Overview
Before a parent can see safety alerts or access the parent portal, they need a parent account in Shield. This article covers how to add a single parent, link them to their student, set their notification preferences, and send the invite.
Who Can Add Parents
MSP administrators, school administrators, and counselors can add parent accounts. Staff members and parents cannot.
Adding a Single Parent
- Open the Parents tab for the relevant school.
- Click Add Parent.
- Fill in the parent's information:
- Email address (required) — This is the address used for login and invite emails. It must be accurate.
- Full name (recommended) — Helps counselors identify the correct parent record at a glance.
- Phone number (optional) — Recorded on the parent's record alongside their notification preferences.
- Relationship — Choose one: mother, father, guardian, or legal custodian.
- Link the parent to their student:
- Enter the student's school email address. Shield converts it to the student's hash and checks it against your school's roster. If the student exists in the roster, the link is created. If not, no link is created and you will need to add it later.
- You can link a parent to more than one student if they have multiple children at the same school.
- Set notification preferences:
- Email notifications — On by default. This records the parent's channel preference.
- SMS notifications — Off by default. Turn on and ensure a phone number is entered to record a text-message preference.
- Click Invite.
Shield creates the parent account and sends a magic-link invite email to the address you entered. The parent clicks the link to access the portal for the first time.
The Relationship Field
The relationship field records the parent's or guardian's relationship to the student. The available options are:
- Mother
- Father
- Guardian
- Legal custodian
This field is informational — it helps counselors quickly understand the family relationship when reviewing alerts or reaching out. It does not affect any system behavior.
Linking a Parent to Multiple Students
A single parent account can be linked to multiple students. For example, if a parent has two children at the same school, you can link both students to one parent record. The parent sees both children's alerts in their portal view from a single login.
To link an additional student to an existing parent, open the parent's record from the Parents tab and add the new student email. Shield validates the link against the school's roster the same way it does during initial creation.
Important: Consent Must Be Verified Separately
Creating a parent account and sending the invite does not automatically enable notifications. After the invite is sent, someone with the counselor or admin role must verify the parent's consent before the parent is added to an alert's recipients.
This is a federal legal requirement. See Consent Verification for the full details and the steps to mark consent as verified.
Notification Channel Preferences
Each parent record has independent channel settings:
- Email is on by default.
- SMS is off by default. A valid phone number must be on the record for this preference to be usable.
These settings record the parent's preferred channel. They are not a live delivery channel today: when an alert meets the school's parent-notification tier threshold and the parent's consent is verified, the alert appears in the Sentinel alert inbox the counselor dashboard reads and, for the parent, in the parent portal. No email, SMS, push or page is sent.
Parents can also update their own preferences after logging in to the portal.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if a parent has children at two different schools?
Each school has its own parent record for the same parent. If both schools are on Shield, the parent's portal shows children from all linked schools in one view, as long as the same email address is used for each record.
Can a parent have two separate accounts with different email addresses?
Technically yes, but this creates two separate logins and split alert views. It is better to use one consistent email address per parent.
What happens if I enter a student email that is not in the roster?
The link is silently dropped. The parent record is still created and the invite is sent, but no student is linked. You can add the student link later once the student appears in the roster.
Can I add a parent without linking them to a student?
Yes. The student link is not required at creation. The parent will have a portal account but will not see any alerts until a student is linked to their record.
Does the parent need to do anything after receiving the invite?
They click the link in the invite email to sign in for the first time. After that, they use the magic-link sign-in on subsequent visits — there is no password to set up.