Safety and safeguarding
Keeping children safe comes before everything else
An online school brings adults into your home through a screen. We take that seriously. Every adult is checked before they reach a child, our rule is that no staff member is ever alone on video with a child, and a child can always ask for help privately.
If a child is in danger now
Call 911, or the local emergency number where the child is. Then tell us at safeguarding@
Our promise
SII staff will never contact your child outside the SII platform
SII staff will never contact your child outside the SII platform: no texts, calls, social media, gaming chats, or personal email. If anyone claiming to be from SII does, tell us at safeguarding@
Who can reach your child
Every adult is cleared first
Before any adult can see a child's record or join a class, they must pass all of these checks. This applies to teachers, advisors, reviewers, and administrators alike.
- A fingerprint-based criminal background check.
- State criminal checks for every state lived in over the past 5 years.
- A search of the national sex-offender registry.
- Child abuse registry checks in states that keep one.
- Police certificates from other countries lived in, where relevant.
- Two references, including one about their work with children.
- A signed code of conduct.
- Safeguarding training every year.
- Background checks follow the steps federal law requires to be fair to applicants.
- Clearance expires. When any check or training lapses, our software removes that person's access to children automatically, for every account, administrators included.
Live video
No private one-to-one video
Created by the school
Every live class is created by our platform through the school's own video account, with a link for each person that works only for that session. There is no standing room link a teacher could reuse.
Groups, or a second adult
A child enters a live class only when the teacher is in and a classmate or a second cleared adult is too. A child who arrives first waits on a calm "waiting for your classmates" screen, and a child left alone with one adult is moved back to it. A class with a single student, or a group down to one student, needs a second cleared adult or the child's own parent or guardian signed in and present, and it is recorded; the teacher and our Principal are told. A learning coach is never that second adult, and in a girls' class from grade 5 the second adult is always a woman, so a father or other male guardian cannot be the second adult there. A one-to-one pauses when its second adult leaves. Our Principal may join any session unannounced.
Recordings stay with staff
Recordings are staff-only safeguarding records, kept 30 days unless a concern requires longer. Every AI feature of the video service must be off and locked.
Our software holds these rules, and it learns who is in the room from the video service itself, not from who opened a link. The school's video account is not connected yet, so no class room opens. Until it is connected and tested, these rules are also required by school policy, and we will say here when that testing is done. Our scheduling software already refuses to book a one-to-one session without a second cleared adult or the child's own parent or guardian (never a learning coach).
Messages
Three kinds of message, and no others
- Private conversations are always staff plus one student plus that student's parents. A learning coach is never in them; a coach sees coursework, the schedule, attendance, class discussion, and class announcements only.
- Class discussions are the teacher and the students. Each parent can read their own child's posts and the teacher's.
- Announcements go one way, from the school to families.
There are no private messages between students, at any grade. Staff never start a private conversation with a child without the child's parents in it. Every message is kept as a record and can be reviewed by our safeguarding team. We reply within one school day.
Private help for children
A child can always ask for help
Once a child has their own sign-in, every Learning Hub screen and their account page have a "Talk to someone" button. It opens a private conversation with our safeguarding team only, and it always reaches two people: it goes to our Safeguarding Lead and the deputy, and if fewer than two of them can receive it (for example, one or both of them is the child's parent, or is named in a concern), our independent safeguarding adviser is told too, with a reference number only. A child's message is never turned away: even when neither of them can receive it, the message is kept, a safeguarding concern is opened, and the adviser and our safeguarding mailbox are told. It is never shared with a parent and never appears in a family's view, email summary, or data download, because sometimes the person a child needs protection from is at home. This is the only exception to the rule that parents are included, and our software is tested to prove there is no other.
The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-422-4453) are shown on every student page. Children in grades 1 and 2, and any child without their own sign-in, learn beside a parent in the locked "Learn with" view, which shows 988, Childhelp, and 911 on every screen.
If something goes wrong
Ready for an emergency on camera
The Emergency card
At enrollment we collect the address where your child attends class and the number for your county's emergency dispatch. The address is stored encrypted; the county's public dispatch number is stored with it. During a live class, the teacher has an Emergency card with those details, your phone numbers, and the steps to follow, in the order our safeguarding policy sets: if your child is in danger, the teacher calls your county's dispatch first, and then you. Opening it is logged and alerts our Safeguarding Lead, and it stays off your list of who opened your child's record until our safeguarding team decides it is safe to show, because the danger may come from home.
When a child goes quiet
A missed live class tells you the same day. If a child shows no activity for five school days and we cannot reach the family, our Safeguarding Lead makes a welfare check.
Protecting a child at home
Court orders that restrict a parent are honored across the portal, messages, and emails. While a concern is open, nothing about it appears in any family view, summary, or notification.
Who can see what
Access follows the child's real teachers
Teachers see the students on their current class lists. A second adult in a session can watch but never grades. Health notes show teachers only what they need to keep a child safe in class, never a diagnosis.
If a cleared staff member without a current role in your child's schooling must open the record, they type a reason, access lasts 30 minutes for that one child, you see it in your portal, and our directors are emailed a notice with record numbers only. The one exception: while a safeguarding concern about your child is open, that line is held back from your list until our Safeguarding Lead releases it. See who opened your child's record.
Staff accounts
Locked down
- Staff sign in only through our own sign-in page, with a password and a code from an authenticator app. Every staff session must pass that code step before it can open anything in the school beyond the sign-in pages themselves, where a new staff member first sets up the code app. The standard WordPress sign-in page sends everyone to ours, and our software checks a password only when it comes through our sign-in page.
- Office sessions sign out after 30 minutes without activity.
- Anyone who is the subject of a concern loses access to children at once, administrators included.
- SII does not provide therapy. If a child needs that support, the advisor helps the family find a licensed provider.
People responsible for safeguarding
Our Safeguarding Lead and a deputy are required before any child is enrolled: both roles will be hired, and both people fully cleared, before any child enrolls. They are listed on our Careers page as planned roles, with the Qur'an lead, the content reviewer, and the independent safeguarding adviser. A concern about the Principal, the Safeguarding Lead, or a director also goes to an independent safeguarding adviser outside the school, so it never passes only through the person it concerns.