The free pilot for private and independent schools

Three months at no charge, admissions questions and visit booking: who can join, what you sign, what Elira does, and what happens at the end.

A New York City independent day school can run AskElira free for three months. The pilot covers two things: admissions questions and visit booking.

Who can join

Register on the free pilot page and choose Independent / private. You answer two more questions: whether your school is in New York City, and what kind of school it is.

• Independent day schools in New York City can start a pilot.
• Faith-based schools, state-approved special education schools, and schools outside New York City are not in this pilot. We read every registration, and Alvin contacts you personally.

New Jersey applications

NJ private and charter service is being prepared for review. NJ paperwork remains draft and is not available to sign. If you select New Jersey — application review only on the application, it records school and adult staff contact information only. Applying does not approve a school, create an account, authorize student-data processing or enable email, SMS or phone service. The NJ application does not collect permission for texts or calls. Alvin handles private-school applications; Ashley handles charter-school applications.

The proposed service is for parents, guardians and school staff. Do not submit student or family records in the school application. NJ application contacts are kept for review for 90 days under scheduled cleanup. The NJ application form does not save those contacts in this browser. Application review does not promise a pilot term, price or observation week.

What you sign

After a short call we email your authorized signer the private-school edition of the onboarding packet. Its third part is the New York Private School Data Security and Privacy Addendum, not the § 2-d Addendum a charter school signs. On the Order Form, the Parents' Bill of Rights and the Part 121 policy rows are for charter schools; tick Not applicable — private-school edition. You can read every document first at schools.askelira.com/legal.

What the pilot includes

Elira drafts answers to admissions questions that families send through your website inquiry form and to your admissions email inbox. She uses only information your team has approved.

Your first dashboard visit opens Build Elira's Brain, the same guided setup every private-school account uses.

• Start with the 12 questions families ask most. On your dashboard, *Elira's answers* lists them — deadline, tuition, tours and more. Type each answer once. You can also paste an FAQ page or read your website; answers from your website wait for your OK before Elira uses them. Questions about financial aid, health, learning support or records always come to your staff.
• Your staff approve every answer first. You see each draft in your dashboard and send it, or correct it. A correction answers that family only. To teach Elira something for every family, save a separate general FAQ in Build Elira's Brain.
• Automatic replies are your choice. If you switch them on, Elira sends an answer by herself only when your staff already approved that answer before.
• Your admissions inbox. We set up the inbox address with you during onboarding, and you route your admissions mail to it. In Settings › Email, enter a subdomain such as admissions.yourschool.org. Your IT team adds the listed DNS records once. Family emails wait until Check status shows the address is verified; staff can then send held replies from Do these now on your dashboard. Direct family replies come from your school address and families can reply STOP to opt out.

Visits

In Build Elira's Brain → Visit times, open the times families can book: a campus tour, an open house or an admissions interview, each with the number of families it holds. Families pick a time on your booking page, give their name and email (a mobile number is optional), their child's first name and grade, and get a link to move or cancel the visit. Once your school's email address shows verified, AskElira also emails the family a confirmation from it — when they book, move or cancel — with the date, the time and that link; the booking page tells them to check their email only when that email went out. Until then the page shows the visit details and the link, and no email is sent. Elira's answers link to that page when you have not saved your own tour link. You can close a time or cancel a visit from the same step.

The standard pilot includes email and visits. Optional two-way family texting and an incoming AI phone receptionist have code available for reviewed pilots, but publishing that code does not activate them for your school. Each needs separate school authorization, channel setup and approval before families use it. Until then, texts and calls remain off. Applications, enrollment or deposit steps and connections to student-information or billing systems remain outside the pilot.

Your term

Your three months start when signing finishes. Your dashboard shows Free pilot — ends <date>. No invoice is issued. You can end the pilot early at any time — tell us in writing.

When the pilot ends

Elira stops sending anything to families from that day. Your staff can still sign in and see everything. If you do not continue, the personal data held for the pilot comes out of our production systems within 30 days (Data Processing Agreement § 9). Your dashboard shows the deletion deadline. Ask support for an export before that date, or arrange an agreed continuation. Without a recorded continuation, cleanup runs automatically.

Family inquiries, replies, remembered details and visit bookings are included in that cleanup. Proof of consent or revocation is kept separately for four years after the latest consent, revocation or family-data deletion. An opt-out is preserved permanently, so deleting a family's data never makes them contactable again. Visits already written to your school's own Google Calendar are your school's records; your office removes those itself.