A guide for school offices, teachers and families
A student is the account. Everyone else is a guardianship.
Two homes, a step-parent, a grandmother who does pickup, a court order, tuition split 60/40, an older child at another school. That is a normal family now. Doorpost is built around it rather than around one household with one login. This page says exactly what the software does for these families, and what it deliberately leaves to people.
The two ideas
A household is an address. It holds the street address, home phone, pediatrician, insurance card and the family's directory preferences. A child lives in one household of record, and a person can belong to their own.
A guardianship is a relationship to one child. It says who the person is to the child, what they may see and do, how and when they may be contacted, and whether a court has said anything about it. Every parent, step-parent, grandparent or other adult who should see the child has their own guardianship, with its own settings. Nothing about one guardian's settings leaks to another.
A person has one login however many children they have, and however many schools those children attend.
What each guardian may do
The office switches each of these on or off per guardian, per child. They default to on for a parent.
Two more settings per guardian: account of record (whose name prefills forms and who owns the family's document vault for that child) and call order (who the office phones first).
Separated and divorced parents
- Two addresses. Each parent can have their own household with their own address and phone. Both still see the child.
- Different rights. One parent may see grades and attendance but not billing. One may sign forms, the other not. The office sets this from the child's page.
- Contact terms in plain words. For each guardian the office records a preferred way to be reached, contact hours, and a free-text block for the terms of a parenting plan or order: "alternate weekends from Friday 3 pm; Wednesdays after school; either parent may be told about health, grades and attendance." Paste the relevant lines of the order if you have them.
- Court order on file. A checkbox and an end date. The child's page shows a red banner to staff, and the teacher's roster shows a flag next to the child. Teachers see the contact hours, not the full terms.
- Restricted. A person the school must know about but must never let in: no portal access, not in the directory, not in any message list, no alerts. Their name stays on file with the reason so the office recognises it.
- Each parent sees only their own. A parent never sees the other parent's contact terms, bills, or directory preferences. The directory lists a guardian only when that guardian is marked as listed.
- Ending access. An administrator can end a guardianship. The person keeps their login and any other children; the office keeps the history.
Splitting the bills
Give each paying guardian a share of the child's charges, as a percentage. When the shares add up to 100, every new charge for that child is raised as separate invoices, one per payer, each in that payer's own household. Tuition installments, trip fees, lunch and care charges all split the same way.
- Each parent sees, and pays, only their own share. The balance on their home screen is theirs alone.
- A parent with billing rights on one child and not a sibling sees that child's bills only.
- The office still sees every invoice by household, records payments, and can void an unpaid one.
- Odd cents land on the last payer. 60/40 of $123.45 is $74.07 and $49.38.
What splitting does not do. It does not re-divide charges that already exist; a share applies to charges raised after it is set. If the shares do not add up to 100, charges stay on one household bill and the office sees a warning. Financial aid applications are per household, not per parent. Doorpost does not chase a parent who does not pay, or move an unpaid share to the other parent; that is a conversation between the school and the family.
Grandparents, step-parents and other adults
Add anyone the child's guardians agree should be there, with exactly the rights they need. A grandmother who does school pickup and should hear about a fever, but has nothing to do with grades or tuition: pickup on, health on, messages on, everything else off, not listed in the directory. A step-parent can be listed and receive everything, or nothing, as the family decides.
Someone who should only be able to collect the child, and needs no account, belongs on the pickup list, not in a guardianship.
Children at more than one school
When a second school on Doorpost adds a parent by email, the parent keeps the login they already have. Each school sees only its own student. The parent's home screen shows the other schools they belong to, one tap away. Nothing about one school's records is visible to the other.
This also covers teachers and office staff whose own children attend the school, or another school on Doorpost: one login, a "My family" link beside their work.
Asking about the terms
On a child's page the office can ask a question in plain words, "Can Dad pick up this Wednesday?", "Who do we call first if she is sick?", and get an answer read from the guardian profiles on file, with the relevant term quoted. It uses only what the school has entered. It does not look anything up elsewhere and it does not make rules up; if the profiles do not settle the question, it says so and points to what to check.
The order on file is the authority, not the answer. Treat it as a fast reading of your own notes.
What Doorpost does not do
- It does not decide custody, interpret a court order, or give legal advice. The office enters what the order says; Doorpost shows it to the right people.
- It does not verify who anyone is. The school confirms identity before granting a guardianship, the same as it would for a paper file.
- It does not enforce a schedule. Contact hours are a note the office and teachers read, not a lock on the door. The pickup list is what the front desk checks.
- It does not tell a guardian what another guardian's settings are, and it does not tell a restricted person that they are restricted.
- It does not share a child's records between two schools, even for the same parent.
- It does not re-split old charges, collect debts, or apply for aid on behalf of one parent.
- It does not remove people. A guardianship ends; the person and the history stay.
For parents: what to ask your school office
- "Please add my address as a separate household." You keep your own address and directory settings.
- "Please put our parenting plan on file." Bring the relevant pages; the office records the terms and the end date.
- "Please split the tuition 50/50." Both of you need billing rights on the child; the split starts with the next charge.
- "Please add Grandma for pickup and health alerts only." That is one guardianship with two rights on.
- "My other child is at another Doorpost school." Give the same email; you will see both from one login.