Creator Studio Educator Pricing - no K12 discount?

I got confirmation last night from SheerID of what we all expected was the case:

Thank you for contacting SheerID regarding your interest in Apple Creator Studio. I’m sorry to hear you experienced an issue confirming your eligibility. Allow me to clarify the guidelines for this offer.

At this time, Apple has made the offer available only to students and faculty members enrolled and employed at degree-granting colleges and universities. Since your school is classified as a high school, you do not meet the eligibility requirements.

As a third-party verification company, we partner with many retailers that have unique sets of guidelines for their exclusive offers. These guidelines are provided to SheerID to follow when verifying eligibility as securely and accurately as possible. We are unable to provide exceptions or make alterations to them. I hope you understand my support limitations in this case. 

For more information, you may contact Apple Support here. 

We appreciate your understanding. 

Kind Regards,

Myka G.

Sr. Verification Support

SheerID

We're also an iPad 1-to-1 district and I'm sitting at my desk in my classroom right now typing this on my district-provided MacBook (with my district iPad right next to it). I use Keynote and Pages every single day. This seems like a very short-sighted decision, Apple. Too bad.

I'm a K12 teacher, and I can't get the educator pricing to work. The verification through SheerID fails for me regardless of whether I search for my specific school or the school district that cuts my checks.

This offer is unavailable

The academic institution you have selected is not eligible for this offer.

Eligibility criteria is determined by Apple and managed by SheerID.

I took a closer look at the fine print on apple.com, and the wording several places is "College students and educators can subscribe for $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year." Originally I read that as all educators, since that's how all of Apple's other education discounts have worked for decades. But a strict reading of that phrasing maybe means college students and college educators I guess??

I have an email in to SheerID support for clarification. I couldn't figure out how to contact App Store support for this issue unless I classify it as fraud or something or unless I want to start a chat or phone call (I don't). I'm on the full price monthly trial for now, hoping this gets resolved in some way before my month is up. I didn't want to get auto charged for a full price yearly subscription yet without getting this clarified.

C'mon Apple, figure this out.

If you click on the "Help Center" for Sheer ID, you will find the following regarding ineligibility, "For example, primary and secondary schools would be listed as ineligible for an offer intended exclusively for university students or teachers. "

I suppose this is not for secondary school teachers. Sad considering the district I work in provides iPads for every student and all teachers are given an iPad and a MacBook and every computer lab uses Mac minis. 🤷‍♂️

I guess I'll just have to use the Google Suite.

Not only are K-12 schools not eligible, but Apple did away with the Educator Pro bundle for $200 that K-12 was eligible for, leaving K-12 basically with no discounted options at all. Sadly, I will continue to rely on Adobe Creative Cloud, which does give discounted accounts to K-12.

So true. I called and spoke with Apple Support and they are not aware of any solutions for this. They were not able to confirm whether this discount only applies to college educators; but, it's beginning to look that way. I hope this is not the case :-)

Honestly, I would be happy if they just offered Pages, Keynote and Numbers as an option for primary/secondary teachers. I won't really use Logic or Final Cut. But, that does not seem to be the direction Apple is going. Instead I have new apps that have lost simplicity and functionality.

Benjamin, thank you for posting this information. It’s disappointing, without a doubt. Along with the excellent products, Apple has stirred a love-hate response from me regarding their software and subtle disrespect (lack of clear communication and poor implementation). With that said, it is only a tech company; what am I expecting?

iWork suite remains free for now with the same features as before. What it will lack is the “added features” of AI and additional templates. There are two annoying ‘features’ though. The constant reminders to pay up for the complete suite and the free templates are indistinguishable from the extras until you try to download them.

I too am also in this fist fight as a K-12 and to be quite honest, I'm not feeling very patient about this insulting fine print. Of all the people on planet Earth....TEACHERS are the population that actually need this discount. Does anyone at Apple actually understand what living with a teacher's salary entails? I suppose it could be argued that Apple does, providing such an impressive offer at $29 annually versus yet another overpriced subscription for the general population....BUT YOU SNUBBED AN ENTIRE, VITAL, SECTOR OF THE CUSTOMER BASE IN EDUCATION....K-12!

There are literally K-12 folks on here with 1 to 1 Apple classrooms (iPads, Mac labs, etc) that not only use these products daily, BUT ADVERTISE DIRECTLY FOR APPLE in their use. Yet, we're ineligible for a landmark opportunity that would literally knock the ball out of the park for justifying the continued use of Apple products in schools.

Are you high, Cupertino?

I'm experiencing the same frustration. I've entered my high school, and have also tried finding my school district in the SheerID search; both have been met with the following popup.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out because in the past education pricing has applied to k-12 and education pricing has applied to homeschooling too.

same situation, same kind of district. I'd be happy if they just provided a option for the 'iWork" suite.