Private School Software · For independent and private schools · Early access
The publications a prospective family sees, the records they never do, and a privacy posture you can defend — on one platform built for independent schools.
An independent school’s reputation is its enrollment, and it answers to the families who pay tuition. This platform carries the public-facing craft those families judge you by — a yearbook, a magazine, and an online edition that all share one house style — on top of the quiet back office they never see: enrollment records, a family directory, and ID cards, all kept in our own private system. It is admissions-adjacent, not an admissions funnel; advancement-adjacent, without touching a gift. Money is honest-off, and a demo is the honest next step.
Money is honest-off across the platform today: no card is charged here yet — no application fee, no tuition, no gift or pledge, and no picture-day store order is settled on this platform. The honest next step is a demo, not a checkout.
What privateschool.software is
It is one platform where an independent school runs its public craft and its private records side by side, so the book that wins a family over and the directory that keeps the office running share one tool — and one privacy promise. The publications a prospective family sees are made in the same editor, on the same roster, as the ID cards and the enrollment record that follow a student once they arrive.
Be precise about what this is: privateschool.software is a for-profit software vendor whose product is this platform for independent and private schools. It is not a school, not a district, and not a nonprofit. Many private schools are themselves nonprofits; the software that serves them is a for-profit product, and this site sells software, not a place in a school. We are careful about the difference because a discerning parent is too.
And it draws two lines honestly. It is admissions-adjacent — it carries the craft a prospective family sees — but it does not run an admissions funnel or decide an application. It is advancement-adjacent — it carries an alumni directory and the publications advancement sends — but it never touches a gift, a pledge, or a tuition payment. Money is honest-off across all of it today.
The craft that carries the school’s name
The yearbook, the magazine, and the public online edition are the parts of a school a prospective family actually sees. They are made in one production editor, on one roster, held to the school’s own standard. Built
One house style, set once
Set your fonts, your colors, and your house style a single time and carry them across the yearbook, the magazine, and the online edition, so a spread, a feature, and a web post read as one school rather than three separate tools. The look a family associates with your name stays consistent wherever it appears.
The book, the magazine, the online edition
The bound yearbook, a school or literary magazine, and a sharp public online edition are the same afternoon’s work in one editor — layers, masking, version history, and your own fonts and palettes — rather than a separate subscription per publication. Your adviser and a student staff produce work that looks professional.
A print check that refuses a broken job
Before a book goes to the printer, an automated print check reads the file and refuses a job that would arrive broken — a low-resolution image, a bleed that would trim wrong, a page that would not fold. The book that arrives matches the standard the school set, not a surprise off the press.
Admissions-adjacent — and honest about the line
The publications are the first real look a prospective family gets at a school, so the craft is genuinely part of how an independent school fills a class. That is the honest sense in which this platform is admissions-adjacent: the yearbook, the magazine, and the online edition are what a touring family sees, and they are made to the school’s standard.
But here is the line, plainly. This platform does not run an admissions funnel. It does not collect an inquiry, track a family through a pipeline, score or decide an application, or send an accept-or-deny letter. And it does not charge an application or enrollment fee — money is honest-off, so there is no checkout on the way in. If you need an admissions CRM that manages the decision itself, that is a different system; we do not pretend to be it. What we carry is the craft, the roster, and the records — and we tell you where our part stops.
The quiet back office
The unglamorous work an independent school still has to get exactly right — enrollment records, the family directory, and ID cards — runs on the same platform, on one roster used everywhere, so nobody re-keys the same family four times. Built
Enrollment records, kept private
The enrollment record for each student lives in our own private system, owned by the school, under the school’s own brand and contact rather than the platform’s. It complements the school’s system of record for daily work; we are clear that it is a daily-driver, not a claim to be a certified academic system-of-record we do not hold.
A family directory the front desk keeps current
One family directory the office keeps up to date in minutes, shared by the publications, the ID cards, and picture day, so a corrected phone number or a new sibling is entered once and is right everywhere. The directory is private and in-house — never sold and never handed to an outside company.
ID cards from the same roster
Print student and staff ID cards from the same roster the directory and publications already use — the portrait, the name, and the grade come straight from the record, not a re-typed spreadsheet. One source of truth, four uses, no re-keying.
Advancement and alumni — without touching a gift
Advancement runs on relationships and on publications: the magazine that keeps alumni close, the annual report that shows a year’s work, the directory that remembers who was in which class. This platform carries that side of advancement honestly — an alumni directory and the publications an advancement office sends — on the same craft the current school uses.
What it does not do is touch the money. It settles no gift, no pledge, and no tuition payment. There is no giving page that charges a card, no pledge ledger, and no tuition-billing engine here — money is honest-off across the platform. That is a deliberate honest line: we cannot skim a donation, because we never handle one. If your advancement office needs a gift-processing system, that stays with a payments provider you choose; we carry the publications and the directory around it.
A privacy story you can defend to a discerning parent
The most valuable thing an independent school can offer a family about its data is a promise it can keep without a caveat. So here is the promise, stated plainly enough to repeat to a parent word for word. Enrollment data and the family directory stay in our own private system, owned by the school. They are never sold, and they are never shared with an outside company, an advertiser, or a data broker.
Photos are handled with the same care. A student’s photo is never sold, and a photo is sellable at all only when permission allows it. Facial recognition is off by default. And finding a child’s photo is a permission-checked roster lookup, matching a name a parent is already allowed to see, not a face scan run across the school. We do not trade in absolutes we cannot stand behind; we tell you exactly how a photo is kept, that it stays in our own private system, that it is never sold, and what a parent controls.
Data involving minor students is consent-gated: a family opts in before any disclosure, that consent can be withdrawn at any time, and minors’ data is never made public. This is a claim about how the data is held and controlled — private, school-owned, consent-gated — not a hand-wave that there is nothing to hold.
Picture day, and where the revenue would stay
Portraits run on the same roster as everything else, so a parent sees only their own child, found by a permission-checked roster lookup. The store that would sell those portraits is early access. Early access
The store is early access
The picture-day store — where a family orders prints of their own child’s portrait — and outside-lab order routing for a print shop are in early access, being opened up carefully. Until the store settles money, no card is charged: money is honest-off here too.
The school keeps the revenue
When the store does open, it is built so the school keeps the revenue, with every item priced above a code-enforced cost floor rather than a platform taking the larger leg. The math is designed to fund the school’s own program, not a vendor’s.
A portrait a family is proud of
The portrait a parent buys is the same one that flows into the yearbook, the directory, and the ID card — one photo, held privately, used across the school with permission, never sold to anyone outside it.
Common questions
Is privateschool.software a school, a district, or a nonprofit?
No. privateschool.software is a for-profit software company — a vendor whose product is this platform for independent and private schools. It is not a school, not a district, and not a nonprofit. Many private schools are themselves nonprofits; the software that serves them is a for-profit product. We are precise about the difference because it matters, and because a tuition-paying family is precise about it too. This site sells software, not a place in a school.
Why build specifically for independent and private schools?
Because an independent school answers directly to the families who pay tuition, and its reputation is its enrollment. That puts two things first that a generic tool treats as afterthoughts: public-facing craft that carries the school’s name at the standard those families expect, and a privacy posture the school can defend to a parent without a caveat. So the page leads with the publications and the privacy story, with the records-and-directory back office underneath — shaped for that market rather than re-labelled for it.
Do you run admissions?
No — the platform is admissions-adjacent, not an admissions system. It carries the craft a prospective family sees (the yearbook, the magazine, the online edition), but it does not run an admissions funnel, does not track a family through a pipeline, and does not score or decide an application. It also does not charge an application or enrollment fee: money is honest-off, so there is no checkout on the way in. If you need an admissions CRM that manages the decision, that is a different system, and we do not pretend to be it.
Do you process tuition or advancement gifts?
No. Money is honest-off across the platform: it settles no tuition payment, no gift, and no pledge. There is no giving page that charges a card and no tuition-billing engine here. On the advancement side we carry the alumni directory and the publications an advancement office sends — the relationship and the craft — but never the money. We cannot skim a donation, because we never handle one. Gift processing stays with a payments provider the school chooses.
What is actually built, and what is early access?
Built and running today: the publications editor (the yearbook, the magazine, and the online edition, sharing one house style, with a print check that refuses a broken job), enrollment records, the family directory, and ID cards. Early access: the picture-day store and outside-lab order routing for the print shop. And money is honest-off across all of it — no card is charged on this platform yet. No independent school is running its full program live on privateschool.software yet, and a demo shows the current state honestly.
How do you handle photos and facial recognition?
A student’s photo is never sold, and it is sellable at all only when permission allows. Facial recognition is off by default — it is an opt-in, not a default. Finding a child’s photo is a permission-checked roster lookup against a name a parent is already allowed to see, not a face scan run across the school. Rather than an absolute we cannot stand behind, we tell you where a photo is kept (our own private system), that it is never sold, and exactly what a parent controls.
How is student and family data handled?
Student and family data is owned by the school and is never sold to or shared with outside companies, advertisers, or third parties. Data involving minor students is consent-gated — a family opts in before any disclosure — and consent can be withdrawn at any time. Minor student data runs on our own private systems and is never made public. This is a statement about how the data is held and controlled, not a claim that there is no data to hold.
How do we get started?
By a demo, not a signup. privateschool.software is in active development, and no independent school is running its full program live on it yet. A demo shows the current state honestly: how the publications carry one house style, how the print check behaves, how records, the directory, and ID cards share one roster, and exactly what is built versus early access — with money honest-off throughout. There is no pricing commitment and no checkout. Email [email protected].
Built on the school publishing platform
privateschool.software is the independent-school front door on a broader platform that runs publications, records, and picture day for schools of every kind. These adjacent destinations cover the platform underneath and the neighbouring surfaces.
homeroom.software
The school publishing platform privateschool.software is built on — the full picture of the tools and the wider product family this belongs to.
publicschool.software
The public-school sibling front. A different stage: a tight budget and an elected board rather than tuition-paying families — the same platform, shaped for a public building.
yearbook.sale
Where a family reserves the school’s yearbook — the ordering front for the book the publications editor produces.
Early access · Heads of school, communications and advancement offices, and yearbook advisers
Book a demo
privateschool.software is in active development, and no independent school is running its full program live on it yet. We do demos that show the current state honestly: how the yearbook, the magazine, and the online edition carry one house style, how the print check refuses a broken job, how records, the family directory, and ID cards share one roster, how the privacy posture holds, and exactly what is built versus early access. There is no pricing commitment and no checkout — money is honest-off. If it looks right for your school, we talk through what early access looks like.
To book: email [email protected].
What this page is and is not claiming
Built and running: the publications editor (the yearbook, the magazine, and the online edition, sharing one house style, with a print check that refuses a broken job), enrollment records, the family directory, and ID cards. Early access: the picture-day store and outside-lab order routing. Money is honest-off across the platform — no card is charged here today: no application fee, no tuition, no gift or pledge, and no store order is settled on this platform yet.
What this platform does not do: it does not run an admissions funnel or decide an application (it is admissions-adjacent, not admissions); it does not process tuition, a gift, or a pledge (advancement-adjacent, not gift processing); and facial recognition is off by default. There are no invented stats, testimonials, or named schools on this page, and no independent school is running its full program live on privateschool.software yet. On privacy we make the honest, defensible claims — data is school-owned, never sold, never shared with an outside company, and consent-gated — stated as how the data is held and controlled, not as an unprovable absolute. The honest next step is a demo. Nothing here is legal advice.