Setting up your Parent Handbook and collecting parent signature

A Parent Handbook is a critical tool for any child care business. It sets clear expectations by outlining your policies, procedures, and program details, helping to build trust and transparency with families from the very beginning. A well-crafted handbook not only protects your business by ensuring everyone is on the same page but also enhances the parent experience by answering common questions upfront.

For video training click here.

With Wonderschool Parent Handbook feature, we allow you to use our wetted template to create a parent handbook or use your own Parent Handbook to capture Parent's signature electronically. 

Creating/Upload/Choosing A Parent Handbook

To access Parent Handbook feature, Click on Documents on the left navigation. 

From there, you will be able to see a banner on top of the page. Click on "Create your handbook"

Creating Parent Handbook Using Wonderschool Template

We recommend using Wonderschool template to create a parent handbook. If you like to use Wonderschool template to create a parent handbook, click on "Get Started"

You will be asked to respond to some questions about your business operations and based on the data, we will generate a parent handbook.

Tip: Some details in the Parent Handbook are automatically shared from your website. These include:

• Business days and hours
• Number of snacks provided
• Subsidy information

If you’ve already entered this information on your website, it will automatically appear when you create your Wonderschool Parent Handbook. Likewise, if you update it while creating the handbook, those changes will also be reflected on your website.

Schedule

Choose/confirm days/ hours of operation by selecting days and hours.

Drop off and Pick up

If you accept early drop off and late pick up you can enter the minutes in this section. As a default it is turned off and you need to select the check mark before activating the section.

Holidays & Closures

This section lets you inform parents about your scheduled holidays and closures. Simply check the holidays when your program will be closed, or uncheck them if you'll remain open.

You can also add specific closure dates for a particular year.

Tip: If you add specific dates, keep in mind that they are tied to a specific year. Be sure to update your Parent Handbook each year to reflect the correct closure dates.

Staff Time off

This section lets you inform parents how many days you and your staff will take off each year. By default, it is set to 7 days, but you can adjust this number to reflect your planned time off—such as for spring break or winter break.

Late Pick up Fee:

We recommend charging late pickup fee to help ensure parents are accountable and that your time is respected. To enable this section, uncheck “I don’t charge for late pickup.” You can also set a grace period for parents, after which you can charge a fee per minute.

 

Late Payment Fee:

We recommend charging late payment fee to help ensure parents are accountable and that your time is respected. To enable this section, uncheck “I don’t charge for late payment.” You can also set a grace period for parents in days, after which you can charge a fee per invoice.

Subsidy

This section allows you to indicate if you accept subsidy or not and will reflect back to your school website listing.

Snacks

This section allows you to indicate the number of snacks you provide to students each day. By default it is turned off. Uncheck "I don't offer snacks in my program" to activate the field and enter the number of snacks you provide. 

Click Next to go to the next step or Go back to go back to the previous step or Cancel to cancel creating Parent Handbook. 

Warning: If you cancel, the data will not be saved and you will lose the data you have entered previously. 

Preview Parent handbook

This view allows you the pre-populated parent handbook. You can click on any sections on the left hand to jump to a specific section. You can also click on Print or View to download or view the parent handbook in a separate window.

If you like to show your parent handbook on your Wonderschool website listing, Toggle Share on my Marketplace Listing on

Click on Finish to finish creating your Parent Handbook. 

You will see a modal that confirms your Parent Handbook is live. You can either close the modal or share the parent handbook with parents. This feature is mostly used when you create a brand new Parent Handbook or edit an existing one and you need to share the new Parent Handbook with Parents all at once to capture everyone's signature. 

Your parent handbook is now categorized as "Parent Handbook" under category. This is very important as only a parent handbook that is categorized as "Parent Handbook" is singable. 

Creating Parent Handbook using your own Parent Handbook

If you prefer to use your own Parent Handbook, you can upload it and we’ll collect parent signatures for you. The document must be in PDF format.

Note: Please remove any signature fields from your document, as we’ll automatically add a signature page at the end to collect digital signatures.

You have the option to upload your Parent Handbook or choose an existing Parent handbook that you have already uploaded. 

To start, click on "Create your handbook". 

Choose the option " I already have the parent handbook"

In this window, you have the option to upload a Parent Handbook for the first time or if you want to choose from the existing documents on the Wonderschool platform. 

You can select any pdf document that has been uploaded previously as your parent handbook. 

This will categorize the document as "Parent Handbook" and you can start sharing and collecting signature. 

 

Editing Existing Parent Handbook:

You have the option to edit your Parent Handbook at any time after initial Parent Handbook creation/selection. 

To edit the parent handbook click on the 3 vertical dots next to the Parent Handbook category.

From the drop down choose "Edit Parent Handbook"

If you want to choose Wonderschool template, choose "Let's go" and if you want to choose your own Parent handbook, choose the option " I have my own Parent Handbook". 

From there you will be guided to the same flows explained above and you can edit or replaced your current Parent Handbook. 

Sharing Parent Handbook:

You can share Parent handbook in 2 ways: 

1. From the Documents Page

To share the Parent handbook form the Documents page, click on the checkbox next to Parent Handbook. Note: To collect signature, the parent handbook must show the category as Parent handbook.

Click on Share

In the window, you can select the student or students that you want to share the parent handbook. After selection click on Share. This will trigger an email to parents to log in tot he Parent Portal and sign the Parent Handbook electronically. 

Through the enrollment flow

When you enroll the student on Wonderschool, on the second page of enrollment, select the Parent handbook to be shared with Parent as shown below. Note: Remember if you want to collect signature electronically, choose a parent handbook with the category Parent Handbook

 This will trigger an email and parents can log in to the Parent Portal and sign the parent handbook electronically.