Privacy Policy

What This Policy Covers

This Privacy Policy explains how Slate collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal information when you use our learning center management application. Slate is used by learning center instructors, staff, and parents to manage student enrollment, scheduling, progress tracking, and communication.

Information We Collect

We collect the following types of information:

• Account information: Name, email address, and password (hashed) when you create an account.
• Parent information: Name, email, phone number, and notification preferences.
• Student information: First and last name, enrolled subjects, current learning level, schedule, and progress records. We only add a student after a parent consents — either by checking a consent box online during sign-up, or by a staff member confirming that the parent's signed enrollment consent is on file.
• Payment information: Payment method type, last four digits of your card or bank account, and your tuition payment history. Once payment setup is available, the card or bank number you enter goes directly into Helcim's own secure payment window — it never reaches our servers. We store only the token Helcim gives us for that payment method, encrypted, along with the last four digits.
• Communication data: Messages exchanged between parents and instructors, broadcast notices, and instructor notes about student progress.
• Usage data: IP address, session timestamps, and user agent string for security and audit purposes.

How We Use Your Information

• To operate and maintain your learning center account and student enrollments.
• To process tuition payments and generate billing records.
• To facilitate communication between parents and center staff.
• To track student learning progress and generate progress reports.
• To send notifications about closures, schedule changes, and payment reminders.
• To maintain audit logs for compliance and security.

How We Store and Protect Your Data

Your data is stored in a PostgreSQL database with encryption at rest. Sensitive fields including messages and payment tokens are encrypted at the application level with versioned encryption keys. All data transmission uses HTTPS/TLS encryption.

Access to student and parent data is scoped by center — instructors and staff can only access data belonging to their own learning center. Staff access is further restricted by role-based permissions.

Who Has Access to Your Data

• Center instructors: Full access to all student, parent, and center data within their center.
• Center staff: Access limited by permissions assigned by the instructor (e.g., viewing payments, managing schedules).
• Parents: Access only to their own account, their children's enrollment and progress data, and their own payment history.
• The business that runs Slate for your center: Technical access for platform maintenance and support, governed by internal data handling policies.

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Children's Privacy (COPPA Awareness)

Slate collects student information (names, learning levels, and progress records) only with parental consent: a parent checks a consent box online during sign-up, or a staff member confirms that the parent's signed enrollment consent is on file. When you consent online during sign-up, we email you a confirmation of what you agreed to, with a link to this policy and how to withdraw. Slate never receives or stores your child's date of birth or home address. Children tap their own name on the center's staff-run check-in board, and Slate records only when they came and left. Nothing else is collected from them. Parents may request deletion of their child's records at any time through the account deletion feature; a deletion request can be cancelled from the Account page for 14 days before it takes effect.

Data Retention

We keep your data for as long as your account is active. When you request account deletion, you have 14 days to change your mind — cancel any time from the Account page. After 14 days, we remove your account, your children's records, and your messages.

A few things stay after that, listed below.

What We Keep, and Why

In plain words, here's what stays after your account is deleted, and why:

• Attendance visit times, without your child's name, for 2 years. Kept so the center's attendance records stay accurate. Each of these nameless visits is removed for good once it is 2 years old, along with the log entries that recorded it. If staff entered a program number for your child (such as an ID number from another program), it's kept on these visit times after your family leaves — that program can use that number to identify your child in its own records. Only center staff enter a program number; parents are never asked for it. Children tap their own name on the center's staff-run check-in board, and Slate records only when they came and left. Nothing else is collected from them.
• Payment history, with your name removed. Kept for our bookkeeping records; the amount, date and status stay, but the record is no longer linked to you or your child.
• The record that consent was given (when, how, and the version of this policy) — kept as proof that a parent agreed, not deleted with the rest of the account.
• The record that a deletion was requested, and carried out — kept so we and you both have a record of what happened and when.
• Audit logs, without your names — kept for security, to show who changed what and when. When your account is deleted, we take your and your children's names, your email and phone number, and any program numbers out of the log entries about your family.

Everything else — your account, your children's enrollment and progress records, and your messages — is permanently removed 14 days after you ask, unless you cancel the request first.

Backup copies of Slate's database, kept so nothing is lost if our server fails, can still hold anything removed from Slate for up to 7 weeks after it's removed; then those copies are deleted too.

When a Child Leaves the Center

Right now, a child's record isn't removed automatically when they stop attending: it stays until you ask us to delete your account. We'll start removing a child's record 90 days after they leave, and we'll update this page before we do.

Your Rights

• Access: You can view your personal data through the app at any time.
• Correction: You can update your account information through the app settings.
• Deletion: You can request deletion of your account from the Account settings page, and cancel the request there any time in the next 14 days. After that, your account, your children's records and your messages are removed — see What We Keep, and Why above for what stays.
• Portability: Center instructors can export student data via the Report B export feature.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Significant changes will be communicated through the app. The effective date at the top of this page indicates when the policy was last revised.

Contact

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your data, contact your center instructor directly through the Slate app.