriptions.
- SLP Company users only use SLP Author's content.
- Giga School uses Kinder Author and SLP Author content.
- SLP Author will be paid for use in the SLP Company and the Giga School pools. Kinder Author will only be paid for use in the Giga School pool.
- Giga School does not use the product in June, July, and August. The July and August pool amounts rolled forward until distributed on a relative use basis between SLP Author and Kinder Author. The June amounts and any other roll forward amounts from low usage in May were distributed by looking back over the 12-month period and allocating the remaining funds based on relative usage over the 12-month period between SLP Author and Kinder Author.
Leaving the Program
Program commitment is a minimum of twelve months. Scheduled entry will be at the beginning of a month and will end at the end of a month. More details on how to join and leave will be forthcoming. We can terminate your participation in the program in our sole discretion, and at any time, if you violate our Acceptable Use Policy for Authors or otherwise no longer meet Selection Criteria.