A school admin looks after the whole school: its teachers, classes, safety lead, data and billing. Whoever sets a school up is its first admin, and the admin pages are at School admin. From the teacher pages, an admin reaches them with "School admin" in the sidebar.
Classes are opening soon. Until the school agreement is in force, the admin pages say "Classes are opening soon" and nobody can set up a school or invite teachers.
The admin pages
| Page | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Overview | The whole school over the last seven days, what needs you, and the new books left |
| Teachers | Inviting teachers and admins, changing roles, choosing the safety lead, and removing people |
| Classes | Every class, who teaches it and how it is reading, with archived classes when you ask for them |
| Safety | Alerts from every class, and who the safety lead is |
| Statistics | Reading by class and by grade, with a spreadsheet by class on the Classroom and School plans |
| Data and privacy | The agreement the school accepted, requests from parents, the school's spreadsheet, the end of the year, and closing the school |
| School shelf | Books every student in a current class can open, added from the TaleTykes library |
| Billing | The plan, teacher seats, invoices and the new books left this month |
| Settings | The school's name, district, state, time zone, grades taught, and which email addresses can be invited |
An admin sees every class's reading, books and answers, the teachers and the billing. An admin does not see what a student wrote behind a safety alert unless they are also the safety lead or teach that class.
Invite teachers and admins
Inviting other people comes with the School plan. On Free and Classroom, a school is one teacher.
- Open Teachers and find "Invite a teacher".
- Fill in "Their email address", and choose "Teacher" or "Admin" under "Role".
- Choose "Send the invitation".
The invitation works for 14 days, and only for an account signed in with that address. The person opens the link, fills in "The name students call you", and chooses "Join the school". A teacher sees their own classes, and an admin sees every class.
An invitation that has not been accepted is listed under "Invitations waiting". It cannot be sent again, so choose "Cancel the invitation" and invite the person again. If you fill in "Teacher email domain" on Settings, only addresses at that domain can be invited.
Seats
On the School plan, a seat is one member of staff, whether they have joined or are still invited, and admins count too. When every seat is used or invited, no more invitations can be sent. An invitation that runs out without being used frees its seat. To add seats, write to us, as School billing and invoices explains.
Roles, removing and leaving
Beside each person on Teachers, an admin can:
- change their role between "Teacher" and "Admin";
- choose "Make safety lead", or "No longer the safety lead";
- choose "Remove", and under "Give their classes to", choose who takes their classes, or "Nobody for now".
A removed person stops seeing the school's classes straight away. Their classes and students stay with the school. A school always keeps at least one admin, and you cannot remove yourself.
A teacher can leave on their own Settings page with "Leave the school". An admin cannot leave. To go, an admin first makes sure somebody else is an admin, changes their own role to "Teacher" on Teachers, and then leaves from their Settings page.
The safety lead
A school has one safety lead. They are emailed about every safety alert in the school and can read what students wrote, on the school's Safety page. That page only opens for admins, so choose an admin. Whoever set the school up is the safety lead until an admin chooses somebody else. If the safety lead is removed or leaves, nobody holds the role and alerts reach only each class's teachers and any linked parents, so choose someone new straight away. See Safety alerts for a class.
Closing a school
Closing a school is how a school stops using TaleTykes, and it cannot be undone from the site.
- Download anything the school needs, from Data and privacy.
- On the same page, under "Stopping altogether", choose "Stop using TaleTykes".
- Type the school's name as shown, and choose "Close the school".
A paid plan stops with the school, so nothing more is charged to the card and no further invoice is raised, and the message on the page says so. The school goes back to the Free plan, which is what any plan ending does. If the school is part way through a term it was invoiced for, we write to it about that invoice: what is owed is a conversation with a person rather than something a button decides.
Straight away, no student can sign in and no teacher can open a class, and the school's pages close for its admins too. A linked parent can still see their child's school reading page until the students' information is deleted. After 60 days, every student's reading, books and answers are deleted. The record that the school accepted the agreement is kept for three years. Closing the school does not delete anybody's own TaleTykes account. What schools keep has the details.
Where to go next
Help for teachers has short answers. For anything else, write to support@taletykes.com or use Contact.