ValidComplaints.com-About Us

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get your complaints taken seriously

If you have a Valid Complaint concerning a public school, please click here.

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Why ValidComplaints.com?

The high school dropout rate in the United States is soaring as many school districts are underachieving. While state and federal authorities are aware of this national debacle, very often complaints from parents, students and teachers go unanswered.

The National Council for Better Schools created ValidComplaints.com specifically to serve students, parents and teachers by ensuring that their public education related complaints are taken seriously by their schools and/or school districts. We welcome hearing from you because your contact may be the one that alerts us to inappropriate actions or unfair practices that need to be changed in a public education environment.

How long does it take the NCBS to help you with your complaint?

Our staff may be able to answer your questions within 30 days, but if your complaint is complex, it may take longer. Given the high volume of requests, we hope you will be patient.

Have you tried to resolve the problem directly with the school or school district you are complaining about?

You should try to contact the school or school district that is the cause of your complaint. You might be able to resolve your problem more quickly by speaking to them directly rather than waiting for a response to your complaint.

How should you handle a problem with your school or school district?

Talk to a staff supervisor and explain the problem.

If the supervisor can't resolve your problem, then talk to the school principle.

If the problem is still not resolved, write to the district board of education and explain your problem clearly, and tell the board how you want it resolved. Ask the board to respond to you in writing within 30 days. To find your school district’s address click here.

If you're still not satisfied, fill out the complaint form located on this site.

How will we handle your complaint?

We'll take the following steps when we get your complaint:

We will analyze your complaint and decide if we should contact the school or school district or if we need to refer it to your state Department of Education or the Federal Department of Education. Our staff conducts investigations concerning very serious complaints and keeps all investigations confidential. As a result, we will neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation.

After analyzing your complaint, we will send a copy of the complaint to the school or school district and/or the appropriate state or federal agency. We'll ask the school or school district to send a written report to you and us that responds to your complaint.

The NCBS will store your complaint in our data banks as we may also post your complaint on ValidComplaints.com.

Do you know what our limitations are?

Sometimes a complaint is successfully resolved when we carry out the steps listed above but in many cases, the school or school district denies wrongdoing, and it remains unclear as to who is wrong or whether any wrongdoing occurred at all. If this happens, we cannot act as a judge or an arbitrator and force a school or school district to resolve your complaint. We will however, post your specific complaint and the response from the school or school district if we cannot find resolve at this level. The benefit will be that other visitors will be aware of your problem with a particular school or school district. If they have similar complaints, the potential to find resolve will increase.

Do you know how you can take legal action on your own?

Both federal and state laws provide important legal rights and remedies if you have suffered wrongdoing. Acting on your own, you can seek to resolve your complaint through the courts, arbitration, or mediation.

To take advantage of these laws, you must take legal action promptly or you may lose the right to do so. Time restrictions, called "statutes of limitations," vary from state to state. Federal laws generally require that you bring a court action within two years of the date that you should have reasonably discovered the wrongdoing, but in no case later than five years from the date the wrongdoing actually occurred.

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