Clarifications & details

Answers to specific questions about how ArborSlate behaves, confirmed against the code. (Folded in from the KB review.)

Onboarding / Getting started

Referral codes are applied automatically when you sign up through a referral link. No action is needed on your part—the system captures the code invisibly. If you are a founding family, you may receive a promo code email after signup.

Dashboard

Demo families see a amber banner at the top of every page in the app (including the dashboard) stating 'Demo data · resets nightly · changes you make here will be wiped'. This banner renders whenever isDemo=true on the family record.

Enrollments

There are no plan-tier-based limits on the number of students, enrollments, or school years. Families can create as many students, school years, and subject enrollments as needed on any tier (trial, family, co-op, or transcript-pro).
Changing a student's name updates it everywhere in ArborSlate immediately. The student record is the single source of truth; transcripts, report cards, enrollment records, and all documents reference the live student name via joins, so name edits propagate instantly.
Students can be archived. When a student is archived, their enrollments are NOT automatically hidden or deleted. The enrollments remain accessible if you explicitly query for them. The enrollments page only shows enrollments for non-archived students by default (grouped by student). Archived students' enrollments do not appear in the main active list, but archived students themselves are soft-deleted (not hard-deleted), so they can be unarchived.
Yes. Prior school years and their enrollments remain fully accessible in ArborSlate. When you change the active school year, all past years and their associated grades, attendance, and records stay in the system. You can view them by selecting the year from the school-year dropdown on any page.

Gradebook / grades

Custom per-enrollment grading scales are not yet available. The database schema includes a letterGradeScale field, but it is deferred to Phase-1.5 and not exposed in the UI. All families currently use the standard grading scale (A: 90+, B: 80+, C: 70+, D: 60+, F: 0-59). If you use a non-standard scale, enter letter grades manually rather than numeric scores.

Attendance

Attendance log PDF export is not yet automated. Today, use your browser's Print function to save the attendance log as a PDF. Go to Attendance, select a student and school year, click Print, then choose Print to PDF.
Bulk attendance editing is limited to the Mark-M–F-week button, which marks Monday through Friday of a week as full days. There is no month-bulk feature or recurring-pattern tool. Individual days must be marked one at a time, or use the week button to cover five days at once.

Reading log

Any parent in the family can add or delete reading entries; there is no view-only secondary parent role for the reading log.
Once you delete a reading entry, it is permanently removed and cannot be recovered. A record of the deletion is kept in the audit log for support team access only.

Portfolio

All parents in the family (both primary and secondary) can upload, view, and delete portfolio items. There is no view-only secondary parent mode for the portfolio.
Portfolio items must be downloaded one at a time via the Open button; there is no batch-download or export-all option.

State compliance

Compliance deadline tracking is on the Compliance page only; the dashboard does not show upcoming compliance deadlines.
Custom ESA program entries are not available. Families in states other than Arizona must wait for their state program to be added by the ArborSlate team.
Quarterly and audit exports are not yet available. For now, use your browser's Print dialog to save ESA reports as PDF.

Test scores

Select from our list of standard test providers (SAT, ACT, Woodcock-Johnson, WISC, etc.) or enter a custom test name.
Test scores are included in your account data export but have no dedicated export format. Scores are permanent once logged and can only be deleted individually.

Documents

Tags can be added to documents but are not yet searchable in the UI. Tag filtering is planned for a future update.
Documents cannot be edited or versioned once uploaded. To upload a new version, delete the old document and upload a new one. Bulk delete and export features are not yet available.

ESA / scholarship

ESA programs are limited to states ArborSlate has pre-configured (Arizona is fully supported; others marked Coming Soon). You cannot create a custom program entry for unsupported states at this time.
Quarterly and audit-export PDFs are not yet available. You can export the full submission packet (all expenses for a school year) or individual curriculum-doc PDFs.
Deleted curriculum docs cannot be recovered. You can regenerate an unfinalized doc up to 3 times before you must edit it manually, but once deleted, it's gone. Finalize only when you're satisfied with the result.
Your family's ESA scholarship account and expenses are private to your family only. Co-op members cannot see each other's accounts or expenses. Only compliance-requirement visibility is shared at the co-op level for admin tracking.
ArborSlate helps you track and organize your ESA expenses and generates supporting PDFs (receipt, submission packet, curriculum docs), but you submit expenses directly to your state ESA program or administrator. Check your state's submission process and deadlines.

Planner

Calendar refresh times depend on your calendar app's settings, not ArborSlate: iOS (Apple Calendar) typically 30 minutes to a few hours; Google Calendar typically 6–24 hours. You can adjust iOS auto-refresh settings under Calendar → Calendar Accounts → subscription settings. For Mac Calendar, you can manually set the refresh frequency (5 minutes recommended).
On Mac Calendar, you can set a custom refresh frequency (5 minutes recommended). On iOS, Google Calendar, and Outlook, refreshes happen automatically on their app's schedule; you cannot force a manual refresh. Other apps (Thunderbird, Fastmail, Proton) vary—check your app's settings.

Transcripts

Clean transcripts (unwatermarked PDFs) are included in Family and Transcript Pro plans. The one-time $19 purchase is available in the free anonymous transcript builder only. If you're logged in and want a clean transcript, upgrade to a Family plan.
Course descriptions appear on transcripts (both Standard and Common App formats) if you've filled them in or used AI course descriptions when building your transcript.

Credentials

Student IDs are designed for CR80 card stock (3.375" × 2.125" with 0.125" bleed). Check your printer's card-stock settings and use 100% crop settings if trimming by hand. Consult your print vendor's CR80 guidelines for best results.

AI course descriptions

Changing the curriculum field will generate a different description because the curriculum is included in the AI prompt. Well-known curricula (e.g., Saxon Math, Art of Problem Solving) will be mentioned; generic or unfamiliar curricula may be omitted. Re-generate to see how different curricula influence the description.

AI tutor

The system prompt includes an explicit rule preventing college-admissions or outcome promises, though the degree of real-world enforcement via the model is not test-verified.
The system prompt requires no emoji for grade 4+, with a single emoji allowed for K-3; actual enforcement depends on model instruction-following.
Editing a student's grade level or subjects mid-session is reflected immediately in the tutor's next response, since grounding is rebuilt per message.
The tutor turn bank has no FIFO order; it is a shared counter of non-expiring turns drawn after the weekly cap is exhausted.

Co-ops

A family can belong to multiple co-ops simultaneously; the UI and database allow it.
ArborSlate uses Resend for email delivery. Resend's delivery guarantees are external; the app logs errors if send fails but provides no retry or fallback.
Co-op admins can see only high-level compliance standing and roster details (family name, student count, opt-in status)—not attendance, grades, or class records.

Settings / billing / account

Second-parent invites are not yet implemented; the current workaround is manual auth-user-ID linking via support. Full email-invite flow is planned for Phase-1.5.
Calendar app refresh rates vary by app version and OS; iOS typically updates every 30 min to a few hours, and Google Calendar typically 6–24 hours, but these are approximations, not guarantees.

Trial expiration

When the trial expires, families lose access to AI features, credentials, and planner (pages return null). Gradebook, attendance, and transcripts remain readable but non-editable. A 'Trial ended' badge appears in settings.
Currently, trial expiry is enforced at read time (no database column flip). Once Stripe webhooks are live, a handler should update plan_tier in the database; until then, expiration is computed on each request.

Editing/deleting

Gradebook and attendance entries can be edited or deleted. Test scores, reading log entries, portfolio items, and documents are delete-and-re-upload only.