Who it is for
For Tamil schools in North America
A Tamil school in New Jersey or the Bay Area runs a real school for a few hours a week, in rented rooms, on volunteer time — and does it for children whose names most school software cannot print correctly.
Names in Tamil, because they are Tamil names
A student ID card that renders அத்விதா as “Advitha” is not a formatting choice, it is a small weekly reminder that the system was not built for this school. Names print in Tamil script, and so do book titles in the library catalogue — தமிழ் அரிச்சுவடி is filed as itself.
The script is embedded in the card rather than left to whatever font the printer happens to have installed, which is the usual reason a name comes out as empty boxes. See a card.
What a Saturday actually looks like
Registration was once, in August
and the roster has been a spreadsheet emailed between three people ever since.
Teachers are parents who volunteered
and some of them are new this term. Attendance has to be obvious or it does not get taken.
Pickup is fifteen minutes in a shared lot
that belongs to the church, temple or community centre you rent from, not to the school.
The library is a cupboard and a notebook
holding books that are hard to replace and, in some cities, hard to buy at all.
None of that is a smaller version of a K-12 school. It is a different shape, and software written for districts assumes almost none of it is true.
Priced for a school that meets once a week
$300 a year for a school meeting one day a week with up to 500 students — flat, for the whole school, never per student. Every module is included and the parent app is free, permanently.
The tier is defined by cadence, not by the weekend: a school meeting every Thursday pays exactly what a Saturday school pays. An association running centres in several cities pays a $250 base plus each campus at half rate, on one invoice. Work out your own number.
Several cities, one association
Tamil schools cluster where the community does — the Bay Area, New Jersey, Dallas and Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, and Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. Where one association runs several of them, each campus keeps its own roster, its own grade names and its own timezone, which is what makes a group spanning California and Ontario workable at all. Be aware there is no single cross-campus dashboard today; it is on the list rather than in the product.
Common questions
- Will student names print in Tamil script on ID cards?
- Yes — in Tamil script, not transliterated into Latin letters. The card is generated with the script embedded rather than relying on whatever font the printer happens to have, and the same is true of book titles in the library catalog.
- We meet on Saturdays only. How is that priced?
- A school meeting one day a week with up to 500 students is $300 a year, flat, for the whole school and never per student. That tier is defined by cadence rather than by the weekend, so a school meeting on a Thursday pays the same as one meeting on a Saturday.
- Our grades are not K through 12. Does that work?
- Yes. Grade names are free text per school, so whatever your committee already calls them — KG, P1, P2, Level 3 — is what the system shows. Nothing assumes a US grade ladder.
- We are one association running schools in several cities. Can we run them together?
- Yes, on one invoice: a $250 base for the organization plus each campus at half its standalone rate, from two campuses upward. Each campus keeps its own timezone, which matters for an association spanning California, Texas and Ontario. One current limit worth knowing before you decide: there is no single dashboard across all campuses today, though it can be built.
- Can we track the books we lend?
- Yes, and it is the part most schools have no system for at all. Circulation runs off the same student ID card the door scanner reads — two scans to check a book out. Titles are catalogued in Tamil script, so தமிழ் அரிச்சுவடி is filed as itself rather than as a romanization somebody typed from memory.
- Most of our teachers are volunteer parents. Is it hard to hand over?
- Taking attendance is a class list on a tablet with one tap per student, and library checkout is two scans. The parts that need any real learning are the office tools, which the same one or two people use every week rather than a volunteer who is here for a term.
Attendance, the library and the pickup line from one roster and one card — in your own script.