The Parent Path: Start a Community in Sixty Seconds

Carpool.School has two ways to start a community. This is the parent path.

Why parent-led

Every Carpool.School community is built around a place: a school, camp, youth org, or activity center. Schedules live inside it as activities that any parent can add: the school day, soccer practice, the chess-club pickup. You don't need a new community for a new schedule; you add an activity.

The organization that runs the place can create the official community (The Staff Path). Parent-led is for two situations the official path doesn't cover:

• No one's set it up yet. Don't wait for the org. Pick the place, create the community, start carpooling now.
• You want a smaller, private group. Maybe you don't need the whole school, just the handful of families you already coordinate with. Create a private community, invite only them, keep it closed.

Who it's for

• The parent ready to start now with a few families they already know
• Summer camps, after-school programs, or any group with no roster to upload
• Parents who want a small, closed group instead of the whole school

1. Search for your community

Go to carpool.school or download the app and choose the parent tab. Search for your school, camp, team, or group by name.

The search dropdown has two sections:

• On Carpool.School: communities already on the platform. Selecting one takes you to the join flow. If someone invited you to an existing community, start here instead →
• Start a new community: locations from the web. Select your group here to create a new parent-led community.

2. Start your community

You land on the start screen. Three decisions:

• Name. Pre-filled from your search. Adding a suffix (PTSA, Summer Camp, Class of 2030) is optional but worth doing, since it tells families at a glance what the community is for.
• Arrival and dismissal times. The community-wide default schedule. Other schedules (a second bell time, M/W/F vs Tu/Th sessions) don't need their own community; add them as activities in the next step. Start a separate community only when the families are different, not just the times.
• How families join.
  • Invite-only. You get an access code, auto-generated or your own. Only families with the code can join. Rotate it any time.
  • Open enrollment. No code needed. Anyone can join.

You become the first member and the community admin.

3. Set up your family

Create your account, add your kids and their schedule, and set your home address: the same steps any parent joining your community will go through. What that looks like →

This is also where activities come in. Add the ones your kids do (soccer practice, chess club). Families who join later pick from the same list or add their own. Families in the same activity find each other for those hours, not just the school bell.

Community = who. A membership boundary: who can see whom, with its own join gate.
Activity = when. A schedule variation inside the same group of families.

4. Invite families

Once your profile is set, you land on the share screen. Your invite link carries the access code, so families you share it with land straight in signup. For more, open the Launch Kit: ready-to-share invite materials branded with your community name, including email copy, a group-chat blurb, a flyer, and more.

The carpooling starts as soon as a second family joins.

See The Launch Kit for the full breakdown.

What you've built

A community that grows on its own. The invite link is community-wide, so it travels: families share it with families you haven't met. Nobody is verifying each member the way a staff-led community does.

That's the trade for starting without anyone's approval. What holds regardless:

• Membership stays gated. Only members see each other, and you can remove anyone who doesn't belong.
• The privacy model is identical. Parent-led removes the institutional gate, not the privacy ones. How privacy works →