Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

ClassWindow is a school communication and classroom-giving platform for K-12 schools. Teachers post classroom updates and photos; parents and guardians follow their child’s classroom; and (in a future release) supporters can donate to classroom wishlists through a tax-exempt nonprofit.

• Operator / data controller: ClassWindow, LLC
• Mailing address: 665 Johnnie Dodds Blvd, Charleston, SC 29414
• Privacy contact: hello@classwindow.com
• Governing jurisdiction: South Carolina, United States

We offer ClassWindow to schools and to families. Depending on how your school has set things up, your school may also be a party to how your child’s information is handled (see §8, Children’s information).

2. The information we collect

We collect only what we need to run ClassWindow. We group it into three buckets.

a. Information you give us (adults — teachers, guardians, school staff)

• Name, email address, and/or phone number
• Account credentials (handled by our authentication provider; we do not store your password)
• The school, classroom, or class code that connects you to a feed
• Photos and captions you post to your classroom feed
• Donation and payment information, when the donations feature launches (processed by our payment processor — see §5; we do not store full card numbers)

b. Information about children

• Photos that a teacher chooses to post to their classroom feed, which may include images of students

This is the only category of children’s information on the platform. We do not collect names, contact details, grades, or any other records about students, and we do not collect any information directly from children. We treat the images teachers post as the most sensitive category of data on the platform: we do not use children’s images for advertising, marketing, or promotions, and we do not sell them. See §8.

c. Information collected automatically (diagnostics & device data)

When you use the app, we and our diagnostics provider automatically collect a limited set of technical data:

• Device type, operating system, and app version
• Crash logs, error reports, and performance/diagnostic data
• General (non-precise) location inferred from IP address, used only for security and to give context to error reports
• A device/installation identifier used to group diagnostic events

We use Sentry for crash reporting and performance diagnostics in the mobile app. We do not currently use third-party product-analytics, advertising, or tag-management tools (such as Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, PostHog, or Firebase) in the app or on the website, and the app contains no advertising or ad-tracking software. If we add such tools in the future, we will update this policy and our app-store privacy disclosures before doing so.

3. How we use information

We use information to:

• Provide, operate, and secure the ClassWindow service
• Connect families to the correct classroom and deliver classroom updates
• Authenticate users and prevent fraud and abuse
• Measure and improve product performance and reliability
• Process donations and send receipts (when that feature launches)
• Communicate with you about the service — including service notices, and, for adult guardians and account holders, ClassWindow news, promotions, and advertising about ClassWindow and related offerings
• Comply with legal obligations

Marketing and promotional messages are sent only to adults (guardians, teachers, and staff), and only about ClassWindow and related services. You can opt out of marketing messages at any time using the unsubscribe link or by contacting us; you will still receive essential service messages. We do not use children’s information to target advertising or promotions.

4. How we share information — and what we never do

We do not sell your personal information. We do not sell images of children, guardian contact information, or any other personal data to third parties, and we do not share it for third-party advertising.

We share information only in these limited ways:

• Within your school community — classroom content is visible to the teachers, guardians, and staff connected to that classroom.
• With service providers who work on our behalf — under contracts that require them to protect the data and use it only for the services they provide to us. These include:
  • Authentication: Clerk
  • Hosting & database: NeonDB / PostgreSQL
  • Media storage: Cloudflare R2
  • Diagnostics & crash reporting: Sentry
  • Payments (planned): Stripe
  • Messaging / SMS (planned): Twilio
• For legal and safety reasons — when required by law, subpoena, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of children, users, the public, or ClassWindow.
• In a business transfer — if ClassWindow is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, information may transfer as part of that transaction, subject to this policy.

5. Donations and payments (planned feature)

Donations are not yet live. When the donations feature launches, supplemental terms and disclosures will apply. Donations are designed to flow to a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) [NONPROFIT NAME — TBD], which purchases classroom supplies; teachers do not receive cash. Payment information will be processed by Stripe under its own terms and privacy policy; we do not store full payment card numbers. We will update this policy with specific donation and payment-data practices before that feature is released.

6. How long we keep information (data retention)

We keep personal information only as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose it was collected, and then securely delete or de-identify it. Our baseline retention approach:

• Account information: kept while your account is active and for [RETENTION PERIOD — e.g., 12 months] after the account is closed, then deleted.
• Teacher-posted images: kept for the school year in which they were posted and for [RETENTION PERIOD — e.g., up to 12 months] thereafter, unless a teacher, guardian, or school requests earlier deletion.
• Analytics and diagnostic data: kept for [RETENTION PERIOD — e.g., 14 months] in line with our analytics providers’ default retention windows.
• Donation and payment records: retained as required for tax, accounting, and legal purposes (typically [RETENTION PERIOD — e.g., 7 years]).

We will delete information sooner when required by law or when a parent, guardian, or school exercises a deletion right (see §8 and §9).

7. How we protect information

We maintain a written information-security program with administrative, technical, and physical safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the data — including encryption in transit, access controls, authentication through a dedicated provider, and restricted access to children’s content. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and to limit who can access it.

8. Children’s information (COPPA and FERPA)

ClassWindow does not collect information directly from children and does not maintain records about students. The only children’s information on the platform is the photos a teacher chooses to post to their classroom feed. We take specific steps to protect it.

• Children do not create accounts. ClassWindow accounts are held by adults (teachers, guardians, and school staff).
• Permission is obtained by the teacher who posts. Teachers are responsible for obtaining the permission required — from the school and/or from each child’s parent or guardian — before posting any image that identifies a student, consistent with their school’s photo-release and student-privacy policies. By posting, a teacher confirms they have that permission. We rely on that confirmation; we do not separately collect or store consent records or other student data.
• Use is limited to the service. A posted image is used only to display the classroom feed to the families connected to that classroom — never for advertising, marketing, promotions, profiling, or sale.
• Parent and guardian rights. A parent or guardian may, at any time, ask us to review or remove any image of their child. Contact hello@classwindow.com. We may need to verify your identity and your relationship to the child before acting, and we will remove the image promptly.
• Face-blur safeguard (planned). ClassWindow plans a feature to automatically blur the faces of students who have not been approved to appear. This is detection only — we do not perform facial recognition and do not create facial-recognition templates of children.

If you believe an image of a child has been posted without appropriate permission, contact us and we will promptly investigate and remove it.

9. Your choices and rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or obtain a copy of your personal information, and to opt out of marketing. To exercise any of these, contact hello@classwindow.com. You can:

• Opt out of marketing via the unsubscribe link or by contacting us.
• Access or delete your account information by contacting us.
• Adjust device permissions (camera, photos, notifications) in your device settings.

We will not discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights.

10. Third-party services

ClassWindow links to and relies on third-party services (such as our payment processor and analytics providers). Their handling of your information is governed by their own privacy policies, and we encourage you to review them. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third parties.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as ClassWindow evolves (for example, when donations launch). If we make material changes, we will notify you through the app, by email, or by other reasonable means. Where a material change affects children’s information, we will obtain any additional consent the law requires before the change takes effect. The “Last updated” date at the top reflects the current version.

12. Contact us

Questions or requests about this policy or your information:

ClassWindow, LLC
665 Johnnie Dodds Blvd, Charleston, SC 29414
hello@classwindow.com