Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and how to reach us

Kindred is owned and operated by DCM (Digital Coast Media), 525 Delmas Avenue, Suite B, Pascagoula, MS 39567. We are the "controller" of the personal information described here. Questions, requests, and complaints: info@kindred.school.

2. Information we collect

We collect only what we need to run the service. Almost all of it is information you type in yourself.

Parent account information.

• Your first and last name, email address, and (optional) mobile number.
• If you tick the text-message box on signup, the date and time you gave that consent.
• How you heard about Kindred, if you tell us.
• Your sign-in credentials: a password if you set one, or the magic links we email you. We never see your password in plain text.
• Your referral code and, if you arrived through another family's link, that family's referral code (used for attribution only — no rewards, no lookups).

Your child's learning profile, entered by you.

• Your child's first name or nickname, age or grade level, and the school year you are planning for.
• How your child learns: learning style, pace, preferred environment, interests, subject levels, and goals.
• Any learning differences or special needs you choose to tell us about (for example ADHD, dyslexia, autism, giftedness). This is sensitive information. You decide whether to enter it, it is used only to personalize matches and insights, and it is never sold or sent to our marketing or advertising providers.
• Records you keep in Kindred: lesson plans, daily logs, progress and mastery, reading log, portfolio work samples, transcript courses and grades, attendance and compliance records, ESA budgets and expenses.

Find Your Match and saved matches.

• Your answers to the match questions (grade, learning style, subjects, faith preference, budget, and similar) and the curriculum matches we calculate.
• The email address you give to save those results. Anonymous saved matches that are not attached to an account are retained for 90 days, then deleted by the nightly automatic deletion job.

Payments.

• Payments are processed by Stripe. Card numbers go directly to Stripe; Kindred never receives or stores your full card number.
• We store your plan, billing status, Stripe customer and subscription identifiers, billing dates, and the billing name and address you enter at checkout. Stripe's own privacy policy applies to the information you give Stripe.

Automatically collected information.

• Hosting-provider access logs: Replit may record your IP address, browser type, pages requested, and timestamps for security and debugging.
• Analytics and advertising measurement described in section 5.
• Messages you send to our AI features (the onboarding wizard and Ask Kindred) and the answers they generate, described in section 4.

3. How we use your information

• To provide Kindred: build learner profiles, plan and log lessons, calculate curriculum matches, generate transcripts, track compliance, and keep your account working.
• To run your subscription: start your free trial, take payment, send receipts, and enforce plan limits.
• To communicate with you: account and security emails (sign-in links, password resets, billing notices) and, unless you opt out, tips and offers by email — and by text message only if you opted in (section 6).
• To improve Kindred: understand which features are used, fix bugs, and measure whether our advertising works.
• To protect the service: prevent abuse, enforce our Terms, and meet legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal information, and we never sell or rent information about your children. We do not run third-party ads inside Kindred. Some state privacy laws treat the use of advertising pixels like Google Ads and Meta as "sharing" personal information for targeted advertising. You can opt out of that sharing at any time using the controls in section 5 or by emailing us.

4. AI features

The onboarding wizard and Ask Kindred use large language models from third-party AI providers (currently OpenAI). The text you type into these features — including the learner details you describe in the wizard — is sent to OpenAI through Replit's AI gateway to generate a response. Kindred does not store your conversations; the onboarding wizard saves only the learner profile you confirm. OpenAI does not use API inputs to train its models and may retain them for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring, after which they are deleted. We apply usage limits and automated safeguards to detect misuse of these features.

Curriculum matches from Find Your Match are calculated by our own scoring engine, not by a third-party model.

5. Cookies, analytics, and advertising measurement

Kindred keeps sign-in sessions in your browser's local storage and uses similar browser storage to remember your preferences. Replit, our hosting provider, may set a cookie needed to route or secure requests. Through Google Tag Manager we also load the following measurement tools on the public parts of the site and the app; those tools may use their own cookies and similar technologies:

• Google Analytics 4 — usage statistics (pages viewed, features used, device and general location).
• Google Ads conversion tracking — so we know which Google ads led to signups and purchases. After a purchase, we send Google a one-way hashed (SHA-256) version of the email, phone, name, and billing address used at checkout, so Google can match the sale to an ad click. Google cannot read the original values from the hash.
• Meta Pixel — so we know which Facebook and Instagram ads led to signups and purchases.
• Microsoft Clarity — pseudonymous session recordings (recordings are associated with an account identifier, not your name) and heatmaps that show how pages are used. Signed-in, onboarding, and child-related screens are masked so child and family text is not recorded.

When you first arrive at Kindred we also store the campaign identifiers in the link that brought you here (UTM tags and Google and Meta click IDs) with your email capture or account, so we can understand which marketing brought a family to Kindred.

You can limit this measurement with your browser's cookie controls, Google's Ads Settings, Meta's ad preferences, Microsoft's opt-out for Clarity (choose Microsoft at optout.aboutads.info), and by browser opt-out tools such as the Google Analytics opt-out add-on. Child learning-profile details are never included in analytics or advertising data.

6. Marketing email and text messages

When you subscribe to our email updates, save your matches, or start a trial, we add your name, email, phone number (if given), plan status, and your consent choices to our customer relationship management (CRM) provider, GoHighLevel (LeadConnector), which sends our account emails and marketing messages. The CRM also receives the child's first name (or nickname) and grade level you enter in Find Your Match or onboarding — never learning differences, special needs, or any other child-profile detail.

• Email: every marketing email has an unsubscribe link. Account and billing emails are sent as long as you have an account.
• Text messages (SMS): we only text you if you ticked the consent box and gave us your mobile number. Consent is not a condition of purchase. Message frequency varies; message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP at any time to stop, or HELP for help.
• You can also opt out of either at any time by emailing info@kindred.school.

7. Who we share information with

We share personal information only with the service providers who process it on our behalf under contract, and only for the purposes above:

• Supabase — database and sign-in (authentication), hosted in the United States (Oregon).
• Replit — application hosting and the AI gateway; application and AI requests pass through Replit's infrastructure as described in section 4.
• Stripe — payments and receipts.
• OpenAI — AI features (section 4).
• Google (Tag Manager, Analytics, Ads) and Meta — measurement (section 5).
• Google Fonts — typography. When your browser loads a Google Font, its IP address and request information are sent to Google.
• Microsoft Clarity — measurement (section 5).
• GoHighLevel (LeadConnector) — our CRM, email and text messaging (section 6).

We may also disclose information when the law requires it, to protect the rights and safety of families using Kindred, or as part of a merger or sale of the business (we would tell you first). We do not sell, rent, or share information about families or children with third parties for their own purposes. The providers above process data only on our instructions to run Kindred.

8. Children's privacy

Kindred is a tool for parents and guardians, and accounts are for adults (18+). The information about your child comes from you, not from your child. When Student View launches, you will be able to share a read-only link with your child so they can see their own schedule and progress; that page will not ask children for any personal information. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us information directly, email us and we will delete it.

9. Your choices and your rights

• Access and update: edit your family and learner profiles at any time in the app.
• Export: download your family and learner profiles, lesson plans and schedule, progress entries, reading log, portfolio items, transcript courses and test scores, transcript packets, compliance records, ESA budgets and expenses, and saved matches as a file from Settings → Download My Data.
• Delete: Settings → Delete Account permanently removes your family, learner profiles, records, uploaded receipt images, and sign-in. Deleting an account cancels any active subscription immediately, so there are no further charges. Stripe retains transaction records as required by law. Your CRM contact is removed on request as described in section 10.
• Marketing: unsubscribe from emails or reply STOP to texts at any time (section 6).
• Depending on where you live (for example California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas, or the EU/UK), you may have additional rights to access, correct, delete, or port your information and to object to certain processing. Email us to exercise them; we will verify the request and respond within the time the law requires. We will not treat you differently for exercising your rights.

Kindred is operated from Mississippi and complies with United States federal and applicable state privacy laws. Any dispute is governed by the laws of the State of Mississippi and resolved in Mississippi, as set out in our Terms of Service.

10. How long we keep information

• Account, family, and learner data: for as long as your account exists, then deleted when you delete your account.
• Anonymous saved matches without an account: retained for 90 days, then deleted by the nightly automatic deletion job.
• Email-update and marketing contacts: until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove you; when you ask, we remove your contact from our CRM.
• Billing records: for as long as tax and accounting law requires (typically seven years).
• Server logs and analytics: kept in aggregate or for a limited period set by each tool.

11. Security

Your data is encrypted in transit, stored in a database that enforces row-level access rules so each family can only reach its own records, and accessible only to the people who need it to run the service. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach that affects you, we will notify you as the law requires.

12. Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we will update the date at the top and, for significant changes, tell you by email or with a notice in the app. Continued use of Kindred after a change means you accept the updated policy.

See also our Terms of Service.