General Glossary Terms

(NCLB) The act of 2001 that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. NCLB holds states and school districts more accountable for ensuring that all students reach certain proficiency standards in a specified amount of time and allows students to transfer to higher performing schools or receive supplemental services such as tutoring if school standards are not met in time. The law also makes other provisions regarding curriculum, teacher qualify, and parental rights to certain information. Children with disabilities are included in the standardized testing that determines whether a school meets the mandated standards, and 95% of students with disabilities must participate in the annual testing. Federal education funding is tied to a school’s performance related to NCLB.

A divorce where the spouse suing for divorce does not have to prove that the other spouse did something wrong in order to be granted the right to legally end the marriage. In most states, a spouse must simply state a reason that the state recognizes as legitimate, like irreconcilable differences or living separate and apart for more than one year.

A phrase that is sometimes included in employment contracts restricting the amount of time during which a former employee promises not to directly compete with the company after leaving that company. In addition to non-compete provisions, other restrictive covenants, as they are sometimes called, include non-solicitation provisions, in which employees agree not to contact customers or co-workers for a pre-determined amount of time following employment, and non-disclosure or confidentiality agreements, in which employees agree to protect the confidentiality of information that the company has developed and made available to employees to aid them in performing their jobs.

Also known as NDA’s or confidential disclosure agreements (CDA’s). An NDA is a signed legal contract between at least two parties that states clearly that the parties may share confidential materials, ideas, trade secrets, or knowledge with each other but may not legally share it or use the confidential knowledge otherwise.