School Boards Association and School Districts Resolve Copyright Dispute Over Policy Documents
We reported on this case, involving two school districts and the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (“PSBA” or “Defendant”), in October of last year. The school districts, Montgomery Area School District (“MASD”) and Southern Snyder School District (“SSSD”) (collectively, “Plaintiffs”), sued PSBA for attempting to prevent them from using PSBA policy materials. The Plaintiffs argued that PSBA did not hold copyright protection over public policy documents.
In its Answer, the Defendant argued that the real issue was not the enacted policies themselves, but the policy models the Plaintiffs used to create them, which, according to PSBA, are owned and copyrighted by the organization. PSBA explained that these models consist of multiple templates containing recommended policy language for drafting regulations in various areas of education, such as screening students with disabilities. While PSBA did not clarify whether its policy models were based on existing public policies or drawn from policies enacted elsewhere, it did submit copyright registrations for the materials in dispute. PSBA also affirmed that Plaintiffs breached their Policy Agreement by continuing to use the materials after their subscription had expired. They claimed that such a practice harmed PSBA’s profits and jeopardized what they described as “PSBA’s decades of carefully crafted and considered research and development.” (26).
After that, the parties agreed to the court’s suggestion to submit the case to an Early Neutral Evaluation program. These programs are designed to help parties assess the strengths and weaknesses of their arguments with the assistance of a neutral evaluator appointed by the court, potentially guiding them toward settlement before proceeding to trial. Such adjudication tools are usually employed to encourage resolution and avoid prolonged litigation, and that’s exactly what happened in this case.
Unfortunately, we do not know what the evaluator concluded about the arguments presented by the Plaintiffs and PSBA. However, whatever was found was evidently persuasive enough to motivate both sides to settle the case rather than continue with lengthy and costly litigation. Thus, the case was officially closed in July 2025.