Terms and Conditions

These Terms and Conditions ("Terms") govern the use of the SchoolPad platform: the website https://schoolpad.app, the web admin and the SchoolPad apps for Android and iOS (together, the "Service"), provided by SchoolPad ("we", "us"). By creating a school, signing in or using the Service, you accept these Terms. If you accept them on behalf of a school, you confirm that you are authorised to bind it.

1. The Service

SchoolPad is an online tool that a school ("School") uses to share school information with its students and their families: the daily agenda (homework, lessons and notes), the weekly timetable, exam dates and marks, attendance, the school calendar, announcements, online lessons (live sessions joined through a meeting link given by the School, and recorded lessons), and messages between families and teachers. The School's staff use the web admin and the app; students and their parents use the app. We may improve, change or add features over time. We will not remove an essential feature during a paid subscription period without offering a reasonable alternative.

2. Schools and accounts

The School. Each School has an owner who manages its staff, their roles and permissions, its classes and its students. The information given when the School is created (name, contact details) must be accurate and kept up to date. The School is responsible for the activity of its staff in the Service.
Staff accounts are personal: an account must not be shared between several people.
Student accounts are created by the School, which gives the username and the password to the family. A student account is used by the student and by his parents or guardians. A parent can add his other children of the same School to the account with their own username and password.
Children. A child uses the Service under the responsibility of his parents or guardians and of the School. The School confirms that it is entitled to create accounts for its students and that it has informed their parents.
Every user must keep his password, PIN and recovery codes confidential. A family that suspects that someone else uses its account should tell the School, which can issue a new password. Staff must inform the School owner, and the School must inform us, of any unauthorised use without delay.

3. Free trial

A new School can use the Service free of charge for 30 days. At the end of the trial, a subscription is needed to keep adding and changing data. Data entered during the trial is kept if the School subscribes.

4. Subscription, prices and payment

The Service is billed to the School as a yearly subscription. The plan depends on the number of active students. The current prices are: up to 200 students, $300 per year; up to 600 students, $600 per year; with no limit on the number of students, $1,200 per year; unless another price was agreed in writing.
The Service is free for students, parents and teachers. They never pay in the apps, and there is no purchase inside the apps.
The School can pay in cash, by bank transfer, by cheque, through OMT or Whish Money, or online by card through Stripe. A subscription is extended once the payment is received and recorded.
A renewal paid before the end date starts at the end of the current period, so no paid time is lost.
When the number of active students reaches the limit of the plan, new students cannot be added until the School moves to a higher plan.
Each plan includes storage space for the School's files (photos, documents, recorded lessons and other videos): 20 GB, 60 GB and 200 GB respectively, unless another amount was agreed in writing. When this space is full, new files cannot be added until the School deletes files or moves to a higher plan.
We may change prices for future periods. A new price applies only from the next renewal, and we announce it at least 30 days in advance.
Prices do not include taxes or bank and transfer fees, which are borne by the School where applicable.
Subscription fees are not refundable, in whole or in part, except where required by law or where we terminate the Service without cause (see section 12).

5. End of the subscription

If a subscription is not renewed, the School has a grace period of 7 days with full access. After that the School becomes read-only: its staff and its families can still sign in and read what is there, but nothing can be added or changed. Renewing restores full access immediately. Data is kept as described in our Privacy Policy.

6. School Data

The data a School records in the Service about its students, their families and its staff ("School Data") remains under the School's control. We claim no ownership over it.
The School gives us the right to host, copy, process and display School Data only as needed to provide, secure and support the Service.
The School is the data controller of School Data and we act as its processor, as described in the Privacy Policy. The School is responsible for the lawfulness and the accuracy of what it records, for informing the parents, for obtaining any consent the law requires for its students, and for answering the requests of students and parents about their data.
We keep School Data confidential. Our team accesses it only when necessary to provide support requested by the School, to ensure security, or to comply with the law.
We do not use School Data for advertising or profiling, we do not sell it, and the Service contains no third-party trackers.
The School can export its list of students to Excel and print its lists at any time. On request, we provide a full export of the School Data.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

use the Service for any unlawful purpose, or to store or send content that you have no right to share, or that is abusive, threatening or harmful to a child;
use the messages for anything other than the schooling of the student concerned;
try to access the data of another family or another School, test the security of the Service without our written permission, or bypass its limits and protections;
disrupt the Service, overload it, or use automated means to access it other than the official apps;
resell, rent or make the Service available to third parties outside your School;
copy, decompile or reverse engineer the Service, except where the law expressly allows it.

8. Third-party services

Some features rely on third-party services: Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple's push notification service to deliver notifications, Google Sign-In when the School enables it, Stripe for the online payment of the School's subscription, a cloud storage provider (DigitalOcean Spaces) where the uploaded files are stored, the meeting services in which live sessions take place (Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams or another service chosen by the School), the sites a video link points to (for example YouTube or Google Drive), and the app stores from which the apps are downloaded. Their use is also subject to the terms of those providers. A live session takes place in the meeting service, outside the Service: the School and its staff choose that service and create the meeting in it, and we do not provide, record or control the video call. We are not responsible for their availability or for changes they make, but we will make reasonable efforts to adapt the Service when they change.

9. Availability, backups and support

We make reasonable efforts to keep the Service available at all times, apart from planned maintenance, which we try to carry out outside school hours. We do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation.
We make regular backups of the School databases. The School remains free to keep its own exports.
Support is provided to the School by phone, WhatsApp and e-mail at the contact details below. Families and students ask their School first, in particular for a lost username or password.

10. The School's responsibility for its content

The Service is a communication tool. The content published in it (agenda, timetable, online lessons, exam dates, marks, attendance, announcements and messages) is written by the School and its staff, who are responsible for it. Recorded lessons, videos and files are published by the School's staff, who are responsible for having the right to share them: in particular the copyright in the material they use (textbooks, videos, music) and, when pupils can be seen or heard in a recording, the consent the law requires for the use of their image and voice. The Service does not replace the School's official records and decisions: report cards, results and attendance registers remain those issued by the School. Notifications are an aid: they depend on devices, networks and third-party services, and may be delayed or not delivered. A family that has a doubt about a homework, an exam date, a mark or an absence should check with the School.

11. Intellectual property

The Service, its software, design, logos and content, apart from School Data, belong to SchoolPad or its licensors. We grant the School, its staff, its students and their parents a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service during the subscription, for the needs of the School.

12. Suspension and termination

The School can stop using the Service at any time by not renewing it, or ask us to close its account (see the Privacy Policy for the deletion of data).
A user can close his own account as described in the Privacy Policy. The School can close the account of a student who left or of a staff member.
We may suspend a School or a user immediately in case of a serious breach of these Terms, a security threat, or a request from a competent authority. Where possible, we warn the School first and give it time to remedy the breach.
We may end the Service for all Schools with at least 90 days' notice. In that case, we refund the unused part of prepaid subscriptions and give each School time to export its data.

13. Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect losses, nor for damage caused by the School's own use of the Service, by the content its staff publish, by its users, or by third-party services. In any case, our total liability for any claim relating to the Service is limited to the amounts paid by the School for the Service during the twelve months before the event that caused the claim. Nothing in these Terms limits liability for fraud or gross negligence, or any right that the law does not allow to be limited.

14. Indemnity

The School agrees to indemnify us against claims by third parties arising from School Data it recorded unlawfully or from its breach of these Terms.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. The date at the top shows the latest version. We inform School owners of important changes at least 30 days before they take effect. If the School does not accept them, it can stop using the Service before that date. Continuing to use the Service after that date means accepting the new Terms.

16. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of Lebanon. We will first try to settle any dispute amicably. If no solution is found within 30 days, the dispute will be submitted to the competent judicial authorities of Beirut.

17. Contact

SchoolPad: [email protected], phone and WhatsApp +961 71 250 928.