🛠️ For school admins

Setting up your school and keeping it running. Admins can do everything teachers can, for every trip in the school.

Getting started

Register your school. Start typing your school's name and pick it to fill in the address (the nearest schools are listed first). You choose your School ID, a short name used in links and when you contact support; nobody signs in with it. You're signed in right away.
Upload your roster (below), then bring in your teachers (below).
Create a test trip and open it as a parent would. Your first 2 trips are free.

🚀 Setup checklist

Until your school is set up, the dashboard shows a checklist: school details, upload the roster, invite teachers, create a trip, add a consent form, and get the first form signed (plus, optionally, connect Stripe for online fees). Steps tick themselves off. Press Hide to put it away; bring it back from School Settings. Below it, Needs your attention lists what's waiting across the whole school (see For teachers).

Students and roster

On the 🎒 Students tab, download the school roster template, fill it in (including each student's teacher email) and use Upload roster.
Every teacher's class fills in automatically, and logins are created for new teacher emails.
♿ Students who need a wheelchair-accessible bus: put yes in the template's wheelchair column (blank leaves a student as they are), or press Edit on the student's row and tick ♿ Needs a wheelchair bus. They show a ♿ by their name; on each trip's 🚌 Buses tab they're listed, bus requests ask for a lift, and staff are warned if one is on a bus without a lift. Bus companies only see how many riders need a lift.
From PowerSchool: use Import from PowerSchool on the Students tab with a student/contacts export (for example Student_Number, Student_First, Student_Last, Contact_Name, Relationship, Is_Emergency, Contact_Phone). Only the student number and name are required (first + last, or one LastFirst column); contacts, grade and teacher are optional, and extra columns are ignored. Common PowerSchool column names are recognized; otherwise match the columns once and they're remembered. One row per contact is fine: each student gets up to two guardians (parents and guardians first, then emergency contacts), and existing students are updated by student number. New students need a teacher assigned afterwards.
Teachers from a name or room: no teacher email column? A teacher or homeroom column works too ("Mrs. Holloway", "Holloway, Dana", "Rm 202"). It's matched to your teachers by name or by the room on the Teachers tab. Names that match no one, or more than one teacher (two Beckers), are listed after the upload and those students wait for you to assign them.
Column names don't have to be exact: "Student Number", "Students.Student_Number", "Grade Lvl", "Home Rm" and small typos are all recognized. Parent and contact columns are never mistaken for the student's name.
Extra columns are fine: any column FieldTripPro doesn't use is ignored (listed after the upload as "Ignored columns"), and a bad value never stops the rest. An invalid email or teacher email is left out and the student is still imported (listed under "Fixed while importing"); only rows with no name are skipped.
Edit or remove students at any time, or ➕ Add a student one by one.

Teachers and admins

Set your Teacher email domain in 🏫 School Settings. Teachers with that email can then create their own login at fieldtrippro.app/join: they search for your school by name (schools near them are listed first) and get an email link to set their password.
On the 🧑‍🏫 Teachers & Admins tab: ➕ Add a teacher or admin, use 🔗 Teacher sign-up, or 🖨 Print invite QR codes for a staff meeting.
Send a teacher a password reset link or set a new password for them from the same tab.

🗂️ Operations staff

On 🧑‍🏫 Teachers & Admins, add the person with the role Operations.
Open their Manage → Access and choose what they see: the whole school, or only certain teachers' classes and grades.
Tick what else they may do: approve students, see medical info (allergy alerts, form answers, signed copies, the emergency sheet), fees (refunds stay with admins), and venue requests & chat. New operations staff start with fees and venues on, approve and medical off.
They can always create and plan trips for what they cover, add whole classes or grades at once, and book buses. Their student list is read-only; teachers and admins keep the roster up to date.

🚍 Bus requests

Anyone planning a trip can send a bus request to a transportation company from the trip's 🚌 Buses tab. If you want to approve them first (they usually cost money), turn on School Settings → Bus requests need an admin's OK; you'll then see an OK, send it button on the trip. Your own requests always go straight out. See Transportation companies.

Parent sign-in backup

Parents confirm who they are with a code emailed to the address on your roster. For families whose email doesn't work, make 👪 Parent family codes (on the Students tab) and 🖨 Print these letters to send home. A family code never changes unless you make a new one.

School-wide trips

Admins can create a trip for the whole school, or choose classes or grades, and see every trip in the school on the 🚌 Field Trips tab.

📅 School calendar

Admins see every trip at the school on 📅 Calendar, with form deadlines and ⚠️ on days with more than one trip. Teachers see their own trips, plus a count of other trips that day. Anyone can subscribe from their phone's calendar (the link shows trip names, dates, times and places only, never student information).

Venues and chat

Teachers can chat with the venue of a trip on its 🏛️ Venue tab. Admins can open any trip, so they can read and join every venue conversation. Each staff member chooses their own chat notices in 👤 My Account. See Field trip venues.

Venue website forms

Forms a venue asks parents to sign on its own website appear on trips going there and count toward "Signed every form". Parents confirm them; the venue or your staff can correct who signed. Teachers can add a place that isn't on FieldTripPro and its form links; it's saved for every school (shown as "Added by a school").

💳 Online fee payments (Stripe)

In 🏫 School Settings → Online fee payments, press Connect with Stripe. You'll create (or sign in to) the school's own free Stripe account and add the bank account for deposits. Have the school's EIN and bank details ready; it takes about 10 minutes.
Once it says ✓ Connected, parents see their child's balance on the trip page with a Pay online by card button whenever a trip has a fee. They pay on Stripe's secure page, and the money goes straight to the school's Stripe account (deposited to your bank on Stripe's schedule). FieldTripPro never holds the money and takes no cut.
Choose who pays the card processing fee (about 2.9% + 30¢): the school covers it, or a convenience fee is added for parents and shown before they pay. Some states limit fees added to card payments, so check what applies to your school.
While Stripe verifies the school's details the card shows Stripe is checking (usually minutes). If it shows Finish setting up Stripe, Stripe needs one more thing; press it to see what.
Parents pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay (plus Stripe's Link wallet). Pay-later, crypto, Cash App and bank payments are left out on purpose, so payments are confirmed right away and the convenience fee covers the real card cost.
Payments appear in each trip's 💵 Fees tab by themselves. To refund, open the student's payments there and press Refund… (all or part). Only admins can refund. A convenience fee isn't refunded automatically; refund it from your Stripe dashboard if you wish.
Open your Stripe dashboard from the same card (sign in with the school's own Stripe login) for deposits, receipts, disputes and reports. The account belongs to the school; Stripe handles its identity checks, fraud screening and any negative balance.

School Settings

The 🏫 School Settings tab holds your school's name, address, phone and teacher email domain, and at the top, 💳 Billing: your free trips, your paid-through date, and the button to pay, renew or get a quote or invoice. See Billing & invoicing.

Your school's data

Each school sees only its own students. Field trip venues (zoos, museums…) see a trip only when a teacher sends them a visit request or a chat message, and see student names and their own signed waiver only if the teacher turns on sharing for that trip, until 30 days after the visit (see Field trip venues). To delete your school's account and data, email support@fieldtrippro.app. Read our privacy policy.