Consumer support and offer redemption
If a consumer experiences issues verifying their educator or faculty status, direct them to the SheerID Verification Help Center for assistance or customer support routing. If a verified consumer encounters issues applying a discount or redeeming an offer, your customer support team must assist them directly.
Audience overview
SheerID educator verification allows you to offer exclusive promotions to educators, faculty, and administrators at educational institutions. Eligible institution types depend on your program configuration and can include K-12 primary and secondary schools, high schools, universities, and post-secondary trade schools.
Educator sub-segments
Educator audience sub-segments are defined by organization type. Available organization types vary by country. Review the supported consumer communities guide to confirm country availability for your target regions.
Best Practice: Be inclusive
Including post-secondary with your university program helps maximize offer reach and reduces consumer support inquiries, but it depends on your business needs and product positioning.
K-12 faculty
This segment includes all educators, faculty, and administrators at primary and secondary schools.
High school faculty
This segment includes all educators and faculty at upper secondary institutions supporting grades 8-12.
University faculty
This segment covers all educators, faculty, and administration at degree-granting higher education institutions recognized by the official governing body for education in that country, such as a Ministry of Education. Recognition standards vary globally, and SheerID continuously updates school lists to maintain accurate coverage. University faculty is the most commonly used educator educator segment among SheerID clients.
Post-secondary faculty
This segment includes all educators, faculty, and administration at non-degree granting institutions above the secondary high school level. Examples include vocational schools, trade schools, technical colleges, culinary institutes, beauty schools, and IT training centers. Short-course programs are excluded. Eligible organizations must offer extended programs, such as semester-long or year-long courses.
Program configuration and country availability
To combine multiple organization types into a single program, all selected organization types must be available in every target country.
For example, if you want to launch a worldwide program that includes both K-12 and university educators, you must create two separate programs: one global program for university educators, and a second program for K-12 educators limited to countries where K-12 verification is supported.
If your target market is a single country where all selected organizations are supported such as the US, you can combine K-12, high school, university, and post-secondary faculty into one program.
Unsupported groups
Homeschool educators
Homeschool educators are excluded by default. In the US, you can request to include homeschool educators. These request require document review and typically yield lower assurance rates because homeschool documentation is not standardized across states. Including homeschool educators can increase support volume and elevate the risk of offer abuse.
To enable homeschool educator verification, contact your Customer Success Manager or the Product Support team to create an account-scoped "Homeschool" organization, and provide estimated submission volumes for your program.
Retired educators
Retired educators are not eligible for educator verification programs.
Verification methods and school lookup
Verification methods
Educator verification uses authoritative data sources, single sign-on (SSO), and document review by default. You can also enable email loop with domain validation to expand verification coverage.
Add School Request form
Nearly all educator programs include the Add School Request (ASR) form by default. If an educator cannot find their school in the lookup menu, they can submit a request to add their institution.
Learn more about supporting educators in the Center of Excellence.