PTA Support?

We are starting to investigate replacing our PTA software. Was wondering if your software/site does anything that supports PTA database functions with a web front end - eg, membership database that includes family relationships ie parents/siblings, emergency contact info, after school class registration and payment, processing of electronic signatures on mandatory school district forms, Hot lunch sign up and payment, volunteer signup, etc.

We have several features that could help serve the PTA needs you have identified:

1) As users sign-up on our site, they are automatically connected to other school members (they are actually connected to members at 6 levels - from district down to class level depending on how much information they provide). You can get a feel for this by reviewing the directory slide in our tour (http://www.schoolparentnet.com/tour.htm).
2) This directory is connected to a family profile that establishes the parent/sibling relationship.
3) We recommend that users should ask their school PTA/staff to help with directory security - by assigning a volunteer who will be the school security code administrator (we will help set this code up - all we need is for someone to volunteer from the school - a person who can validate school users and is willing to pass out the code to others).
4) Emergency contact info - we do allow parents to enter telephone numbers into their profile. However due to security reasons we do not display this information to others. Once your school has a security code we would be willing to provide access to telephone numbers that users may enter in their profiles.
5) Volunteer sign-ups - we have the capability to create sign-up sheets for specific events, tasks, projects, activities. The sign-up sheet works just as it does in the real world. The owner makes a sheet and others sign-up to volunteer, for items, pledge funds etc. We think that its easier to have volunteer sign-ups tied to specific activities rather than just a list of those who may be willing to volunteer for some future task.

We do not support the following functions yet: after school class registration and payment, processing of electronic signatures on mandatory school district forms, Hot lunch sign up and payment.

Please note that ours is a networking site - built around the school community. We facilitate school and social interaction and over time will continue to add more features. We provide a free service - please try it out - we are sure it will meet some of your needs now and then more so over time.

Security Q&A

Most other networking sites (that are used by our children) tend to think of security after the fact. Our company was founded by parents - hence network security was a key design goal. We have used the schools our children attend as a connection point and a security screening mechanism. Learn more about our mission and guiding principle.

We have outlined steps we have taken to create a secure online environment in the Q&A below:

Invitation only network --what does this mean? I requested an invitation via the home page and got invited from “VIP invitation”.

* This means that no user can create an account unless they are invited to join the network – either from an existing member or the SPN administrator. There is no automated invitation process, when someone requests an invite through our home page. Users are "manually" invited by our Administrator.
* After a user signs-up using the "VIP invitation", SPN will validate the user. If there is discrepancy in the sign-up information, we will block the user. Also, if the user chooses to not provide school profile information after sign-up, access to directory and other school features is blocked.
* Please note that very few users sign-up through our home page. Most users who join our network are invited by existing members. All network members can invite others to join after they sign-up.

What security features do you have?

* The security screen we perform for users signing up through our home page is only the first filter. We can also set-up a specific security code for your school (more information provided below). This feature helps control who can join your school group.
* An additional security layer is provided by you. You can monitor members because each network user is able to flag violators in the network. When a user registers and provides school profile information, they are automatically connected to other parents, teachers and administrators from their district/city, school, grade and classroom. Hence, each user is connected to a group where there is a high likelihood that others will know them, and this ensures that users cannot remain "anonymous". This automated grouping feature coupled with the ability to flag other users, enables network users to "self-monitor" members in their school, grade, class groups.

What is a school security code?

As we mentioned above, this is another security screen layer (learn more). This feature allows access only to those who get the code, from a person from your school who has volunteered to be the code administrator (and who has the ability to validate that only parents from your school get the code).

We recommend that you get someone to be a code administrator for your school (school staff member, volunteer/PTA parent etc.). Once your school has a code, then school users will feel more comfortable about updating their profiles with information such as hobbies, interests, photos and more (which will provide your school with a richer directory). By default, your school's users detailed profiles, and content posted by them, will only be visible to others from the same school.

Your site encourages people to post photos, interests and sport team or group affiliations. Can I control who views this information ?

Absolutely. Users are welcome to post photos, interests etc - but these are all optional. You do not have to provide this information and if you do, you can control who sees this, i.e to be viewed only by school, grade, class members, or for even more security, only by those you accept as family friends.

Why do you request children's initials on the school profile form ?

Children's initials are requested in order to label the columns used in directory filters. Please see the picture in our tour - you can see "cff" under Group Filters in the second slide. This column would be labeled by your child's initials for your account. Then you would be able to sort through the multiple directory levels by clicking on the buttons below. Your child's name/initials are not listed in any of the directories. As described above, you have complete control over who can view your detailed profile.

We hope that you will find our secure online parents' network useful in your daily lives. Enjoy!

P.S.: Two links that you may find useful (1) List of schools with registered users (2) Success Story screenshots showing how the site is used at one of these schools

Community Dialog

We will use this blog to capture dialog with our user community. If there are interesting questions (and our answers) that have not yet been posted on our FAQ, we will post them here. If we get comments/feedback through our home page which we think may interest others, we will post it here. Feel free to add your comments to this blog.

For customer support, please continue to send us Feedback through our home page or email us at info@schoolparentnet.com.

We will continue to use our SPN Blog to keep you updated on features, releases, news etc.