Communications
Reach families from your own address — not from inside someone else’s app.
Most school-communication tools make you broadcast from their brand, on their list, inside their walled garden. Homeroom does the opposite: you send from the school’s own verified email address, on lists you own, with a website that lives on your own domain. This is a newer part of the platform, so we are plain about what is ready today and what is still turning on.
We are early on communications and we say so — every claim below is marked shipped or in early access.
Email that says the school is the sender
A newsletter goes out from an address families recognize, with the law-required details handled for you. Sending from a managed Homeroom address is live today; verified-domain sending turns on once your email provider is connected.
Send as the school, your choice
Choose how the school sends — a managed Homeroom address is ready today, and the school’s own verified domain turns on once your email provider is connected — so the school is always the real sender. More sending options are coming. Sign-in details are encrypted and never logged. Managed address shipped Verified-domain sending in early access
A list per publication, never merged
The yearbook list and the newspaper list stay separate — a family that left one is still good for the other. Lists never quietly merge. Shipped
A real unsubscribe footer
Every send carries a proper unsubscribe link and the real sender’s physical mailing address, as the law requires — the send is blocked if it is missing, never a generic platform line. Shipped
Hand off sending without handing over control
An adviser can let another staff member send within a publication — never a minor — without giving away full control. Shipped
How “the school is the sender” holds up in a real inbox
“From the school” is not a display-name trick. The managed address you send from today is a genuinely authenticated sender: every message is signed with SPF and DKIM, so the receiving mail server can confirm it truly came from us and was not altered on the way — the opposite of a spoofed “From” line or an anonymous no-reply. The piece that turns on in early access is DMARC alignment on your own domain: once your email provider is connected, that same authentication carries the school’s name from end to end, so a mailbox provider reads it as the school’s own mail rather than a forward. Until then we do not pretend the school’s domain is already aligned — the managed address is the honest, working default. Authenticated managed sending shipped Own-domain alignment in early access
A branded sending address on Homeroom’s own domains (for example, a school’s own name at a managed domain) is in early access, kept separate so another sender’s reputation can never hurt yours. Actual delivery turns on once an email provider is connected. Branded address & live delivery in early access
A school website, built right in
Build a multi-page, search-friendly school website without a separate website system, plugins, or WordPress. It is a focused block editor — banner, text, image, gallery, call-to-action, contact, and an embedded edition — with required alt text on images, automatic search-engine setup on every page, and publishing only on a verified domain (an unverified address simply returns not-found, never a fake “live” site). Any student image or name on the site runs the same read-time permission check used everywhere else, so a do-not-publish student never appears. Only an adult can own or publish a website. All of this is live today. Shipped
Written to be read by everyone
A note only counts if the family it is meant for can actually read it. Communications sits on the same accessibility spine as the rest of the platform — and it is just as plainly labeled where a language feature is not built yet.
Real text, not a picture of text
Every send is accessible HTML: real headings, real links, and required alt text on images, so a screen reader can read it aloud and it stays legible when a parent enlarges the font or reads it on a phone. Shipped
Names render the way families spell them
Diacritics, non-Latin scripts, and right-to-left names come through intact — a family’s name is not flattened into question marks or dropped accents. Shipped
Language access, honestly stated
Today a message goes out in the language you write it in; a family can translate it with the tools already built into their device or browser, and because every send is clean, accessible HTML, that translation works well. What we do not yet do is pick a language per family or translate a reply for you — that sits on the “what we don’t do yet” list below, named plainly rather than buried. Per-family translation not built yet
The right message, to the right adult, in the right moment
Automatic absence alerts
An unexcused absence automatically figures out and notifies the permitted guardians — a hidden student means no recipients, blocked by default — and re-marking the same absence never notifies the same guardian twice. Shipped
Email and text delivery of those alerts
Live email and text-message delivery of absence alerts runs through the built-in service: the alert is saved reliably and sends once the provider keys are connected. Live delivery in early access
A phone lane for emergencies only
By design there is no marketing or fundraising call lane — a non-emergency call is simply refused. The emergency calling channel itself turns on once a per-school calling key is set up, and an emergency call reaches only a student’s permitted guardian-of-record contacts. Emergency-only scope shipped Calling channel in early access
What we show you about delivery — and what we don’t
An alert is saved the instant it is created, before any provider is involved, so a message is never lost to a delivery hiccup. Where live delivery is still in early access, the page says queued and means it — we do not paint a green “delivered” badge we cannot stand behind. And we do not claim a read receipt: whether an email was genuinely opened is something no honest sender can promise, so we do not promise it. You see the true state — saved, queued, sent, or failed with a reason — and nothing invented to look busier than it is. Live delivery status in early access
What we don’t do yet
We would rather tell you plainly than pretend. Two-way parent messaging, automatic translate-on-reply, conference scheduling, a digital-flyer “backpack,” and per-recipient channel and quiet-hours preferences are not built yet, and we do not ship a phone app today — the platform runs in the browser on any device. There is a reason we hold the line here: a two-way inbox that did not honor the same guardian-permission and do-not-contact rules as the rest of the platform would be worse than none, so we will not ship a hollow version of it just to check a box. If two-way messaging or auto-translate is the heart of what you need right now, a dedicated communications vendor will beat us on that one job today. Our promise is to grow this arm on the same permission and student-list spine as the rest of the platform, so the day it lands, it lands honest.
We’re honest about what’s shipped
Sending as the school from a managed address, a separate list per publication, the law-required unsubscribe footer, delegated sending, the no-WordPress school website, automatic absence alerts, and the emergency-only call scope are live today. Verified-domain sending, more sending options, a branded sending address, live email and text-message delivery, and the emergency calling channel are in early access — turning on as each provider key is connected. Two-way messaging, auto-translate, per-family language, conferences, and a phone app are not built yet, and we say so.