High School Today · stand the whole program up today · live today, early access where it says so
Start the whole high school program today — every publication and the records office, the same day you import the roster.
You do not have to wait a term to stand the program up. Import the roster this morning and the yearbook ladder, the student newspaper, the literary-magazine shell, the family directory, and the ID-card pipeline all exist by the afternoon — on one roster, with no install, no purchase order, and no rep to schedule. From there you build the program out across the year, one publication and one deadline at a time, instead of cramming the whole thing into a spring scramble.
Money is honest-off: the records office and every publication are free to start, and no card is charged on this page. The picture-day store and outside-lab order routing are in early access. No school is running a live program on highschool.today yet — you would be starting one.
Import the roster, real pages today
Bring the roster in once — synced from your student system or a one-time import — and the publications open with real names and portraits in place, not an empty demo you have to seed by hand.
Every publication, the same day
The yearbook ladder, the newspaper, and the literary-magazine shell assemble together off that one roster, so students spend day one creating instead of configuring.
No install and no purchase order
It runs in the browser with nothing to install and nothing to procure first. You can stand the program up before the paperwork to buy anything would have cleared.
What “start today” actually means
The usual reason a program waits is not the software — it is the runway in front of it. A purchase order has to clear, a contract has to be signed, someone has to install and configure a tool, and a rep has to schedule an onboarding before a single student touches a page. By the time all of that lands, the term is half gone and the yearbook is a spring emergency.
Here the order is reversed. You import the roster first, and the program stands up around it the same day: the production editor opens with the school’s pages, the yearbook ladder is laid out to the roster, the newspaper and the literary-magazine shell are ready for a first story, and the records office has a directory and an ID-card run keyed to the same student list. Nothing is installed and nothing is bought to get there — the setup is the import.
Honestly, where it stands: the editor, the publications, the directory, the ID-card pipeline, and the ad-sales workflow are live and free to start. The picture-day store and outside-lab order routing are early access. Money is honest-off — there is no live billing on this page — and no school is running a live program on highschool.today yet. You would be standing one up.
Every publication, day one
Publications are not three separate purchases here. They assemble together off the one roster the same day it lands, and they share the same editor and the same student list — so a student who is on the yearbook staff and writes for the paper is one person, not three logins.
The yearbook, laid to the ladder
The ladder is built to the roster on day one — a spread for every section, portraits placed from the imported list, and a real production editor with layers, masking, version history, and a print check that refuses a broken job. It is the depth a well-funded school pays a vendor for, on the same stack the rest of the program runs on.
The newspaper, ready for a first story
The newsroom opens with the staff already on the roster: assign a story, draft it, run it through an editor, and publish to an online edition. A first issue can go out in the opening weeks rather than waiting for a class to be provisioned.
The literary magazine, as a shell
The lit-mag shell is there the same day for submissions, selection, and a laid-out issue — so the club that meets in week two is building an issue, not requesting an account.
The records office, ready before the first bell
The publications get the attention, but the records office is what makes day one real. The same roster that lays out the yearbook also stands up a family directory and an ID-card pipeline — staff and students on cards, printed from the same list, on the same day. There is no second import and no re-keying: the directory, the cards, and every publication read one source of truth.
That shared roster is the point of doing it here rather than in five disconnected tools. A name change, a new student, or a corrected grade level is entered once and is right everywhere — the card, the directory, and the yearbook ladder all follow it. The office is running the moment the roster is in, not after a separate records project.
Scope, stated plainly: this is an enrollment-and-records daily-driver that complements your student system of record. It is not a certified, full academic system of record, and it does not pretend to be one.
Fund it this week, not next spring
A program that starts in the fall can be funded in the fall. The ad-sales workflow is live the same day: build the prospect list, record a sold ad, collect the artwork, approve a proof, and place it on the page ladder — so the staff can start covering the cost of the book in the first weeks instead of scrambling for it in the last.
Money is honest-off, and that boundary is deliberate. The ad-sales surface is the workflow — who bought what and where it goes on the page — not a live payment rail; the school keeps control of the money, and live settlement is honest-off on this page. The picture-day store, where a family buys a book and the school earns from it, is early access and describes a future store, not a charge this page makes. There is no live billing here, and the platform never skims a fundraiser.
Build it out across the year, not in a spring scramble
Standing up today is the start, not the finish. The reason to start early is that the work spreads out: a yearbook built section by section from September beats one assembled in a two-week panic in April, and a program that funds itself in the fall is not begging in the spring.
Today
Import the roster. The editor, the yearbook ladder, the newspaper, the literary-magazine shell, the directory, and the ID-card pipeline stand up around it — free to start, nothing installed, nothing procured.
This week
The staff signs in on the roster they are already on, the first newspaper story is assigned, and the ad-sales workflow starts recording sold ads so the program funds itself early.
This term
The yearbook fills in section by section against real deadlines, ID cards print for new students, and the online newspaper edition publishes on its own cadence — the work spread across the calendar, not stacked at the end.
This year
The book ships on time because it was built across the year, the directory stayed correct because it read one roster, and next year’s program starts from a program that already exists rather than from a blank spring.
What is live today, what is early access, and where money stands
Live today, free to start: the production editor; the publications (the yearbook ladder, the newspaper, the literary-magazine shell); the family directory; the ID-card pipeline; and the ad-sales workflow. These stand up the same day you import the roster.
Early access: the picture-day store and outside-lab order routing. They are described honestly as early access — not presented as finished, open, or charging money today.
Money is honest-off. There is no live billing on this page and no card is charged here. The ad-sales surface is a workflow, not a payment rail; the picture-day store describes a future store where a family buys and the school earns, not a live charge; and the school keeps control of the money throughout. When a real payment rail is turned on, it will be its own surface, on its own terms, and it will say so.
And to be plain: no school is running a live program on highschool.today yet. This page describes what stands up on day one and what is live versus early access — not a claim that a school is already using it.
Student work stays the school’s
Student work and rosters stay in our own private system and are never sold or shared with outside companies, advertisers, or third parties. Data about minor students is consent-gated and school-owned: it is never made public, indexed, or sold, and consent can be withdrawn at any time. This is not a “we hold no data” claim — a roster and a page of student work are data — it is a claim about who owns that data and where it stays.
Finding a photo works without face scanning. Find-my-photo here is a permission-checked roster lookup — it matches a name on the roster to the photos tagged to that name, not a face to a database. Where a school later turns on facial recognition for its own photo tools, that is opt-in and honest about its limits: it runs on school-owned face templates on roughly a 365-day window, the templates are deletable, and they are never sent to an outside AI service. Rather than lean on a blanket absolute, we state exactly what happens to a face template and who owns it.
Common questions
Can we really start today?
Yes, that is the whole point. Import the roster and the editor, the publications, the directory, and the ID-card pipeline stand up around it the same day — nothing to install and nothing to procure first. The setup is the import. The picture-day store and outside-lab order routing are early access, and no school is running a live program on highschool.today yet, so you would be standing one up rather than joining one.
How is this different from High School Software and High School Technology?
Same platform, three angles. High School Software is the publication front door — what the yearbook, newspaper, records, and curriculum are. High School Technology is the technology stack — roster sync, the production editor, ID cards, and records on one stack. High School Today is the time angle: the same-day standup and the across-the-year build-out. This page is about WHEN you can start, not a re-listing of the features.
What do we have to install or buy first?
Nothing. It runs in the browser, and standing the program up is free to start — no install, no purchase order, and no contract to clear before students touch a page. Money is honest-off on this page: no card is charged here, the records office and every publication are free to start, and the picture-day store is early access.
How does the program get funded?
With the ad-sales workflow, live the same day: build a prospect list, record a sold ad, collect the artwork, approve a proof, and place it on the page ladder. It is a workflow — who bought what and where it goes — not a live payment rail. The school keeps control of the money, live settlement is honest-off, and the platform never skims a fundraiser.
Is this our student system of record?
No. It is an enrollment-and-records daily-driver that complements your student system of record; it is not a certified, full academic system of record, and it does not pretend to be. It reads one roster so the directory, the ID cards, and the publications stay in sync, but the system of record stays yours.
How is student and family data handled?
Student work and rosters stay in our own private system and are never sold or shared with outside companies. Data about minor students is consent-gated and school-owned, never made public, indexed, or sold, and consent can be withdrawn. Find-my-photo is a permission-checked roster lookup, not a face match; where a school later turns on facial recognition for its own photo tools, it runs on school-owned face templates on roughly a 365-day window, deletable, and never sent to an outside AI service.
How do we start, and what does it cost?
Standing the program up is free to start. Import the roster to begin, or ask us to walk it through first — email [email protected] or talk it through. There is no live billing on this page and no pricing commitment to start.
Related surfaces
High School Today is the same-day, build-out-across-the-year front. These adjacent destinations describe the same platform from the publication and technology angles.
highschool.software
The publication front door — what the yearbook, newspaper, records, and curriculum are, in one platform. Start there if you want the tour of the publications themselves.
highschool.technology
The technology stack underneath — roster sync from your student system, the production editor, ID cards, and records on one source of truth. Start there for the how-it-is-built view.
homeroom.software
The school platform this all runs on, across every grade and program. High School Today is the launch-today front of it, kept as its own surface.
What this page is and is not claiming
High School Today is a for-profit software platform for high schools — not a school, a district, or a nonprofit. The honest claim is a same-day standup: import the roster and the production editor, the publications (the yearbook ladder, the newspaper, the literary-magazine shell), the family directory, the ID-card pipeline, and the ad-sales workflow stand up around it, live and free to start. The picture-day store and outside-lab order routing are early access. Money is honest-off — there is no live billing on this page, no card is charged, the ad-sales surface is a workflow rather than a payment rail, and the picture-day store describes a future store where a family buys and the school earns, not a live charge. There are no invented stats, testimonials, or adoption counts here, and no school is running a live program on highschool.today yet. It complements a school’s system of record rather than replacing or certifying it. Student work and rosters stay in our own private system and are never sold; minor-student data is consent-gated, school-owned, and never made public, indexed, or sold; and find-my-photo is a roster lookup, not a face match. No competitor or yearbook-vendor brand names appear on this page.