Overview
Before a parent is included in an alert's recipients — on any channel — the parent's record must be marked as consent-verified. This is the system's enforcement of COPPA and FERPA requirements. It is not a setting that can be bypassed or overridden by any tier threshold or notification preference.
What COPPA and FERPA Require
Two federal laws govern student privacy and parental notification for K-12 schools:
- COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) applies to students under 13. It requires schools to obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information about young children.
- FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) applies to all students and governs how schools disclose education records. It gives parents the right to access their child's education records and restricts third-party disclosure without consent.
In the context of Shield, these laws mean that a school must have consent on file before sharing safety-related information about a student with their parent through an outside system. Shield's consent-verification flag is the mechanism that tracks whether that consent has been obtained.
What "Consent Verified" Means in Shield
Marking a parent record as consent-verified is a declaration by the school that:
- The school has a signed consent form on file from this parent
- The parent has authorized the school to share safety-related alert information about their student through Shield
- The school is in compliance with applicable student-privacy requirements for this parent record
Shield does not collect or store the actual consent documents. That is the school's responsibility. Shield only tracks whether someone with the appropriate role has confirmed that consent is on file.
What Happens Before Consent Is Verified
A parent whose record is not consent-verified:
- Can still receive an invite email and log in to the portal
- Can see their linked student's alerts in the portal (the portal view is not gated by consent)
- Is not added to an alert's parent recipients
- Is not included in the weekly digest data
- Is silently excluded from the recipient list, regardless of alert tier
This behavior is enforced in the alert dispatcher. Even on a Tier 3 critical alert, an unverified parent is not added to the recipient list. There is no workaround.
How to Verify Consent
- Confirm the school has a signed consent form on file for this parent. This is handled outside Shield — a paper form, a digital signature, or whatever the school uses to collect consent.
- Open the parent's record in the Parents tab.
- Toggle the Consent Verified switch to on.
- Save.
From that point forward, the parent is included as a recipient for alerts at or above the school's configured parent-notification tier. 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.
Who Can Verify Consent
MSP administrators, school administrators, and counselors can mark consent as verified. Staff members and parents cannot.
Revoking Consent
If a parent withdraws consent or a situation changes, turn the Consent Verified switch back off. The parent is immediately removed from the recipient list. Their portal access is not affected — they can still log in and view alerts. Only recipient-list inclusion is gated by the consent flag.
Frequently Asked Questions
A parent says they are not being included in alerts. What should I check?
The most common cause is that consent has not been verified. Open the parent's record and check the Consent Verified flag. If it is off, verify consent following the steps above.
Does a parent have to sign a specific form?
Shield does not prescribe a specific consent form. That is the school's responsibility. What matters to Shield is that you confirm consent is on file by toggling the flag.
Is consent per-student or per-parent?
The consent flag lives on the parent record, which can be linked to multiple students. Verifying consent for a parent enables notifications for all of their linked students.
What if a parent's consent expires or needs to be renewed?
Turn off the consent flag while the school processes the renewal, then turn it back on once the new consent form is collected.
Can consent be verified during the CSV import process?
The consent field can be set during a CSV import if your file includes a consent column. However, this should only be used if the school already has consent forms on file for those parents before the import.