Preschool Software · For a small, warm preschool · Roster · picture day · memory book · family notes
A preschool runs on trust and a tiny staff — a front desk, a few teachers, and a room of the youngest children. This keeps the parts that matter simple: a family and class roster the desk can keep current in minutes, a gentle first picture day, a keepsake memory book of the class year, and an easy way to send the day’s note home — with the strictest care for the youngest children’s photos. It is not a childcare billing app and it does not process payments; it is the quiet everyday tool for the four things a preschool actually does.
The roster, the memory-book editor, and the family notes are the built, everyday core. The picture-day store and texted pickup reminders are in early access, and money is honest-off — the store does not process payments yet. There is no signup wall here; a conversation is the honest next step.
A preschool is its own thing. It is not a small elementary school, and it is not a daycare billing engine. It is a room of two-, three-, and four-year-olds, a front desk that greets every family by name, and a handful of teachers who are with the children all day and have no IT department behind them. Whatever they use has to be quiet and quick — something a teacher can pick up between circle time and snack, and a director can hand to a new hire without a training week.
So this is built for that scale, on purpose. It carries the four ordinary jobs a preschool actually has — keeping the roster and the family contacts current, running a first picture day gently, making a keepsake memory book of the year, and getting the day’s note home — and it leaves out the heavy machinery a room of little ones does not need. Where a capability is still opening up, this page says so plainly rather than dress it up.
The daily loop
A preschool’s day is one continuous thread, not six separate apps: a child arrives, gets a classroom note, naps and eats, might need an incident filed, gets a photo taken now and then, and goes home to someone on the list. This is that whole loop, told honestly at every step.
1 · Arrival & the classroom note
A child arrives and a teacher opens today’s sheet: activities, a mood, and a quick note — filed by staff, for a child who is actually marked present today. It is one sheet that carries the whole day, not six separate forms passed around the room.
Built · staff-filed, present-child only
2 · Nap & meal, on the same sheet
Nap start and end times, and what was offered at snack, sit on that same daily sheet. The count that feeds a meal-reimbursement claim is a plain aggregate — how many children were served — tallied from who was present, never a list of what any one child ate. A family’s free-or-reduced meal category is read only through an authorized lookup and is never guessed; when no one has authorized that lookup, it is reported honestly as not available, never defaulted to paid.
Built · aggregate count, honest-off eligibility
3 · An incident or health note
When something happens — a bump, a fever, an allergic reaction, a dose of medication, a near miss — staff file it as one of a fixed list of incident types, with a severity and a follow-up state, never a vague aside someone half-remembers later. Every entry is added to an append-only safety log that is chained so a past entry cannot be quietly edited or deleted afterward; if a family or a licensing visit ever asks what happened, the record still says exactly what it said the day it was filed.
Built · tamper-evident safety log
4 · The photo, still gently
A picture-day photo follows the same guard as everywhere else on this page — see the strictest care for the youngest children’s photos below for the full detail; it is not repeated here.
See the privacy section
5 · Pickup at the door
At the end of the day, only an adult on that child’s authorized-pickup list, with no custody restriction on file, may collect them. A custody restriction is a hard stop, decided first, before anything else is checked. Either way, whoever is turned away hears the exact same generic message — this pickup cannot be authorized here, please check in at the front office — never a reason. The reason is for the office only, on a staff-only screen, so a restricted adult can never tell a court order from a simple oversight. When in doubt, the default is always no.
Built · fail-closed, restriction wins
6 · The note home, and no phantom charge
A summary of the day can go home to a family, but only if that family has actually consented to being messaged — no consent, no message, in every case. Even with consent, because no texting or emailing service is hooked up yet, a message sits honestly as queued, not sent, rather than pretending it went anywhere. The same honesty covers money: filing any of this never charges a card, because there is no live billing behind it.
Honest-off · consent-gated, nothing charged
What is built
Each capability is labelled honestly: Built is the everyday core you can run today; where the picture-day store or the texted reminders are still opening up, the label says early access — and money is honest-off across all of it.
The everyday backbone: your classes, the children in each, their families and contacts, and an authorized-pickup list the front desk keeps current right at the counter. Emergency contacts and who-may-collect-a-child are held as private family data, not something a stranger can look up. It is a directory a teacher can read at a glance and a director can hand to a substitute — the plain, quiet core the rest of the room runs on.
Built · the everyday core
Run portraits through a store where a parent sees only their own child, found by a permission-checked roster lookup — never a face scan switched on without a parent saying yes. Facial recognition is off by default, and a toddler’s photo is never sold; a photo is sellable only when permission allows. The store itself is in early access and does not process payments yet — money is honest-off here.
Store early access · money honest-off
Make a simple, lovely book of the class year in a free editor any teacher can use — the kind of book a family keeps on the shelf long after the child has grown. It is a keepsake sized for a preschool, not a big-kid yearbook re-labelled: a handful of warm spreads, the class, and the year, without a production machine behind it. When the children move up, a full school yearbook is waiting on a sister site.
Built · free editor
Send the day’s note, the reminder, and the next sign-up to families from one place, so nothing important rides home crumpled in a backpack. One message reaches a class or the whole school, and a family reads it where they already look. Texted pickup reminders — a nudge to the phone at the end of the day — are in early access; the written note home is the built, everyday part.
Note home built · texts early access
What a preschool actually files
Four capabilities above are what a family sees. Underneath, this is what a preschool actually keeps, named plainly, so a director knows exactly what is — and is not — being recorded. Photo consent, who may see or claim a child’s photo, gets its own strict treatment right below and is not repeated here.
The plain daily record every classroom keeps: activities, a mood, and a free-text note, written by staff for one present child on one day. It is not a formal assessment or a report card — just an honest account of the day, in one place instead of scattered on sticky notes.
Built · staff-filed
Every record here hangs off a specific class or program at a specific school — a child’s note, meal count, or incident is always scoped to the room and the school it happened in, never visible across a different school by accident.
Built · scoped by class and school
An allergic reaction or a dose of medication is filed as its own incident type, with a severity and a follow-up state — the same closed, careful vocabulary as any other incident, not a free-text guess buried in a note. A family’s meal-eligibility category is handled the same careful way: read only through an authorized lookup, never guessed and never defaulted.
Built · closed vocabulary, authorized-only
Who may collect a child is its own record: a list of authorized adults, checked against any custody restriction on file, with one fail-closed rule — not on the list, or restricted, means no, and the person at the door never learns which.
Built · fail-closed
A family and staff can message back and forth about a child, but sending is gated on that family’s own consent, and honest about what “sent” means: without consent, nothing goes; without a connected channel, a message stays honestly queued rather than claimed as delivered.
Built · consent-gated, honest-off delivery
A two-year-old cannot consent to anything, so the care here is the strictest on the platform — and stated as guards you can check, not as an absolute we cannot keep. Facial recognition is off by default. Find-my-photo is a permission-checked roster lookup — the system matches a parent to their own child through the roster, not by scanning a face — so a parent sees only their own child and no one else’s.
A child’s photo is never sold; a photo is sellable only when a family’s permission allows it. A child’s roster record and photos live in our own private system, they are not sold to or shared with outside companies or advertisers, and a family’s consent can be withdrawn at any time. If a parent ever opts in to face-matching, the face template it uses stays inside that same private system and is kept only for a limited window, never handed out and never used to train anything. We would rather tell you the honest guard than promise an absolute we would have to walk back.
What is built and what is early access — plainly
Built and running today: the family and class roster with its authorized-pickup and emergency contacts; the keepsake memory-book editor any teacher can use; and the written note home to a class or the whole school. These are the everyday core, and running them costs nothing — there is no live billing and no subscription.
In early access, present but still opening up: the picture-day store and the texted pickup reminders. Money is honest-off across all of it — the picture-day store does not process payments yet, there is no checkout, and no card is charged on this site. No preschool is being presented here with a fabricated adoption number, an invented quote, or a named school — the honest anchors are the four capabilities and the guards around the children’s photos. A conversation is the honest next step. Nothing here is legal advice.
How it works
Step 1 · Set up the room — roster first, no billing
Stand up your classes and bring your families in: the children, the contacts, and the authorized-pickup list, entered once at the front desk. From day one the roster and the children’s data are the preschool’s own, on our private system, and it costs nothing to run.
Step 2 · Run the year — notes home, picture day gently
Send the day’s note and the reminders from one place. When picture day comes, portraits run through a permission-gated store where a parent sees only their own child — the store is early access and does not process payments yet, so nothing is charged.
Step 3 · Make the memory book
As the year fills in, any teacher can build the keepsake memory book in the free editor — a few warm spreads, the class, and the year — the kind of book a family keeps on the shelf.
Step 4 · Move them up
When the children grow out of the preschool room, the same platform carries them into K-5 and, later, a full school yearbook on a sister site. The preschool keeps its own quiet corner.
FAQ
No. Money is honest-off: this site does not process payments, there is no tuition checkout, and no card is charged. It is the quiet everyday tool for four things — the family and class roster, a gentle first picture day, a keepsake memory book, and the note home. If a preschool later wants a fee-bearing surface, that is a separate, opt-in conversation; the roster, the memory book, and the notes cost nothing to run.
Gentle by design. Portraits run through a permission-gated store where a parent sees only their own child, found by a roster lookup rather than a face scan. Facial recognition is off by default. The store is in early access and does not process payments yet, so there is no pressure and no checkout — it is set up so a two-year-old’s picture day is a warm morning, not a transaction.
A child’s photo is never sold; it is sellable only when a family’s permission allows. Facial recognition is off by default, and a child’s photos are not used to train anything. If a parent opts in to face-matching, the template stays inside our own private system, is kept only for a limited window, and is never handed to an outside company.
Only the people who should. Find-my-photo is a permission-checked roster lookup: it matches a parent to their own child through the roster, so a parent sees only their own child and staff see a class through the school’s own rules. A stranger cannot browse the children, and there is no public gallery of little ones.
A memory book is the preschool-sized keepsake: a handful of warm spreads of the class year, built by a teacher in a free editor, without a production machine behind it. A full school yearbook — deadlines, ad sales, a big staff — is a different, bigger thing for when the children are older, and it lives on a sister site. The memory book is the gentle cousin.
Those three are the free everyday core — there is no live billing, no subscription, and no live payment. Money is honest-off across the site: the picture-day store does not process payments yet. Running the roster, sending the notes home, and building the memory book settle no money.
A child’s and family’s data is owned by the preschool and is never sold to or shared with outside companies, advertisers, or third parties. It runs on our own private system, minors’ data is never made public, and consent is consent-gated and can be withdrawn at any time. The authorized-pickup list and emergency contacts are held as private family data, not an open directory.
By a conversation, not a signup wall. Email [email protected] and we will show you honestly what is built — the roster, the memory book, and the notes home — and what is still in early access, the picture-day store and the texted reminders. There is no pricing commitment and nothing is charged.
The platform underneath
The school platform this quiet preschool corner runs on — the wider product family a preschool joins, and where it grows as the children get older.
The next stage up, for K-5: when the children grow out of the preschool room, the whole-school front door is ready for them on the same platform.
Where a family later reserves a full school yearbook. A preschool memory book is the gentler, smaller cousin of the book that comes years later.
For directors, teachers, and the front desk · See the current state honestly
preschool.software is opening up gradually, and we would rather show you the honest state than over-promise. A conversation walks through what is built — the roster, the keepsake memory book, and the note home — and what is still in early access — the picture-day store and the texted pickup reminders — with money honest-off throughout. There is no pricing commitment and no signup wall.
To book: email [email protected].