Dismissals is how your school runs the end of the day for students going home. It answers four questions for every student, every day:
Who is leaving?
How are they getting home (car, bus, walking, cycling)?
Where are they leaving from (the front circle, the science wing, the library, and so on)?
Have they actually left?
It's different from taking attendance. A roll tells you who was present at a spot. The dismissal board tells you who was handed over: which adult collected them, and when.
Who uses it
School admins set everything up: pickup spots, ways of getting home, dismissal times, each student's weekly plan, and how much parents are allowed to change.
Staff on pickup duty start the dismissal, watch the live board, scan parents' QR codes, and mark each student as dismissed. Many schools put two adults at each spot: one with the students, and one with the car line and a phone or iPad.
Parents and other approved adults use the Orah Family App to see the plan, change it (if the school allows), and let the school know they've arrived.
Someone collecting a child just once (a nanny, a friend's parent, a carpool) doesn't need an Orah account. They can be sent a one-time QR code for that day.
Words you'll see on screen
What people usually say | What Orah calls it | What it means |
Pickup spot (front circle, library…) | Dismissal Location | Where a particular way of going home leaves from. |
How they go home | Transport option (a name your school chooses, like "Front circle pickup" or "Late bus") | One named way of getting home. Each one has a mode, a dismissal method and a location. |
Pickup type | Dismissal method: Picked up, Self Dismissal, or School managed transport | Whether an adult collects the student, the student leaves on their own, or the school handles it (for example, a bus). |
The dismissal group and time | Dismissal schedule | Which students are dismissed together, on which days, at what time. It does not decide the pickup spot. |
The student's weekly plan | Default Student Schedule (staff) / Student Default Dismissal Schedule (parents) | For each weekday, which transport option the student uses, and so which spot they leave from. |
Today's dismissal | Dismissal event | One schedule on one date. Its status is Not Started, In Progress or Completed. |
The live board | Columns: Awaiting Transport → Ready for Release → Released from Class → Dismissed | Where each student is in the handover. |
"I'm here" | I have arrived | The parent telling the school they're at pickup. It does not sign the student out. |
Holding up a code | Show QR code to staff | Staff scan it to record that the adult has arrived. |
A schedule is not a location
This is the most common setup mix-up, so it's worth saying clearly.
A dismissal schedule is just a group of students and a time, for example "Lower School, 3:15–3:45, Monday to Friday."
Where each student stands is set separately, per student and per weekday, on the Default Student Schedule. You do that by picking a transport option, and each transport option already points at a location.
So one schedule for all your day students can still have three pickup spots on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and just the front circle on Wednesday and Friday. You don't need extra schedules for that. It's just different choices on each student's weekly plan.
