What we shipped, and when

Anything a student writes in the Community, a new post or a reply, now waits for a moderator's OK before other families see it, whatever the room's setting. What students already posted stays up, and Welcome posts come only from moderators.

Sending one message to two or more classes now writes one note, so a child in both, and that child's parents, see it once with one unread mark and get one email, one push and one text, not one per class.

Publishing a form for staff now emails them, the way families already hear about theirs. It sends once per publish, and each staff member can mute it under their notification settings.

Type a full name, "Sarah Brown", into a search box and every word has to match, so you get Sarah Brown and not everyone named Sarah or Brown. One word still matches a first name, a last name or an email.

When a book on hold is checked out to the family that placed the hold, the hold is marked fulfilled and leaves the list. Before, it stayed open as if the book were still waiting for them.

Days and dates across the family portal and staff forms now show in your school's time zone, so an entry made in the evening no longer reads as tomorrow.

Settings → Library & barcodes → Families can reserve. Untick it and the Reserve page leaves the family portal and the parent app. Staff still reserve, and holds already placed stay. Before, the only way was to switch the whole Library off.

A class graded by a progress-report checklist can still take assignments, a teacher's notes toward Mastery. Families see each score but no class average from them, the class row says Progress report, and the overall on Home leaves the class out.

Tick Build across the year under Settings → Academics. A checklist class's card then lists every skill from the year's checklists so far, with a column per quarter showing its mark, so a skill mastered in the third quarter still shows on the fourth's card.

Under a rubric's grid, Add several from your list narrows your school's skills by subject and grade level. Tick Select all and they go in, in your list's order.

A rubric on your own levels, Mastery, Improving and the rest, used to refuse to save because those levels had no points. Now the best level counts highest with no points typed in, and editing a scale keeps the descriptions written in your rubrics.

Each grade scale now has a setting for whether families and students see the percent. Turn it off on an N/S/E scale and the portal, the app, report cards and the family's transcript show "S", not "84%". Staff still see the percent. Left on, nothing changes.

Academics → Import attendance history takes a spreadsheet of attendance totals, a row per student per term or year, from your old system. Report cards and the records packet print them, and a term with nothing on file says "No attendance recorded", not zeros.

A new student login, or a changed address, now needs a parent's approval, whoever typed it in. Parents approve on their child's page in the portal. A login the student has used or been invited to keeps working, if they're at or above your youngest grade.

A class graded by a checklist now has a Lock checklists for report cards step, as a class graded by points does. Families see none of a period's checklists until you lock it, so the first child you finish no longer puts a half-empty report card on the portal.

New chat in Messages now lists families under their children. Teachers see the parents of their own students, and admins see every family. Each name says how that parent will hear about the message, and their reply comes back to the same conversation.

When the Help panel can't answer a parent, "Send this to my school" sends the question to your office as a message, with the page they were on. Your reply lands in the family's Messages. Pearspark sees only how-to questions, with no family details.

Close the setup wizard part way through and your student list, teachers, school year and tuition are kept. Choose to add things one at a time and all but the student list is kept. Build my school on your dashboard opens the wizard where you left off.

Choose Skip the questions when you first set up and billing, the library, admissions and the rest stay on, ready for you to turn off what you don't use.

The financial aid banner on a family's Billing page now stays while they have an application this year. It says where the application stands and turns amber when you've asked for a document. Before, closing applications took it away.

The budget headroom you see while reviewing aid applications now counts only aid your school pays for, the same figure the Financial aid page shows. ESA and SGO credits taken off a bill up front are the program's money, so they no longer shrink it.

A parent who clicks Can't make it on a volunteer shift can change their mind. While the spot is still free it shows under Open spots again, and one click signs them back up. Before, only the office could put them back on it.

On a phone, a parent's More menu now lists Forms & permission slips, so a slip no longer has to be opened from the email that announced it.

Each field on the application, the inquiry form and the forms inside Pearspark now carries its label, so a screen reader says "Your name" or "Email" instead of an unnamed box, and tapping a label puts the cursor in its field.

A form on your own website now shrinks to fit its thank-you message instead of keeping the form's full height with a blank space under it, on every website builder. The WordPress plugin's block also shows the whole form in the editor.

A combined class can now be split into groups, such as Grade 5 and Grade 6, from the class page. Each group gets its own row in the planner, and families see a group's lessons only for their own child.

When two classes share a name, a teacher's dashboard, class pages, planner, gradebook and attendance add each one's grade: "Math (Grade 5)" and "Math (Grade 6)". The grade comes from the class, or from its students when the class has none set.

Parents can now report an absence for several children at once, and for up to three weeks in one note. Pearspark files only the days your school meets, by your own calendar. On Reported by parents, a week away is one note you acknowledge once, not five rows.

Pearspark now picks the current term from your term dates, so the gradebook opens on a new quarter the day it starts and stays on the last one through a break. Terms no longer have a Set current button: change a term's dates instead.

A class page now has a Planner button beside Gradebook, and its Lesson planner card opens a new lesson for that class in one click.

Ask how to create a lesson plan or set up campus and home days and the help chat now shows you the steps. Tell it "that wasn't it" and it offers other guides, and "Send this to a person" reaches us the moment you press it.

Drag your admissions steps into your own order: tour first or apply first, the tour and interview as one visit or two. Families book from your website, get a confirmation, reminders and a link to change it, then a thank-you with their application filled in.

A full tour can take a waitlist; when a place opens, the first family waiting is booked in and emailed. The host and a teacher get a note the day before. A time, or a run of repeating times, can be moved or cancelled, and every family is told.

Families not ready to visit can book a phone call, or ask a question and get your reply at once, with buttons to book a call, book a tour or start an application already filled in. Admissions › On your website puts a button on every page of your site.

A family who asks for information shows as waiting until you answer, on your admissions list and on Needs you today. Each weekday morning the office gets one note listing every family still waiting.

When a family asks, books or applies, their record says which page of your website the form was on and which site sent them there, like Google or Instagram. Admissions › On your website counts families, applications and enrollments by page.

A WordPress plugin puts your application and interest forms on any page with a block or a shortcode, and Wix takes a custom element. Squarespace, Webflow, Weebly, Google Sites and GoDaddy get one snippet to paste, with steps for each.

An interview time you type is now saved as that time where your school is, instead of showing up hours early. Volunteer reminder emails give the time where the event is held, not Arizona time.

The catalog search and the search bar at the top now find a book by the barcode label on one of its copies, as well as by title, author and ISBN. Check out and check in also read a label typed in lower case, as a scanner does with Caps Lock on.

If the card on your Pearspark subscription is declined, every administrator gets an email with the amount and the day it will be tried again, with a link to update the card. Before, the only sign was a banner inside the app.

Mark on file, beside a child on Enrollment agreements, records an answer given some other way — a picture-day photo release, say — with the day, the parent and a scan. The family drops off the reminder list and can still change it.

A new volunteer setting requires clearance for positions marked as needing it, or for every position. Signing up, accepting a request and the office’s Ask all check it. Every school starts with warnings only, as before.

Looking back at a week shows what happened — which meetings had a lesson and which did not — instead of offering to plan it. A class’s name can also show its week before and after under its row.

Every 30 labels start a fresh US Letter sheet, so a run longer than one Avery 5160 sheet no longer loses a row off the bottom or drifts half a label out of line.

A class can be graded by a checklist instead of by points or standards: choose the skills you judge for a grading period, then fill in a page per child — a level for each, a comment beside any row. That page is the report card.

Books from different categories can go on one label list: click the tag button on a title or on a single copy, then print them all on one sheet. Labels can also print in title order, A to Z, which makes pairing labels with books quick.

A child's class page in the family portal now has a tab for each subject with its own average and its own weights, plus an All subjects view, the way the teacher's gradebook and the report card already split them. Student logins get the same view.

The label printer has a Which books dropdown — every category, plus Library books and Textbooks, each with its copy count — and an Added since day, so what you scanned in this week prints without the rest. Runs over 300 labels go out in batches.

The immunization record and the physical form still start in the enrollment forms, after you accept a student, and now you can move either onto the application itself — which is what most states expect. Only staff who may see health records can open the file.

List the medicines your office may give and each family answers yes or no for their own child — in the portal with their signature, on the enrollment packet, or from your health spreadsheet — and the answers print on the field-trip emergency card.

Drop the shot records you hold on paper onto the health page and each one is matched to a student by its file name, with anything uncertain handed back to you to settle. It can be undone for a day.

An immunization record a family uploaded with their enrollment packet is filed on the health record itself, so the health page and the portal stop asking for a form the school already has.

Staff ask for paid, sick or unpaid days on their own page, the office is notified and approves or denies with a note, and every approval rides to payroll in that period's timesheet file — or goes the same day with one button.

Pick My own dates, type the first period's first day and each period-end date from your payroll calendar, and the timesheet email follows that list instead of a rule; the page says when the list is about to run out.

Type "what's new" into the help panel and it lists the latest changes, dated the day each went live, with a link to the full history; families see the family-facing ones.

Open the absent teacher on the Teachers page and print their packet from there; a role that runs classes or the schedule no longer needs the planner's grades permission to do it.

A skill stays true until new evidence changes it. Mark one as a gate and it holds a child on their track until it is met; waive it and the record keeps the debt.

A child has one enrolled grade and a working level per subject, each with its history and a target, so a reader two years ahead and a reader two years behind are both described honestly.

Put a curriculum on the shelf once, then lay it onto a class or give one child their own track and let them move at their own speed.

Ask families whatever you need to ask, and charge for it where there is a fee — field trips, lunch orders, spirit wear.

Track the hours a family owes and the hours they have worked, without the spreadsheet that usually holds them.

Roster the things that meet outside the timetable and take attendance for them.

A new school can build its calendar, classes and timetable at zero students, gets its state's holidays suggested every year, and can set which days each class meets — the thing hybrid schools always had to fake.

A records escrow now holds the source documents alongside the exported record, and the school can see the date of its last full export.

Keep cumulative records, transcripts and an escrow with us without running attendance, billing or the rest of it.

Mark a document on the policy shelf as staff-and-families and it appears in the parent portal instead of in an email attachment nobody kept.

Clearances, certificates and personnel documents sit on the teacher record rather than in a drawer.

Older students get their own login and see their own work, separately from their parents' portal.

Write down the call or the meeting against the child it was about, and choose who else can see it.

Community was rewritten around the way families actually read it — standing in a pickup line, one hand.

A family can stop autopay for a month without cancelling it, and a school setting up can enter the cash and cheques it already took.

A fee paid for a trip or an event produces a receipt, like every other payment does.

A parent can start the conversation from the portal rather than hunting for a personal phone number.

The school decides whether autopay is required, optional or off, and the family is asked at the moment they pay.

Punch in and out, review timesheets, and export a payroll CSV for whoever runs payroll.

Settings, tuition plans, volunteer events and rotations inherit from the school and can be overridden per campus, so a second site does not mean a second Pearspark.

A report card that is a list of skills checked off rather than letters, printed on the school's own letterhead.

Post to the whole school or one class, with a separate space for schools that want to talk to each other.

Every signed-in screen follows the device, and stays light unless the device asks otherwise.

The tab you were on and the filters you set follow your sign-in, so the classroom iPad and the laptop at home agree.

One place for the documents an inspector or an accreditor asks for, with who has read them.

Grade an assignment by criteria — rows for what you are judging, columns for the levels — instead of typing one number.

A message from a parent lands where staff already work instead of in a personal inbox.

Say what counts as absent, tardy and excused in your school, and let the reports follow that rather than a default.

The agreement, the tuition it commits to and the fees that go with it move through one flow and come out signed.

Bring students, guardians and enrollments across from another system instead of retyping them.

Roll the whole school forward a grade, invite families to re-enroll, and charge the re-enrollment fee in the same pass.

Record custody, and split an invoice between two homes so neither parent is asked for the whole thing.

Reach every family at once when something has happened, from the phone in your pocket.

Choose what of the week's plan a family sees, which is what a hybrid school's home days actually run on.

Parents keep allergies, medications and the authorized pickup list current themselves, and the school stops chasing paper.

A syllabus per class, clearance documents against a volunteer, lists you can save and reuse, and a report that arrives by email on a schedule.

Record that eligibility was verified, and where a school does need an upload, the file is destroyed once the decision is made.

The things staff need to know reach them as a notification instead of waiting for them to open a laptop.

Charge a kindergartener and a high schooler differently under one plan, which is how most schools already price.

Handle a scholarship that pays through a portal rather than an invoice, and take a payment in advance against what a family will owe.

Map your headings once, import in batches, and see what came in and what did not.

Build the application form your school actually uses, collect the documents with it, and send an enrollment packet at the end.

Record who may collect a child and who did, which is the part of dismissal that ends up in writing.

Keep a child's plan, its goals and the documents behind it in the place the rest of their record lives.