PickupLink for schools
Every child leaves with an adult the school has on file, the office can see the whole line at once, and families never have to install anything. Here is what changes for the office, the classroom and the curb, and what it takes to switch.
The problem at 3 o’clock
At a busy dismissal a teacher cannot recognise every parent, grandparent, step-parent and sitter, and a substitute cannot recognise any of them. Names shouted over a radio get misheard. A car tag proves someone has the tag, not that the school approved the driver. And when a parent later asks who collected their child on Tuesday, the answer is usually a shrug.
Schools solve this today with paper lists and vigilance, or with a dismissal app that every family must download. The first is fragile; the second turns the office into an app help desk for the first month of every year.
What changes with PickupLink
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For the office: one roster of students and the adults allowed to pick each one up, imported from your SIS export or typed in. A school-wide live board shows every arrival and release as it happens. "Dismiss now" handles early release without phone calls. Every day’s record is kept.
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For teachers: a live classroom board that lights up the moment a parent checks in, with the adult’s name, in arrival order. One tap marks a student picked up. No radio, no guessing at faces, no app to learn.
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For the pickup line: parents check in from the car as they reach the school, so the classroom is staging the right student before the car reaches the door. A staff member at the curb can log any parent who arrives without their phone.
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For families: one email before dismissal and one tap on arrival. No download, no account, no password, nothing to pay.
Rolling out in a day
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Morning
Create the school and its grades.
Name, address, timezone, each grade with its dismissal time, and classrooms with their homeroom teachers. Ten minutes.
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Before lunch
Import students and parents.
Paste a CSV from your student information system, or add families by hand. Mark which adults may pick up. Invite teachers and office staff by email.
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After lunch
Draw the pickup area.
Open Settings and drag a box on the satellite map around the pickup lane and the queue. Adjust the email lead time and the check-in window if your school needs something other than the defaults.
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Dismissal
Run it.
Parents get their first email 15 minutes before the bell. Teachers open their board. Tell families in one message: "You will get an email before pickup; tap the link when you arrive." Most schools do not need more than that.
What you need
An email address for each guardian who may pick up, a browser on whatever devices teachers already use, and your dismissal times. A geofence is optional but recommended. There is no hardware, no printing, no app rollout and no training session; the teacher board and the parent page each fit on one screen.
Roster import takes a CSV export from any student information system, and every record carries external-ID fields for roster sync with Clever and DreamClass. If you need a specific integration, email us and we will say plainly whether it exists.
After-school, child care and camps on the same account
PickupLink is built for schools, after-school programs, child care centers and summer camps, and a school that runs any of the others on its own campus adds them to the same account. An after-school program or a summer camp is a group of its own with its own pickup time, its rooms are classrooms, and its staff are added as teachers or office staff. Check-in can stay open for up to 12 hours after the pickup time, so a program that releases children from 3:30 until 6:00 works from the same board as the bell at 3:05. How each kind of site sets it up is on its own page.
Roles and who sees what
Administrators manage the school and see everything. Office staff see the whole school's board and can log arrivals and releases. Teachers see their own classroom and students. Parents see only their own children. One administrator account can run more than one school, each with its own roster, dismissal times, timezone and geofence.
Student data and privacy
PickupLink stores only the roster data the school gives it: student name, grade, classroom, guardians and each day's pickup record. Accounts exist for adults only; students never sign in and nothing is collected from children. The school owns its data. Location is checked once at check-in and is not tracked. Email us for a data-privacy agreement or to complete a security questionnaire before purchase.
Pricing for schools
Each school is priced by its size: $299 per year for up to 300 students, or $799 per year for up to 1,000 students with personalized support and onboarding. Parents are unlimited. Enterprise covers larger schools, districts and networks at a custom price. Every plan includes every feature. Pay by credit card online, or by invoice: it is sent 30 days after activation and due net 30, so purchasing can approve it after you have run it. Parents and teachers never pay.
Common questions
Can we try PickupLink with one grade first?
Yes. Set up only the grades and classrooms you want to start with; the rest of the school carries on as before. Add the remaining grades when you are ready. Nothing changes for families in grades that are not on PickupLink yet.
What about a parent who has no email address?
Check-in links are sent by email, so a guardian without an address cannot receive one. The office can still add them as an approved adult, and the staff member at the pickup line logs their arrival with "Parent here" on the board, so the release is recorded in their name.
Do we need to buy hardware or car tags?
No hardware. PickupLink runs in the browser on the devices your teachers and office already use. Car tags are optional and included: PickupLink gives each family a car number, prints the tags as a PDF (one page per family, every sibling listed), shows the number beside each student on the live board, and when a car reaches the curb the staff member types its number: the classroom board flags every child in that family as at the curb, to be sent out now. Schools that prefer verified check-in alone simply never print them.
How is PickupLink different from PikMyKid or School Dismissal Manager?
Those platforms ask every family to install an app and create an account, and neither publishes pricing. PickupLink sends parents a link instead, includes location verification, a live board, attendance and reports in every plan, and publishes its price. It deliberately does only dismissal.
Keep reading
Set up your school in a minute and run tomorrow's dismissal on PickupLink. Pay by credit card online or by invoice.