How schools organise dismissal and a safe pickup

Why the end of the day is the hardest hour

In the morning children arrive a few at a time. At the end of the day they leave together, while parents, drivers and relatives gather at the gate and cars wait outside. Staff call names across the yard or by radio, and children come out before the person collecting them has reached the gate.

The harder question is how each child goes home, and with whom. A guard cannot know every driver and relative by sight, and a call to the office saying "my sister is collecting him today" leaves the guard nothing to check. Organised dismissal answers both: each child leaves by a plan the family set, and only with someone the family named.

A plan for every child

Each child has a usual plan for going home, and the gate releases them by it.

• Pickup: a parent, or an authorized pickup the family added, collects them at the gate.
• Bus: they go home on one of the school's buses. The school puts each child on a bus, and only the school changes it.
• Home alone: they leave on their own. Parents choose it in the app, with their consent, and only from the grade the school allows in each division.

The school sets the rest in the school portal: the dismissal window, its buses, and a change cut-off between 30 minutes and 4 hours before the window opens. Until the cut-off, parents can change today, another day or a run of school days in the app. After it, today is locked and they call the school office.

Authorized pickups and the parent card

1. The parent adds the person once: their full name as it is on their ID, how they are related, their mobile, a clear photo of their face, and which children they may collect. Never an ID number.
2. Then shares a link with them by WhatsApp or text. They open it on their own phone and sign in to their own STUTAP app with their mobile, and the family is added to it. The link opens only for the mobile the parent saved.
3. The parent chooses the days they collect: as a child's usual plan, or for a day or a run of days. On those days the child shows in their app, and they ask for pickup when they reach the school.
4. At the gate, the guard scans the QR in their app, sees their name and photo, and checks their national ID. No ID, no pickup. The QR changes every minute, so a screenshot of it soon stops working.
5. If their phone dies or is lost, a parent makes a one-time code for them in the app and shares it. It works once, for today, and the guard scans or types it.
6. Parents carry a card of their own. The parent card in the app has their photo and a QR that never changes, and it works with no signal. The guard scans it and checks their face against the photo.

Someone the family has not chosen for today is not offered, and a one-time code that has been used is refused. The guard gives the reason, and nobody is called. A parent can remove a person at any time from the app, and the days chosen for them go too.

Asking for pickup from the school

Each campus sets its dismissal window, and which of its gates are open for pickup, in the school portal. STUTAP sets the pickup zone with you: an area around the campus. A change to the window applies from the next school day, so a pickup already under way never moves.

A parent asks when they arrive. The app checks their location once, they choose the children and the gate they are at, and the request goes to the classes. From home the app says no and shows how far away they are, and outside the window it shows when pickup opens.

The classroom screen and the release at the gate

Each classroom has a pickup screen: a tablet, a wall panel or a TV running STUTAP Station, paired once from the school portal with the code it shows, with nobody signed in. When someone is waiting, it shows the child's name, photo and class, who is waiting and at which gate, and it rings. On a tablet or panel, a member of staff taps Sent as the child leaves the class. It shows nothing else about the family.

At the gate, staff open each child in the STUTAP Staff app or the school portal and see today's plan with one answer: release, release to the adult who came, the bus, or wait. A release checks the child out under the guard's name, and one to go home alone or to the bus can be undone. The gate tablet shows each child's plan as they tap out, and a child who taps out with no release is flagged to the gate staff.

If a parent cancels after the class has sent the child, the gate shows "Do not release" and the guard keeps them at the gate. Once home time ends, the office sees every child on a pickup plan who is still at school.

Bringing parents on board

1. Set up the campus first. Set the dismissal window, the change cut-off, the buses and who may go home alone in each division, open your pickup gates and pair a screen in each classroom. STUTAP sets the zone with you.
2. Ask parents to link their children. Each family links its children in the STUTAP app with the code the school sends. Only a linked child can be asked for.
3. Ask them to set each usual plan. A child goes by the school's default until a parent sets their plan. Parents also add their photo for the parent card.
4. Explain the location check. The app reads the phone's location once, when a parent asks for pickup, to check they are at the school. Ask parents to allow it.
5. Authorized pickups before the first day. Ask parents to add the drivers and relatives who collect, so each has the STUTAP app before home time, and remind them to bring their national ID.

Tell parents early, through the school's usual channels, with the date dismissal starts, and keep someone at the gate to help for the first few days.

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