Overview
Shield is the student-safety platform your child's school uses to help protect students online. When the school detects a serious concern — something like self-harm language, bullying, grooming behavior, or violent threats in a student's Google Workspace account (Gmail, Drive, Chat) — Shield raises an alert for the school's counselors and administrators and, where appropriate, for you to see in your portal.
As a parent or guardian, you have your own portal. It shows a summary of alerts linked to your student, lets you set your notification preferences, and gives you a way to talk directly to the school's counseling team about what's going on.
This guide walks you through signing in, understanding what you see, setting your preferences, and knowing what to do when an alert comes through.
Key Features
- Magic-link sign-in — No passwords to remember. The school sends you a sign-in link by email; click it to get into the portal.
- Student safety summary — See a simple list of alerts tied to your student, ordered by date. You do not see raw messages or sensitive details — you see what the school's counselors need you to know.
- Notification choices — Record your preferred alert channel, by email or by SMS. Alerts reach you in the portal today; the email and SMS channel is not live yet.
- Alert comment threads — When you have a question or want to talk to a counselor about an alert, use the comment thread on the alert itself. Counselors and school administrators see what you write.
- Multi-school view — If you have children at different schools and both use Shield, your portal shows all of them in one place.
- Weekly digest (optional) — Some schools enable a weekly summary of the past week's non-critical activity for students whose parents are signed up. ⚠️ The digest is defined and never invoked: the generator exists but nothing calls it, so no digest is produced for any parent today — it is not emailed to parents either.
How To: Sign In
Shield uses magic-link sign-in. You will never be asked to create a password.
- Wait for the invite email from your child's school. It comes from the school's Shield system and contains a one-time sign-in link.
- Click the link. You land in the parent portal for your child's school. If you don't see the expected school, look at the top of the page — the school's name and logo should match.
- From then on, when you want to sign back in, go to the school's portal URL (the school will have given you this) and enter your email address. Shield emails a fresh one-time sign-in link.
If the email didn't arrive:
- Check your spam or junk folder.
- Verify the school has your correct email address on file.
- Ask the school to re-send the invite.
If your sign-in link doesn't work:
- Links expire for security. Request a new one by entering your email on the sign-in page.
- Use the most recent link you received; older links stop working when a newer one is requested.
How To: Understand What You See in the Portal
After sign-in, the portal shows:
- Your linked children — One section per child. If your kids attend different Shield-enabled schools, you see them all.
- Recent alerts — For each child, a summary list of recent alerts: when it happened, the general concern type (for example, "self-harm concern," "bullying," "grooming concern"), and whether it is new, acknowledged by the school, or resolved.
- Comment threads — Click into an alert to see the school's conversation on it and add your own comments.
What you do not see:
- The original message content. Shield processes messages but never shows the raw text to parents.
- Your child's full email or student ID. The portal shows display names, not identifiers.
- Internal notes between school staff. Counselors can mark notes as "internal" and those are hidden from parents.
- Alerts for other families' children. Every page and every comment thread is authorized against your specific parent-to-student link. You only ever see what you have the right to see.
How To: Set Notification Preferences
- Open the Preferences section of the portal.
- Choose your preferred channel: email, SMS, or both.
- Save.
These settings record your preferred channel. They are not a live delivery channel today — no email, SMS, push or page is sent. Alerts appear in the portal for each child linked to your account.
Note about how tiers are set: Your child's school configures which alert severities include parents. Some schools include parents only for the most serious (tier 3, critical) alerts. Some include them for everything that crosses the real-concern threshold (tier 2 and up). A smaller number include them for all signals including low-severity monitoring-only ones (tier 1). If you think you should be seeing more or fewer alerts, ask the school's counseling team to review their settings.
How To: Verify Consent
Before you can be included in an alert's recipients, the school has to mark your parent record as consent-verified. This is a requirement under federal student-privacy laws (COPPA for students under 13 and FERPA for all students), and Shield enforces it in code — parent records without verified consent are silently excluded from the recipient list.
What consent means here: The school is confirming they have on file (usually a signed form) that you have authorized the school to share safety-related information about your student with you through this system. Schools handle the actual consent forms; Shield just tracks whether it has been verified.
How to get your record verified:
- Talk to your school's counseling office or administration.
- Ask what consent form they use and sign it if you haven't already.
- Once they have the form on file, a school administrator or counselor flips the consent-verified flag on your record in Shield.
- From that moment on, you are included as a recipient for alerts at whatever tier the school has configured. The alert appears in your portal for each linked child; no email, SMS, push or page is sent.
The email and SMS channel is not live yet, so alerts reach you in the portal rather than your inbox or phone. If an alert you expected is missing from the portal, the most likely cause is that consent has not yet been verified. Ask the school to check.
How To: Respond to an Alert
When an alert comes through, here's what it means and what to do:
What you'll see in the portal:
- The name of the school
- The general concern type (e.g., "self-harm concern," "bullying")
- A note that a counselor is involved
- The comment thread where you can ask questions
What you should do:
- Don't panic. Alerts don't mean something terrible is definitely happening — they mean Shield's AI flagged content that looked serious enough to warrant human attention, and a counselor is now involved.
- Sign in to the portal. Read the alert summary. It won't show you the raw content, but it will give you the category and any non-sensitive context the counselor has added.
- If you have questions, use the comment thread on the alert to ask. Counselors and administrators see your comments and can reply. You can also ask
@THEO(the system's AI assistant) a question — see the next section. - Follow up with the school if you want to talk to a person. Shield does not replace direct communication with the counseling team.
- If relevant, have a calm, open conversation with your student. Alerts about topics like self-harm or bullying are an opportunity to check in, listen, and connect them with support.
How To: Use @THEO in a Comment Thread
THEO is the platform's AI assistant. You can ask it questions in any alert comment thread by mentioning @THEO in your comment. Some things you might ask:
- "@THEO what does this category mean?"
- "@THEO what are some things I can say to start a conversation with my child about this?"
- "@THEO what are warning signs I should watch for?"
- "@THEO who at the school should I contact about this?"
THEO replies in the thread. Its tone with parents is warm and supportive rather than clinical. THEO never sees your child's raw messages or full identity — it only sees alert context and the conversation in the thread.
THEO is helpful but it is not a substitute for the school's counselors or a licensed mental-health professional. Use it to get your bearings, then talk to a person.
How To: View Alerts Across Multiple Children and Schools
If you have more than one student and they attend different Shield-enabled schools (whether the same MSP runs both or not), the portal's "My Children" view unifies them. You see a card per child, each with its own alert feed, linked to the right school's counseling team.
Your email is the anchor — whenever a new school invites you as a parent and you use the same email, Shield links the new student automatically.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I read my child's actual messages in this portal? No. Shield never shows parents the raw content of student messages, emails, or documents. What you see is a counselor-oriented summary produced by AI plus whatever notes the school chooses to share in the comment thread. If you want to read your child's school email, talk to them directly or to the school — Shield is not a surveillance tool for parents.
Do I need to create a password? No. The portal uses magic-link sign-in — every time you sign in, the system emails you a fresh one-time link.
How do I know an email is actually from Shield and not a phishing attempt? Legitimate Shield emails come from your school's Shield system with the school's branding. If you're ever unsure, go to the school's portal URL directly (don't click the email link) and sign in from there. You can also verify with the school.
What happens if I lose access to my email? Contact the school. They can update the email on your parent record. Since sign-in depends on your email, a working address is essential.
Why am I not getting emails or texts about alerts? Because the email and SMS channel is not live yet — no email, SMS, push or page is sent today. Alerts appear in the portal for anyone with a linked parent account. If an alert is missing from the portal, the most common cause is that your consent has not been verified yet; federal law requires consent verification before a parent is included in an alert's recipients. Ask the school to confirm your consent record.
My other parent/guardian should get these too — how do I add them? Parent accounts are invited one at a time by the school or MSP. Ask the school to add the other parent. Each parent gets their own account, their own magic-link sign-in, and their own notification preferences.
What if I disagree with an alert or think the AI got it wrong? Add a comment on the alert and say so. The counselor can mark the alert as a "false positive" — this also tells the system to learn from the mistake.
How long are my child's alerts kept? This is a question for the school — retention policies are set at the school and MSP level, typically to match the school's broader records-retention policy.
My student turned 18. Do they have a say in monitoring? Yes. At 18, students have the legal right to request opt-out. Contact the school's counseling office to start that process.
What about if my child transfers schools? When the child leaves the school's Google Workspace, Sentinel stops generating new signals for them. Historical alerts remain in the school's records per their retention policy.
Does Shield monitor my child's personal phone, personal email, or social media? No. Shield Sentinel only analyzes content inside the school's Google Workspace (school Gmail, school Drive, school Chat). It has no visibility into personal accounts, phones, social media apps, or anything else outside what the school has authorized.
Troubleshooting
I'm not getting the invite email. Check your spam folder first. If it's not there, ask the school to confirm they have the right email on file and to re-send. Some email filters are aggressive about magic-link emails — mark the first one as "not spam" so future ones come through.
The magic link says it's expired or invalid. Links are single-use and expire quickly for security. Request a new one by entering your email on the sign-in page.
I see the school's name but the student listed isn't my child. Contact the school immediately. Parent-to-student links are set up by school staff, and an incorrect link is a serious issue that needs to be corrected right away. Do not use the portal to view alerts for a student who isn't yours.
I can see alerts in the portal but I'm not getting email or SMS notifications. The email and SMS channel is not live yet. Contact the school's counseling or administrative office if an alert is missing from the portal — your consent flag may not be verified.
The portal shows "THEO is temporarily unavailable" when I asked @THEO a question. THEO's service was briefly unreachable. Try again in a minute. Your question wasn't lost from the thread — the counselors still see it.
I'm seeing too many alerts. Two options: change your channel preferences in the Preferences panel, or ask the school to raise their parent-notification tier threshold. The school controls which severity levels include parents.
I'm not seeing enough alerts — only the most serious ones appear. The school has their parent-notification threshold set high. This is a deliberate choice some schools make to avoid over-alerting parents. Ask them to lower the threshold for your record if you want more visibility.
I want to add a comment but the comment box isn't showing. Parents can comment on alerts linked to their own students. If the comment box is missing, you may be viewing an alert for a student who isn't linked to you (which shouldn't happen — contact the school) or your parent account may not be fully provisioned yet.
I replied to an alert and a counselor hasn't responded. Comments reach counselors through the portal — they may not be watching it continuously. For urgent concerns, call the school directly rather than waiting on a portal reply.
I need to update my phone number, email, or mailing address. Parent record fields are updated by the school or MSP. Contact them with the changes.