Privacy Policy

Pearspark is school-management software for small private schools, micro schools, classical schools, and homeschool co-ops (the "Service"), operated by Pear Spark LLC ("Pearspark," "we," "us"). This policy explains how we handle personal information in two situations:

• Data schools entrust to us. When a school uses Pearspark, it enters records about its students, families, and staff ("School Data"). The school owns and controls that data; we process it only on the school's behalf and instructions, as its service provider.
• Data you give us directly. When you visit this website, request information, or manage a Pearspark subscription, we handle that information as described below.

For schools, this policy is supplemented by our Data Processing Addendum, which contractually binds us to the commitments described here.

Schools and their authorized users decide what to enter. Depending on the features a school uses, School Data can include:

• Student records — name, date of birth, grade level, enrollment status, attendance, grades, report cards and transcripts, lesson and observation notes, and behavior records.
• Health records — conditions, medications, immunizations, and health-visit logs that the school chooses to track.
• Family and contact records — guardian names, relationships, email addresses, and phone numbers.
• Financial aid applications — household size, an income range the family selects, and any circumstances the family chooses to describe. We never ask for and do not accept tax returns, pay stubs, or other financial documents.
• Staff and volunteer records — names, contact details, roles, permissions, and volunteer scheduling.
• Admissions records — applicant and parent names, contact details, and application status.
• Activity and files — messages sent through the Service, uploaded files, and an audit trail of who viewed or changed records.

• Account and billing— when a school signs up we collect the school's name, the administrator's name and email, and student count. Payment details go directly to Stripe, our payment processor; we never see or store full card numbers.
• Website forms — if you request a guide or ask us to contact you, we collect what the form asks for (typically your name, email, school name, and role) and may send you related emails. Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link that works immediately.
• Correspondence — emails you send us, so we can reply and keep track of your request.
• Server logs — standard technical logs (such as IP address and browser type) kept for security and troubleshooting, and pruned on a regular cycle.

We use information only to:

• provide, secure, maintain, and support the Service;
• bill schools for their subscription;
• send the emails and notifications the Service generates (invites, reminders, statements, and messages schools compose);
• respond to questions and support requests;
• send prospective customers information they asked for; and
• comply with law.

• We never sell, rent, or trade personal information — School Data or otherwise.
• We never use School Data for advertising, marketing, or profiling, and we never market to students or families based on School Data.
• We never use School Data to train, fine-tune, evaluate, or prompt any artificial-intelligence or machine-learning model, and we never transmit School Data to any AI service. The Service contains no AI features. If that ever changes, it will require a school's separate, prior, opt-in written consent.
• We never combine one school's data with another's, and we never build datasets or products from School Data.
• Our team develops and tests the Service against fictional sample data — not real school records.

Where School Data includes "education records" under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Pearspark acts as a school official with a legitimate educational interest: we perform functions the school would otherwise perform itself, under the school's direct control, and we do not re-disclose education records except as FERPA and our agreement with the school permit.

Pearspark is not a general-audience consumer product, and children cannot sign themselves up. Student profiles and any student login accounts are created and controlled by the school. Where the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) applies, we rely on the school to provide consent on behalf of parents for the collection of student information — solely for educational purposes, which is the only way we use it. We collect from students only the information the school directs the Service to collect, and parents can review their child's information through the school or through the family portal the school provides.

We share personal information only with the service providers ("subprocessors") that help us run Pearspark. Each is bound by a written agreement to protect the data and to use it only to provide its service to us:

If a user turns on push notifications, those notifications are delivered through the push service built into their browser or device (operated by Apple, Google, or Mozilla, depending on the device).

Beyond that, we disclose personal information only if a school directs us to, or if the law requires it — and in that case we will notify the affected school first unless we are legally prohibited from doing so. No other third party receives School Data.

We use no advertising cookies, no third-party analytics, and no cross-site tracking — anywhere, including this website and the try-it-yourself demo. We do not run advertising or analytics tags from Google, Meta, or anyone else, and we do not build advertising audiences from your visit.

We do use the cookies required to sign you in and keep your session secure, and we keep our own count of how the website and the product are used: which pages are opened, which links are clicked, and which features get used. This is stored on our own servers and read only by us.

On our public website and demo, that record is tied to a random identifier created in your browser, which is not linked to your name or email unless you choose to give them to us in a form. Alongside it we note the approximate city the request came from and the browser and device type you are using, so we can tell where interest is coming from and make sure the site works on what people actually use. We also keep your IP address, for our own use only. It is never shared, and it is pruned on the same regular cycle as the rest of this record.

On our public website (never inside the Service, and never in the demo), we may also record how a page was used — where it was scrolled and what was clicked — so we can see where our own pages confuse people and fix them. These recordings are made with our own software and stored only on our own systems; no third party is involved. Anything you type into a form is masked in your browser before the recording exists, so keystrokes never reach us. If your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal, we don't record at all. Recordings are tied to the same random identifier described above, are read only by us, and are automatically deleted within 30 days.

Inside the Service it is deliberately less detailed, not more. Usage there records the school and the role only — never an individual person, and never a location or device. The request IP is kept for our own use only, as in our server logs. Your teachers and families are not profiled.

Some pages on this website embed how-to videos hosted on YouTube. We use YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com), and the player loads only after you choose to play a video. Once you play one, YouTube's own privacy policy applies to the player.

Push notifications are strictly opt-in, per device. If you enable them, we store the delivery address your browser issues so we can send you the notifications your school generates. You can turn them off at any time in the app or in your browser settings, and we delete the subscription when you do.

• Encryption — all data is encrypted in transit (TLS/HTTPS) and at rest.
• Tenant isolation— each school's data is logically separated and scoped so no school can ever see another's.
• Role-based access — within a school, users see only what their role permits, and schools can tailor permissions per person.
• Audit trail — the Service records who viewed and changed sensitive records, and schools can review that trail.
• Backups — regular backups protect against data loss.
• Limited internal access — access to production systems is restricted to authorized personnel who need it to run and support the Service.

If we become aware of a security breach affecting School Data, we will notify the affected school without undue delay so it can meet its own notification obligations, and we will cooperate fully in the response.

Schools stay in control of their data for as long as they use Pearspark: the Service includes tools to export, correct, and delete records at any time.

When a school leaves Pearspark, we return and/or delete its School Data within 30 days of its request, and we direct our subprocessors to do the same. Copies in routine backups are deleted on the ordinary backup cycle and remain protected until then.

One deliberate exception: when a school offboards, we keep a snapshot of each student's permanent records — transcript, immunization history, and attendance summary — so that families can still obtain those records if the school later closes. These snapshots are used for no other purpose and are protected under this policy.

• Students, parents, and staff: your school controls its records, so requests to access, correct, or delete your information should go to your school. We assist schools in fulfilling those requests, and the Service gives schools the tools to do so directly.
• Marketing emails: every one includes an unsubscribe link, honored immediately. Transactional emails (invites, receipts, statements) are sent only as needed to run the Service.
• Everyone: you can email us at support@pearspark.com to ask what information we hold about you, or to request correction or deletion. We honor these requests regardless of where you live, including rights under U.S. state privacy laws. We do not sell or share personal information for advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of.

School Data is processed and stored in the United States, and we will not transfer it outside the United States without the school's prior written consent.

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top and, for material changes affecting School Data, notify school administrators by email before the change takes effect. We will never weaken the commitments in section 5 for data already entrusted to us without a school's explicit consent.

Questions about privacy — from schools, parents, students, or anyone else — are welcome at support@pearspark.com. Schools can also request our Data Processing Addendum and current subprocessor list there.