Written for the Board, Read by a Parent

A parent types one question into the district website: does my kid get a bus?

The answer lives in board policy, and a New Jersey policy might read something like this: “The Board shall provide transportation to and from school for public school pupils who reside remote from their school of attendance, in accordance with N.J.S.A. 18A:39-1.”

Every word of that is correct. It’s written to be legally precise, because a policy is the district’s official record. But it doesn’t answer the question. The parent still doesn’t know what “remote” means, and very few will look up the statute to find out.

Here is the same rule written for the person asking:

“Students in grades K–8 who live more than 2 miles from school, and students in grades 9–12 who live more than 2.5 miles away, ride the bus. If you live closer, ask the transportation office whether your street qualifies for courtesy busing.”

Nothing in the policy changed. The second version just starts with the reader’s question instead of the board’s authority.

This matters more once a district adds an AI assistant to its website. A good one can put a policy into simpler words, but it can only be as clear, and as accurate, as the page it reads. When the only source is policy language, families get answers that are technically right and still leave them guessing.

The fix isn’t rewriting board policy. Keep the policy; it’s the legal record. Instead, add a short plain-language summary to the top of the pages families use most: transportation, attendance, registration, meals, early dismissal, and the student phone rule. Two or three sentences, the numbers a family needs, a link to the full policy, and the date it was last checked.

The federal government’s own guidance calls “write for your audience” the first rule of plain language (opens in a new tab), and it recommends summarizing long documents up front. It also says plain language doesn’t mean dumbing anything down. A summary of the bus rule isn’t less accurate than the policy. It’s just written for a different reader.

Start with the topic your front office explains most often. If staff have to translate it on the phone every day, the website should be doing that translation already.

AskK12 answers families’ questions from your district’s own website, so the clearer the page, the clearer the answer.