Search Help
The search engine
Each page on the site has keywords its author has placed within it to describe what the content is all about. These keywords, the page titles, the frequency of all the words on the page, along with abstracts the author may have written are all there to help you identify what you’re looking for.
In the upper right corner of each page is a search input box. Type a few words that best describe what you’re looking for. For example, if you want to find out about training and you’re a school district superintendent, type “training, superintendent” and press the “Search” button or hit enter on your keyboard.
There are several collections of TASB.org information to search through. If you want a narrower search than "All of TASB.org," be sure to explore the pull-down menu beneath the search box.
For more help with the search engine, click the “Advanced Search” link under the search box.
Search tips
These Search Tips are a guide to the process of searching and using the powerful Verity Query Language to find the information you are seeking. The guide starts with an overview of searching and moves from simple searches using a single word or phrase to more complicated searches using many search terms. Use the many examples as an aid to formulating your own searches.
Simple Searches
Enter your search terms in lower case.
The search engine will look for both upper and lower case instances of the search term:
meet
yields the words
meet and stemmed variations, such as
meets and
meeting
student dress code
yields pages that contain all of the words
student, dress and
code and stemmed variations, such as
students,
dressing, and
codes
Searching with quotation marks
Search for phrases by entering the words in double quotation marks:
"student discipline"
yields the phrase
student discipline Enclose terms in double quotation marks to cause the search engine to take them literally:
"meet"
yields the word meet
When searching for abbreviations or acronyms, case is important. For example, if you are looking for pages that refer to TASB (the acronym for the Texas Association of School Boards), use the CASE modifier and enter the search term in upper case:
<CASE> TASB
yields the string TASB in upper case
Combining Search Terms
Expand searches by linking search terms with OR in all caps.
The search engine will find pages that contain at least one of the search terms:
education OR instruction
yields any of the words education or instruction
student OR pupil discipline
yields the words student or pupil and discipline
Using Wildcards
If you are not sure of the spelling of a search term, use wildcard characters.
Asterisks (*)
The asterisk is useful for matching terms with the same root or prefix. For example, if you are not sure how to spell zoopraxiscope, enter:
zoop*
yields words beginning with the string zoop
Question marks (?)
The question mark is useful to substitute for characters in a particular position in a term. For example, if you are searching for a document referring to someone named Fleiss but you are not sure if the name is spelled Fleiss or Fliess, enter:
fl??ss
yields words beginning with fl and ending with ss with any two characters in between.