How Bell collects consent before contacting parents.

Bell does not collect consent directly from parents. Schools — our customers — collect consent from each parent or legal guardian as part of their enrolment paperwork (the paper or digital form a family completes when their child joins the school).

That paperwork includes a clear, opt-in section asking the parent for permission to receive school communications by SMS and/or email about their child. The parent ticks the channels they consent to, signs the form, and dates it. The school keeps the signed form on file as the record of consent.

A trained school administrator then enters the parent's contact details into Bell, and ticks the matching consent boxes — Receives absence alerts and Receives broadcasts — only for the channels the parent agreed to. Parents who decline are entered without those boxes ticked, and Bell sends them nothing.

• Absence alerts. When a teacher marks a student absent, the parent receives one short message that day on their preferred channel. They reply with the reason. We send at most one alert per student per school day.
• School broadcasts. Occasional notices from the school: holiday changes, weather closures, school events, emergency information. Frequency is entirely set by the school — typically a handful per term.

Bell does not send marketing messages, third-party promotions, or any communication that is not a direct school-to-parent notification about a specific child.

• SMS: reply STOP to any message. The carrier immediately stops further SMS to that number.
• Email: reply with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject or body, or contact the school directly.
• Direct request: contact the school office at any time and ask for the consent flag to be removed. The administrator unticks the box in Bell and the school stops sending immediately.

Message frequency varies by family and depends on a child's attendance and the school's broadcast cadence. A typical parent receives between zero and a few messages per month. Standard message and data rates may apply, depending on the parent's mobile plan.

• The guardian's name, relationship to the student, phone number and/or email.
• The guardian's preferred channel and language.
• The guardian's opt-in flags (absence alerts; broadcasts).
• A delivery log of messages we sent, including timestamp, channel, body and the provider's delivery status — used solely to operate the service.

We do not sell, rent, or share parent contact details with third parties. Carrier partners (e.g. Twilio for SMS, Resend for email) process data only to deliver the messages we send. Schools control their own data inside Bell at all times.

If a parent receives a message and is unsure whether their school uses Bell, they can contact the school office directly. The school can confirm the platform, show the consent record on file, and remove the parent's contact details if requested.

For questions about how Bell handles consent or messaging, contact AntStudio at bell@antbell.dev.