Privacy Policy

Information you give us

• Account details: your name and email address, an optional profile photo, and your agreement to these terms. We don't use passwords; you sign in with a link sent to your email.
• Household details: your household's name, an optional city or area (never a street address) and the state you homeschool in, the adults in it, your children's first names and birth years, an optional photo of each child that a parent adds, an optional birthday (month and day only) for each person in the household, and, if you add them, a short note about your family and a phone number for your directory listing.
• Your homeschool plans and records: the subjects you teach and the lessons you plan for each day, which child each lesson is for, notes and time you add, files you attach to lessons, when a lesson is checked off, the books each child finishes, grades, credits and course descriptions you record, test scores, activities and awards you add for a transcript, your homeschool's name and contact details, work samples you upload (like photos of worksheets or projects), the state filings you mark as sent and any copies of them you upload, and your school-year dates and targets. We count school days and hours from these for you. These stay private to your household.
• Gatherings you create or join: the Gathering's name, description and settings, its Circles, members and their roles, and any answers you give when asking to join.
• What you share in Gatherings: posts, comments, chat messages, events and RSVPs, polls, sign-up sheets, co-op class enrollments, photos and files, as those features become available.
• Reports and blocks: when you report a post, comment or message, we keep a copy of it, who wrote it, who reported it and why, and show these to that group's Admins. Reporting a direct message shares that one message with them. We also keep the list of people you block.
• Invitations: the email address of each person invited and who invited them.
• Messages to us: anything you send us.

Information collected automatically

• Log and device information: IP address, browser and device type, pages requested, errors and timestamps, used to keep the Service running and secure.
• Phone notifications: if you turn them on, your browser gives us an address to send notifications to that device. We use it only to send you Gatherings notifications, and remove it when you turn them off.
• Cookies: only the cookies that keep you signed in. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies.

Gatherings is designed so that parents, not children, share their family's information.

• Children under 13 don't have accounts and can't sign in. We don't knowingly collect personal information directly from a child under 13.
• A parent or guardian may add a child to their household with only a first name and birth year. We don't ask for a child's last name, email address, phone number or location.
• Child photos are optional and added only by a parent. A parent or guardian may add a small round headshot of their child, and confirms when adding it that people in their groups may see it. It's shown next to the child's name to the same people who can see the child's name (your family, and the members of your groups your directory listing allows). It's cropped and shrunk in your browser before upload, stored privately, and opened only through links that expire within an hour. Any parent in the household can change or remove it at any time on My family, and it's deleted when the child is.
• Birthdays are optional. A parent may add each child's birthday as a month and day (never the full date of birth; the year stays the birth year you already gave). Birthdays show on your own family's calendar. Families in your groups see them only if a parent turns on Birthdays in your directory listing, and a child's birthday is shown only where the child's name is. A parent can change or remove them at any time on My family.
• Grades, transcript details and work samples that a parent records for a child are seen only by the people in that child's own household; they're never shown to groups. Work-sample files are stored privately and opened only through links that expire within minutes. A printable transcript lets a parent type the child's full name and date of birth for the printout; we don't save them.
• A child's first name and age are shown only to active members of the Gatherings their household belongs to, so families can find same-age friends and plan activities. Parents can limit this to group Admins, or hide it, in their directory listing.
• Photos and files are shared by adults and stored privately: only people who can see that group or Circle can open them, through links that expire within an hour. We ask members to share photos of other people's children only with their parents' OK, and a parent can ask the person who shared it, a group Admin, or us to remove a photo of their child. Every parent or guardian in the household can see and edit its children's details.
• When a parent (or a group Admin) enrolls a child in a co-op class, the child's first name and age appear on that class's list, which only the class's teacher, the group's Admins and the child's own family can see. Other families see only how many spots are taken. If the teacher takes attendance, the days the child was present are kept with the class and added to the family's own records; only the teacher, the group's Admins and the child's family can see them.
• Teens aged 13 to 17 may use Gatherings only through an account a parent or guardian creates by inviting the teen's email address. For a teen we keep their name, email address and which household they belong to, plus what they post. Teens can read their family's groups but post, comment and chat only in teen Circles. Their parents choose how they join teen Circles and whether they can send direct messages (off unless a parent turns them on), and can see everything their teen posts and comments in groups. Parents can't read their teen's chat messages. A parent can remove a teen from the household at any time.
• Parents can review, change or delete their children's information at any time by writing to info@gatherings.school, and we'll respond promptly.

If you believe a child under 13 has given us information directly, contact us at info@gatherings.school and we'll delete it.

• To provide and secure Gatherings, including signing you in and applying each Gathering's membership, roles and privacy settings.
• To send service emails: sign-in links, invitations, notices about your account, and updates from your Gatherings (announcements, new events, event reminders and post digests). You choose how often per group on My family.
• To respond to your questions and requests.
• To prevent abuse, fraud and security incidents, to keep children safe, and to meet legal obligations.

Gatherings staff. A small number of Jenisan staff can see account details (names, email addresses, sign-in dates) and group details to run the service, answer support requests, and suspend accounts or groups that break our Terms.

Within your household. Your homeschool plans and records are seen only by the parents, guardians and teens in your household. They are never shown to your Gatherings or anyone else.

Within your Gatherings. Active members of a Gathering can see its families (household names, adults' names and city or area, and profile photos if they've added one), its Circles and what's shared with them. Children's first names, ages and photos, a family's note, phone number and email addresses are shown only to the people each family chooses in its directory listing: everyone in the group, group Admins only, or no one. Phone and email start hidden. Families waiting for approval see only the Gathering's name until they're approved. The group's Owners and Admins (and its Leaders, if the group lets Leaders approve families) can see pending requests and the answers people gave in the group's application; other members can't. Leaders and Admins can see who has read each announcement, and members can see which families have answered an event and how many are coming.

Service providers that run Gatherings for us, under agreements to protect the information:

• Supabase: database, sign-in and file storage.
• Vercel: hosting and error logs.
• Resend: sending email.
• Your device's notification service (from Apple, Google, Mozilla or Microsoft, depending on your browser): delivering phone notifications you've turned on.

Legal and safety reasons, when required by law, or to protect the rights, safety and property of our users (especially children), the public or Jenisan. Business transfers: if Jenisan is involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, information may be transferred as part of it, and this policy will continue to apply.

We don't sell personal information or share it for advertising.

We keep your account and household while your account is active, and a Gathering's information while it exists. When your household leaves or is removed from a Gathering, its members no longer see your household. When an account, household or Gathering is deleted, we delete or anonymize its information within a reasonable period, except where we must keep it for legal or security reasons. Backups are kept for a limited time (currently 7 days) and then overwritten.

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access is enforced in the database itself, so each person can reach only the Gatherings they actively belong to, within their role. Sign-in links expire and work once. No system is perfectly secure, so please tell us right away at info@gatherings.school if you suspect a problem.

• Parents and guardians can update the household's details and add, correct or remove children themselves on the My family page.
• You can download a copy of your information from My family (“Download our information”), leave a Gathering from its Families tab, and delete your account from My family. You can also ask us to do any of these by writing to info@gatherings.school.
• Gathering Owners and Admins can download their Gathering's family list, events and posts, limited to what they can already see in the app.
• Gathering Owners and Admins decide who belongs to their Gathering; ask them, or us, if you want your household removed from one.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act or the GDPR. We'll respond to requests as those laws require, and we won't treat you differently for using them.

Information is stored and processed in the United States. If you use Gatherings from elsewhere, your information will be transferred to the US.

We may update this policy. If the changes are significant, we'll tell account holders by email or in the app before they take effect. The date at the top shows when it last changed.

Questions or requests about privacy, including about your children's information: info@gatherings.school. Jenisan, Inc., Arizona, USA.