Privacy Policy
This version was replaced on 4 November 2026. It is kept here so you can see what applied at the time.
Contents · 10 sections
1. Who we are and who this covers
Intuitive Orton, LLC ("Intuitive Orton", "we") makes software for teaching children to read with the Orton-Gillingham method. Student information belongs to the family or School that enters it. We hold it only to provide the Service, and we never sell it or use it for advertising.
This policy covers three groups of people:
| Who | What they do | Do they sign in? |
|---|---|---|
| Instructors | Parents, tutors, and teachers who teach and assess Students | Yes |
| Students | Children being taught. An Instructor creates their record, and they may join an Instructor's Room on a shared or separate device | Never |
| Website visitors | People reading intuitiveorton.com or using its contact form | No |
Our role for school data. When a School uses Intuitive Orton, the School controls its Student records and we act on its instructions, as a "school official" under FERPA and a service provider under state student-privacy laws. A data privacy agreement signed with a School (such as the SDPC NDPA) takes precedence over this policy where they differ.
Our role for families. When a parent uses a Personal Organization, the parent controls their child's records and can see, change, or delete them at any time.
2. Information we collect
We collect only what teaching and assessment need. We do not collect Student photos, audio, video, home addresses, or government ID numbers, and the Service has no microphone or camera features.
| Category | What it includes | Where it comes from | Why we need it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instructor account | Email, display name, optional profile photo, sign-in sessions | The Instructor, through our sign-in provider (Clerk) | To create the account, sign in, and show who did what |
| Organization | Organization or School name and logo, members and their roles, pending invitations | The Instructor or School Administrator; Schools are set up by our staff | To decide who sees which Students |
| Student record | First name, optional last name, optional Grade Level, optional birth date, a chosen avatar animal and colour | The Instructor | To teach, address the Student by name, and keep their work together |
| Student assignment | Which Instructors teach which Students | The School or Instructor | Access control |
| Assessment results | Which sounds and words a Student read, spelled, or blended, how each was scored, dates, and the Instructor's free-text notes | The Instructor, while running an Assessment | To track progress and produce Assessment Reports |
| Student handwriting | The strokes a Student writes on their Canvas during a spelling Assessment, saved when the Instructor scores it | The Student's device, in a Room | So the Instructor can review what the Student wrote |
| Room participation | The name typed on a device joining a Room (a nickname or a generated one) and its link to a Student record | The person on the joining device; the Instructor links it | To show who is in the Room while it is open. Held in memory only, not stored |
| Instructor settings | Timer routines and display preferences | The Instructor | To provide those features |
| Feedback | The message, rating, page, and browser type of feedback sent in the app | The Instructor | To fix problems and improve the Service |
| Technical data | Request logs, error reports, and performance traces, which can include the contents of requests | Our servers, automatically | To keep the Service working and secure (see section 5) |
| Website contact form | Name, email, phone, and message | Website visitors | To answer the enquiry |
| Device storage | Session cookies for sign-in; browser storage for preferences, recently viewed Students, and a joining device's chosen name | The browser | To keep you signed in and remember settings. We use no advertising or cross-site tracking cookies |
3. Children and Students
Most Students are under 13, so the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) applies to the Service. Students never create accounts, never sign in, and never give us an email address or other contact details.
Consent. An adult always gives consent before a child's information enters the Service:
- Parents using a Personal Organization consent for their own child when they create the child's Student record.
- Schools may consent on parents' behalf, as COPPA permits, when the Service is used only for the school's educational purposes. The School is responsible for notifying parents as its own policies and state law require.
- Tutors and other Instructors outside a School must have the parent's consent before entering a child's information, and confirm this when they create a Student record.
Rooms. An Instructor can invite a device into a Room with a Join Code. The person on that device types a name, or picks a generated one, and can write on a Canvas. We ask for no other information from that device. The typed name is kept in the Room's memory while it is open and on the device itself, and in our server logs for up to 15 days, and is not saved to the Student's record. Canvas strokes are saved only when the Instructor scores a spelling.
Parents' rights. A parent can review their child's information, ask us to correct or delete it, and refuse further collection. Parents of a School's Students should contact the School first; we will help the School respond. Write to hi@intuitiveorton.com.
4. How we use information, and what we never do
We use information to provide the Service you asked for and for nothing else that you would not expect.
We use it to:
- Run lessons, Rooms, and Assessments, and produce Assessment Reports.
- Control who can see which Students.
- Provide support when you ask for it, and answer contact-form enquiries.
- Keep the Service secure, find and fix errors, and prevent abuse.
- Improve the Service, using de-identified and aggregated information only.
- Meet legal obligations.
We never:
- Sell or rent Student information, or any personal information.
- Use Student information for advertising, or to build a profile of a Student for any purpose other than their instruction.
- Show advertising inside the Service.
- Use Student information or Assessment results to train AI models.
- Use Student information for any purpose a School has not authorised.
5. Sharing and subprocessors
We share personal information only with the service providers below, who process it on our behalf under contract, and as the law requires. All of them store data in the United States.
| Provider | What it does for us | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Clerk | Sign-in and accounts | Instructor email, name, profile photo, sessions; Organization names, members, roles, and invitation emails |
| Render | Hosts our API, real-time server, and database (Ohio, US) | All Service data, including Student records and Assessments |
| Vercel | Hosts the web application and website | Requests passing through the web application; aggregated website analytics |
| Datadog | Logs, error tracking, and performance monitoring | Request and response contents, which include Student names, Assessment results, notes, and Canvas writing. Kept 15 days |
| SendGrid (Twilio) | Delivers website contact-form messages | The visitor's name, email, phone, and message |
| OpenAI | Suggests word meanings for our curriculum team | Dictionary words and their pronunciations only. Never Student or Instructor information (section 6) |
Within an Organization. Instructors see the Students assigned to them. School Administrators see their School's Students. Our staff access data only as section 2 of the Terms allows.
Legal requests and business transfers. We disclose information when the law requires it, and tell the affected School or parent unless the law forbids it. If Intuitive Orton is sold or merged, Student information stays bound by this policy's commitments.
6. AI features
No Student or Instructor information is sent to any AI model. Our curriculum staff use AI tools (OpenAI, and TypeSafe AI's Jev) to help draft dictionary content such as word meanings and phonogram hints; those tools receive only dictionary words, spellings, and pronunciations. AI does not score Assessments or make decisions about Students. If we ever add an AI feature that uses Student information, we will update this policy and get any consent the law or a School's agreement requires before turning it on.
7. Retention and deletion
We keep information only as long as we need it to provide the Service, and delete it on the schedule below.
| Information | Kept until | Then |
|---|---|---|
| Room names and live state | The Room closes | Gone; never written to storage. Expired one-off Rooms are deleted within about 2 hours |
| Server logs and traces | 15 days | Deleted automatically by Datadog |
| A Student you delete | 30 days, so it can be restored | Permanently deleted with its Assessments and handwriting |
| A closed account | 30 days, so it can be reopened | Permanently deleted, along with Students in its Personal Organization that no other Instructor teaches |
| A School's data when its contract ends | 60 days (the NDPA's limit), or sooner if the School asks | Permanently deleted, after the School can export it |
| Backups | 35 days after deletion | Overwritten |
| Contact-form messages | 2 years | Deleted |
8. Security and breach notification
We protect information with administrative, technical, and physical safeguards suited to children's data, under a written information security programme that we review at least yearly.
- All traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS), and our hosting providers encrypt stored data.
- Access is limited by role: Instructors see only their assigned Students, and only a small number of our staff can reach production data.
- Room Join Codes can be rotated, and one-off Rooms expire.
- Our staff with access to Student information are bound by confidentiality obligations.
If a breach exposes Student information, we will notify the affected Schools and parents without undue delay, and within 72 hours of confirming it for Schools that have a signed agreement requiring that, with what happened, what information was involved, and what we are doing about it. We will also notify regulators where the law requires it.
9. Your rights and choices
You can see and change most of your information in the Service yourself, and ask us for the rest.
| Who | Can ask us to | How |
|---|---|---|
| Instructors | See, correct, export, or delete their account information; close their account | Settings in the app, or hi@intuitiveorton.com |
| Parents (Personal Organization) | See, correct, export, or delete their child's records; stop further collection | In the app, or by email |
| Parents (School) | The same, under FERPA and state law | Through the School, which controls the records; we help the School respond within 30 days |
| Schools | Export or delete all of their Students' data at any time, and at the end of the contract | hi@intuitiveorton.com |
| Residents of states with privacy laws (such as California) | Know what we collect, delete it, correct it, and not be discriminated against for asking. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of | By email; we verify identity before acting |
We answer requests within 30 days, or sooner where the law requires.
10. Changes and contact
We will post any change to this policy here and update the date at the top. For a material change, especially one about Student information, we will email account owners and Schools at least 30 days before it takes effect, and get fresh consent where COPPA or a School's agreement requires it. We will never apply a change that loosens how we use Student information to data we collected before it without that consent.
Questions or requests: Intuitive Orton, LLC, New Jersey, hi@intuitiveorton.com.
This policy is adapted from the Basecamp (37signals) privacy policy, used under CC BY 4.0.