Terms of Service & Acceptable Use Policy

These Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy (together, the "Terms") govern access to and use of CTSOManager.com and any related applications, sites, and services (collectively, the "Service"), operated by CTSO Manager, LLC ("CTSOManager," "we," "us," or "our").

The Service is built for Career and Technical Student Organizations ("CTSOs") - starting with Business Professionals of America ("BPA") - and the schools, chapters, teachers, students, judges, volunteers, alumni, and organization staff who run and participate in CTSO conferences and competitive events. By creating an account, accepting an invitation, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

If you are using the Service on behalf of a school, chapter, or organization, you represent that you have the authority to bind that organization to these Terms, and "you" refers to both you individually and that organization.

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using the Service in any capacity - including as a student, teacher/chapter advisor, judge, volunteer, alumni member, event manager, regional/state/national administrator, or platform staff - you agree to be bound by these Terms and by any policies referenced in them, including our Privacy Policy.

We may update these Terms from time to time as described in Section 15. Continued use of the Service after an update takes effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

2. Description of the Service

CTSOManager.com is a competition and conference management platform. Depending on a user's assigned role, the Service may be used to:

• Create and manage chapters, teachers, and student rosters within an organizational hierarchy (national, state, region, and chapter).
• Request new accounts or new chapters, and route those requests through the appropriate approval chain.
• Create and manage conferences, competitive events, and competition instances, including both judged events and written/computer-based tested events.
• Register students and teams for events, including first-come, first-served event-day job sign-ups where required by an event manager.
• Build and manage judging rubrics, assign judges, and record, edit, and release scores and feedback.
• Administer timed tests, including configurable accommodations such as extended time and text-to-speech reading support.
• Schedule rooms, time slots, and volunteer/judging jobs for a conference.
• Generate invoices, record payments and refunds, and manage fee schedules between event managers, organizations, and chapters.
• Sign in using a username and password, or using Google Sign-In where enabled.

The Service is currently offered as an early beta. Features, workflows, and this document itself are expected to change as the platform grows to support additional CTSOs beyond BPA. See Section 9 (Service Availability) for beta-specific disclaimers.

3. Eligibility & Accounts

3.1 Who may register

The Service is intended for use by members, advisors, volunteers, judges, and staff affiliated with a participating CTSO chapter, organization, or conference. Access to specific features is controlled by the role(s) assigned to an account. We reserve the right to approve, deny, or revoke any account or role assignment at our discretion or at the request of the relevant chapter, organization, or school.

3.2 Students and minors

Many student users of the Service are minors under the laws of their state. Student accounts are typically created by a teacher or chapter advisor as part of managing a chapter's roster, rather than through direct self-registration by the student, though the Service also supports an account-request flow that requires approval by a chapter advisor or organization administrator before any account becomes active.

Where a student is a minor, we treat the student's school, chapter advisor, or parent/guardian (as applicable under the school's own policies and enrollment paperwork) as responsible for confirming that appropriate consent has been obtained for the student's participation and for the collection of the student data described in our Privacy Policy, consistent with the school's obligations under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and applicable state student-data-privacy law. The Service is not knowingly directed at, or intended for use by, children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without the consent required by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

3.3 Account roles

The Service supports multiple account roles, each with different permissions: Student, Teacher/Chapter Advisor, Judge, Volunteer, Alumni, Event Manager (region/state/national conference organizer), Regional/State/National Administrator, and Platform Owner/Staff. A single person may hold more than one role. Role assignment and approval follow the chain built into the Service (for example, a teacher joining an existing chapter is approved by another teacher already on that chapter; a new chapter is approved by the relevant state administrator; a volunteer is approved by the event manager for the conference they are volunteering at; and an alumni account is approved by the relevant state administrator).

3.4 Account security & accuracy

• You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account.
• You must provide accurate, current information when creating or updating an account, and promptly correct any information that becomes inaccurate.
• You must notify us promptly via our Contact page if you suspect unauthorized access to your account.
• Accounts are personal to the individual (or, for administrative/service accounts, to the organization) and may not be shared, sold, or transferred without our consent.

3.5 Google Sign-In

If you choose to sign in using Google Sign-In, you authorize us to receive certain basic profile information from Google (such as your name and email address) as described at account creation. Your use of Google's services remains subject to Google's own terms and privacy policy. See Section 8 for more on third-party services.

4. Acceptable Use Policy

You agree to use the Service only for its intended purpose - supporting CTSO chapter management, competitive events, and conferences - and not to misuse it in any way. Without limiting the general rule, you agree not to:

4.1 General prohibited conduct

• Use the Service for any unlawful purpose, or in violation of any applicable local, state, or federal law or regulation.
• Access or attempt to access another user's account, data, or content without authorization.
• Upload, submit, or transmit any content that is defamatory, harassing, obscene, discriminatory, or otherwise inappropriate, particularly given the significant number of student users.
• Interfere with, disrupt, or attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service, its servers, or any connected network, including through malware, denial-of-service attempts, or automated scraping not expressly authorized by us.
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of the Service, except to the extent such restriction is prohibited by law.
• Impersonate any person or organization, or misrepresent your affiliation with a chapter, organization, or CTSO.
• Use the Service to send unsolicited bulk communications (spam) to other users.
• Circumvent or attempt to circumvent any role-based access control, approval workflow, or scoring lock built into the Service.

4.2 Academic and competitive integrity

• Students must complete tests and competitive event requirements honestly and independently, without unauthorized assistance, and without accessing, sharing, or distributing test questions or answer keys outside the Service.
• Users must not attempt to view test content, scores, or rubric criteria they are not authorized to see, including by exploiting bugs or misconfigurations rather than reporting them (see Section 4.4).
• Teachers and chapter advisors are responsible for reasonable supervision of their students' use of the Service, consistent with their school's own testing-integrity policies.

4.3 Judging conduct

• Judges must disclose known conflicts of interest (for example, judging a competitor from their own household or employer) to the event manager before scoring.
• Scores, rubric feedback, and comments entered into the Service must reflect the judge's genuine, independent evaluation.
• Judges must not share scores or feedback with competitors, teachers, or other judges outside the release process built into the Service, and must not alter scores after a contest has been closed for scoring except through the reopening process controlled by the event manager.

4.4 Payments and financial conduct

• Users with billing permissions must not submit false payment, refund, or fee-override information.
• Chargebacks, payment disputes, or refund requests should be raised in good faith and in accordance with Section 6.
• Any suspected fraud, security vulnerability, or billing discrepancy should be reported via our Contact page rather than exploited.

We reserve the right to investigate suspected violations of this Acceptable Use Policy and to take any action we deem appropriate, including warning, suspending, or terminating an account, removing content, and - where required by law or by a school's or organization's own policies - reporting conduct to the relevant chapter advisor, school, organization, or law enforcement.

5. Student Data, Privacy & FERPA

Full detail on what we collect, how it's used, and your choices lives in our Privacy Policy. The key points specific to student data:

• Ownership. As between CTSOManager and a school, chapter, or organization, all student education records and related data submitted to or generated within the Service (such as roster information, scores, test results, and accommodation records) remain the property of the applicable school, chapter, or organization. CTSOManager does not claim ownership of student data.
• Permitted use. CTSOManager acts as a service provider performing functions on behalf of participating schools and chapters (comparable to the role a school official would otherwise perform), consistent with FERPA's "school official" exception (34 CFR § 99.31(a)(1)). We use student data only to operate, maintain, and improve the Service for the school's, chapter's, or organization's educational and competitive-event purposes, and not for any unrelated commercial purpose.
• No sale of student data. We do not sell student data and do not use it for targeted advertising.
• Retention and deletion. Student data is retained for as long as an account or chapter remains active, plus a reasonable period afterward for legal, accounting, and dispute-resolution purposes. A school, chapter, or organization administrator may request deletion of student data it controls, subject to any records we are required to retain.
• Security. We maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect student data against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure, and will notify affected schools, chapters, or organizations without unreasonable delay if we confirm a security incident involving student data.

6. Fees, Billing & Refunds

6.1 Platform and conference billing

CTSOManager may bill event managers or organizations for use of the Service, using a fee schedule that may include a per-student-registration fee, a flat or subscription fee, or a combination, as configured for that organization. Event managers may, in turn, bill chapters for conference-related fees (such as registration or hotel costs) using the fee schedule they configure for their conference. All applicable fee schedules are visible in-app to users with billing permissions before an invoice is generated.

6.2 Payment processing

Where online payment collection is enabled (a planned future feature, currently anticipated to use PayPal), payments will be processed by that third-party payment processor. CTSOManager does not directly collect or store full payment card or bank account numbers. Processing fees charged by the payment processor may be passed through to the payer as a separate line item, at a rate configured by the platform owner and/or event manager and disclosed before payment.

6.3 Refunds

Refund requests should be directed to the event manager or organization responsible for the applicable conference or platform fee, who will evaluate requests on a case-by-case basis (for example, an event cancellation or a documented duplicate charge). CTSOManager does not guarantee a refund for a withdrawal made after a conference's registration deadline. The Service records refunds against the original payment so the resulting ledger stays accurate.

6.4 Non-payment

We reserve the right to suspend access to conference-related features for a chapter or organization with a materially overdue invoice, after reasonable notice, until the balance is resolved. Suspension for non-payment does not relieve the responsible party of its payment obligation.

7. Content & Intellectual Property

7.1 Our content

The Service, including its software, design, and all content we create (excluding user-submitted content and third-party trademarks), is owned by CTSOManager or our licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. Except as expressly permitted by these Terms, you may not copy, modify, distribute, or create derivative works of the Service.

7.2 User-submitted content

Users may upload or enter content into the Service, including rubrics, rubric criteria and rating levels, test questions, event descriptions, scores, feedback, and similar materials ("User Content"). You retain ownership of your User Content. By submitting User Content, you grant CTSOManager a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, and display that content solely as necessary to operate the Service for its intended purpose (for example, showing a rubric to the judges and event manager who need to see it).

You represent that you have the right to submit any User Content you upload, and that it does not infringe any third party's intellectual property or other rights.

7.3 CTSO names, logos, and trademarks

Names, logos, and trademarks of Business Professionals of America and any other CTSO displayed within the Service (for example, in chapter or organization branding) belong to their respective owners. Nothing in these Terms grants any user a right to use a CTSO's name, logo, or trademark outside the Service, and use of any such name or logo within the Service does not imply endorsement by that organization.

8. Third-Party Services

The Service integrates with third-party services, including Google (for optional sign-in) and a payment processor (for billing, once online payment collection is enabled). Your use of those third-party services is subject to their own terms and privacy policies, which we encourage you to review. We are not responsible for the acts, omissions, availability, or content of third-party services.

9. Service Availability & Beta Status

The Service is currently offered as an early beta. Features may change, be added, or be removed without notice, and the Service may experience downtime, bugs, or data issues more frequently than a mature production system. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS DURING THIS BETA PERIOD, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF UPTIME OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION. We will make reasonable efforts to communicate known issues and planned maintenance to affected organizations.

We recommend that chapters and event managers maintain their own backup records (such as exported rosters and results) during the beta period, particularly for time-sensitive competition data.

10. Termination & Suspension

You may stop using the Service at any time. We may suspend or terminate any account, or an organization's or chapter's access, if we reasonably believe there has been a violation of these Terms, a legal requirement, a risk to other users (particularly students), or non-payment as described in Section 6.4. Where practical, we will provide notice before suspension or termination and an opportunity to cure the issue, except where immediate action is needed to protect the Service or its users.

Upon termination, your right to use the Service ends, but provisions of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 5, 7, 11, 12, 13, and 14) will survive.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY STATED IN THESE TERMS, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT ANY SCORING, PLACEMENT, OR TEST RESULT WILL BE ACCURATE OR FREE OF SOFTWARE ERROR - ALTHOUGH WE WILL MAKE REASONABLE EFFORTS TO CORRECT KNOWN ERRORS PROMPTLY.

12. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, CTSOMANAGER AND ITS OWNERS, STAFF, AND CONTRACTORS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF DATA, REVENUE, OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless CTSOManager and its owners, staff, and contractors from any third-party claim, loss, liability, or expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from your violation of these Terms, your misuse of the Service, or your violation of any law or third-party right, except to the extent caused by our own negligence or willful misconduct.

14. Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Ohio, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles, and the parties consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Ohio.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may revise these Terms from time to time. If we make a material change, we will provide reasonable notice (for example, by posting a notice in-app or emailing chapter/organization administrators) before the change takes effect. Continued use of the Service after a revised version takes effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

16. Contact Us

Questions about these Terms can be directed to us via our Contact page.

17. Miscellaneous

• Entire Agreement. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and any organization-specific agreement (such as a data privacy agreement), constitute the entire agreement between you and CTSOManager regarding the Service.
• Severability. If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full effect.
• No Waiver. Our failure to enforce any right or provision is not a waiver of that right or provision.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.