K12.MI.US Domain Registration Policy

The K12.MI.US domain is reserved for K-12 schools, public and private, in the state of Michigan.

The following criteria will be used to determine whether or not an institution will be granted a domain name under K12.MI.US:

1. If a school or school district, public or private, is listed in the Michigan Education Directory (MED) a domain name under the K12.MI.US domain will be granted;
   - or -

2. If a school or school district, public or private, will be listed in the next edition of the Michigan Education Directory and this is verified in writing (letter, FAX or e-mail to Merit) by the publisher or by the Michigan Department of Education, then a domain name under K12.MI.US will be granted;
   - or -

3. If an institution enrolls students and offers a complete curriculum of one or more of the kindergarten through 12th grade levels, then a domain name under K12.MI.US will be granted;
   - or -

4. If an institution meets ALL of the following conditions, a domain name under K12.MI.US will be granted:
   1. the institution's request for a domain name under K12.MI.US is endorsed by a written request (letter, e-mail or FAX to Merit) from an educational agency under criteria 1, 2 or 3 above or from the Michigan Department of Education that states that in the agency's opinion each of the following conditions are met and that a domain name should be granted;
   2. the domain name being requested does not conflict with any of the names of schools or school districts listed in the Michigan Education Directory;
   3. the domain name being requested is not likely to be confused with any of the names of schools or school districts listed in the Michigan Education Directory or any of the domain names already registered under K12.MI.US;
   4. the domain name being requested is the same as, a shortened form of or otherwise derived from the name of the organization making the request;
   5. the organization's primary purpose is to support K-12 schools, school districts or students in Michigan;
   6. the organization is a consortium or cooperative of organizations that qualify under criteria 1, 2 or 3 above;
   7. the organization does not already have a domain name registered in the domain name hierarchy; and
   8. none of the other categories that are available for domain name registration (.ORG, .NET, .COM, .GOV, .EDU, ...) are more appropriate than K12.MI.US for this organization.

Each institution, public or private, that meets the criteria given above, will be granted one domain name under K12.MI.US.

Any entity that does not meet the above criteria will not be granted a domain name under K12.MI.US.
 

Choosing a Domain Name for a K-12 School

where <school> is a label chosen by the school and <district> is either a label chosen by the public school district or is a predefined label . The choice for <district> will depend on which of the following three categories the school falls into.

1. Public Schools Organized in Public School Districts

   A public school is typically a constituent of a public school district. The <district> label of such a school's domain name will be the label chosen by the district to uniquely identify the district. All schools in the same district will use the same <district> label.

   The <district>.K12.MI.US domain name must be registered with domreg.merit.edu (see How to Register A Domain Name). This domain name must be registered before any school in the district can register a domain name.

   The school's domain name, <school>.<district>.K12.MI.US, must be registered with the technical contact for the <district>.K12.MI.US domain. Search the domreg.merit.edu Registry to find a school district's domain name and technical contact. If a school wishes to register a domain name, but its district does not yet have a registered domain name, then the school needs to take appropriate steps to have a domain name registered for the district first.

2. Public Schools Not Organized in Public School Districts

   A growing number of public schools are not part of a public school district. These schools may be called school academies or charter schools or something else, but are still publicly funded. Because these schools don't have a district, they will be assigned to a pseudo district called "Special Publicly Funded Schools", and SPFS will be used for the <district> label. The domain name of such schools will therefore be of the form <school>.SPFS.K12.MI.US . Domain names of this form must be registered with domreg.merit.edu (see How to Register A Domain Name).

3. Private Schools

   All private schools will be assigned to a pseudo district called "Private Schools", and PVT will be used for the <district> label. The domain name of a private school will therefore be of the form <school>.PVT.K12.MI.US . Domain names of this form must be registered with domreg.merit.edu (see How to Register A Domain Name).

What to remember when choosing any domain name:

1. All labels, whether <school> or <district> or any other label, may contain only the following characters: 'A'-'Z', 'a'-'z', '0'-'9' and '-' (hyphen).

2. Domain names are not case sensitive. For example, st-paul.K12.MI.US, St-Paul.K12.MI.US and sT-pAUL.K12.MI.US are all the same domain name.

domreg.merit.edu is a public service provided without charge by Merit Network Inc., a non-profit organization. All resources used by this service are donated by Merit. Merit receives no funding for this service from any outside source.

domreg.merit.edu is operated independently of every other service offered by Merit Network Inc.