School Groups for Point of Care
What's New
The Kangarootime School module now supports School Groups, a semi-permanent student groupings that syncs directly with Point of Care, eliminating the need to manually recreate groups each day.
Background
Point of Care already supports daily groups for situations where a class temporarily splits (e.g., half to the playground, half in the classroom). However, many larger programs organize bigger classes into a fixed set of students on an ongoing basis, broken down by age, grade, or other factors. School Groups are built for exactly that use case.
What You Can Configure
Each School Group includes:
- Group Name — identify the group at a glance
- Starting Location — set where the group begins their day
- Start & End Date — define the date range the group is active
- Active Days — specify which days of the week the group applies to
- Student Roster — assign the specific children that belong to the group
How It Works
Once configured, School Groups automatically appear in Point of Care, set and ready to go when staff arrive. No more building the same groups from scratch every morning.
Best For Larger summer camp programs where counselors and teachers are responsible for the same students day after day.
Enrollment Roster: Subsidy Filter
What's New: A new Subsidies filter is now available in the Enrollment Roster report. Administrators can quickly identify which enrolled students are linked to a subsidy agency, meaning no more manually cross-referencing records.
Who This Affects: This update is relevant only to businesses that work with subsidy agencies. If your business does not use subsidies, no action is needed. The Enrollment Roster works exactly as it always has.
Feature Spotlight: Drop-In Care
Kangarootime now supports Drop-In Care, giving families the flexibility to book individual care sessions on an as-needed basis, including during vacation periods, directly through the KT Connect parent portal. This helps businesses fill available seats daily, creating additional revenue while giving families the planned or unplanned care they need.
For Administrators
Class Capacity Management: Drop-in availability is tied to class capacity. When a class is full, the system automatically prevents new drop-in bookings for that day. Administrators can manage capacity two ways:
- Permanent capacity: set at the class level under Enrollment → Classes
- Daily capacity overrides: adjustable by date range under Attendance → Attendance/Bookings → Manage Capacities, allowing flexibility for staffing changes and special programming needs
Drop-In Rates A session-based fee must be assigned to a class before drop-in care can be enabled. Families are billed within the invoice that covers the period of service.
Drop-In Care Rules Schools can configure drop-in rules globally or per class, including:
- Booking window: define how far in advance (minimum and maximum) a parent can schedule a session (up to six months out)
- Cancellation policy: set the cutoff time for penalty-free cancellations; late cancellations can be configured to result in an absence mark and session charge
Family Exclusions Specific family accounts can be blocked from booking drop-in sessions when needed. Administrators retain the ability to manually add sessions for excluded students on a case-by-case basis. Exclusions can be removed at any time.
For Families
Booking a Drop-In Session Parents can book drop-in sessions through KT Connect under Explore → Drop-In Care. After selecting a center, class, and date(s), families can review the session fee and confirm their booking in just a few steps. This includes vacation periods, making it easy to secure coverage during school breaks.
Canceling a Session Sessions can be canceled from the Schedule tab in KT Connect. Whether a charge applies depends on the center's cancellation policy, and cancellations made within the defined window may result in an absence charge.
How It All Works Together Once a drop-in session is booked, the child automatically appears on the Attendance Screen and in the Point of Care app for staff, no manual entry needed. Check-in/check-out times and activity notes are tracked as normal, and the session charge is reflected on the family's account.