Get Claude Free for a Year

If you teach in a US K-12 school, you can get a full year of premium Claude access at no cost. Here’s what it actually includes, how to get verified, and what to actually do with it once you’re in.

What you actually get

This isn’t a stripped-down “free tier.” Verified teachers get:

• Premium Claude access, the same paid-tier capabilities other users pay for.
• A library of teaching skills built specifically for classroom use.
• Curriculum connections mapped to academic standards in all 50 states, so what Claude suggests actually lines up with what you’re required to teach.
• Integrations with tools schools already use, including Canva Education, MagicSchool, Brisk Teaching, Diffit, Eedi, Snorkl, TeachFX, ASSISTments, and Coteach.
• Claude Code and Cowork features, useful if you want to automate repeated tasks, not just chat back and forth.
• Access to an “AI Fluency for PK-12 Teachers” course, if you want structured training instead of figuring it out on your own.

Any verified staff member at a US K-12 school or district qualifies, not just classroom teachers specifically. You need to be 18 or older. This is for individual educators right now, Anthropic has said a separate offering for schools and districts as a whole is coming later.

Anthropic’s own announcement doesn’t spell out the exact verification steps, so treat this next part as what’s been reported, and double check the current process on Anthropic’s site when you go to sign up, since exact flows can change:

1. Go to Claude for Teachers on Anthropic’s site and select “Get verified.”
2. You’ll go through a verification partner (reported to be Goodstack), using your school email.
3. You’ll need to show proof of your teaching status, like a school ID, license, or contract.
4. Verification is typically reported to take under 24 hours, occasionally up to 3 days.
5. You can keep using Claude while you wait, the K-12 educator terms apply once you’re verified.
6. Once verified, your account upgrades automatically, and you get a confirmation email.

Once you’re verified, here are two real prompts to start with instead of staring at a blank chat.

Prompt 1: build a differentiated lesson

Act as an experienced teacher and instructional designer.

Build me a lesson plan for [SUBJECT / TOPIC], grade [GRADE LEVEL], [LENGTH] minutes.

Give me:
1. A clear learning objective tied to [STATE] academic standards
2. A short hook to open the lesson
3. The main activity, step by step
4. Three versions of the practice activity: one for students who need more support, one grade-level, one for students who need more challenge
5. A 5-minute exit check to see who actually got it

Keep the language plain. I want to teach this, not just read it.

Prompt 2: analyze your own class data

Act as a data-literate teacher coach.

Here is my class data: [PASTE OR UPLOAD GRADES, QUIZ SCORES, OR AN EXPORT FROM YOUR GRADEBOOK]

Tell me:
1. Which students are trending down, and over what time period
2. Which specific skills or standards the class as a whole is weakest on, based on this data
3. One thing I should adjust in my next two weeks of instruction, based on what you see
4. Which 3-5 students I should check in with first, and why

Keep it specific to what's actually in the data. Do not guess at things the data doesn't show.

What else it’s good for

• Differentiating the same lesson for different skill levels in your room without rewriting it from scratch three times.
• Setting up repeated tasks, like weekly prep or recurring parent updates, with Cowork, so you’re not rebuilding them by hand every time.
• Using the standards-mapped skills library instead of starting instructional design from a blank page.

The takeaway

This is real premium access, not a limited trial, and it’s free for a full year if you’re a verified US K-12 educator. The only real cost is the time it takes to get verified, which is usually fast, and the two prompts above are a faster start than opening a blank chat and hoping.