Off until you say otherwise
Simply Schools is a complete product with AI turned off. Every AI feature is opt-in for your team — turn on what helps, skip what does not, and change your mind anytime. Nothing on this page is required.
Optional AI
AI for the school office — optional, honest, and actually helpful.
Simply Schools works beautifully with AI switched off. Switch it on and your office gets Ask Simply — an assistant that knows your enrollment data — and your families get instant, honest answers on your website. People stay in charge of every decision; the AI just carries more of the busywork.
The ground rules
Four things that stay true, whatever you switch on.
AI in Simply Schools was built the way we would want it used on our own team: opt-in, supervised, explainable, and priced in the open.
People decide; people answer
Ask Simply proposes — a person approves before anything changes. The website assistant answers — and hands the conversation to your team the moment someone asks for a person. AI here extends your people; it never replaces them.
Answers show their work
Ask Simply cites the records behind every answer and previews every change before it happens. Website conversations land in your inbox with a per-answer trace for admins. Usage is metered visibly, spending caps are on by default, and every AI price is public on the pricing page.
Your permissions are the AI’s permissions
Ask Simply can only see what the signed-in person is allowed to see — enforced by the platform, not by the AI’s good manners. The website assistant knows only the information you connect. It all runs on the same AWS infrastructure as the rest of Simply Schools, and your data is never used to train AI models.
Flavor one — for your team
Ask Simply: the colleague who read everything.
Ask Simply is the assistant inside Simply Schools. It can only see what the person asking is allowed to see, it shows where every answer came from, and when it drafts a change, a human approves it before anything happens.
“How is enrollment tracking against last spring?”
Pipeline, deposits, and program numbers in plain language, with the live records linked — before the board meeting, not after a spreadsheet weekend.
“Which applicants are still missing recommendations?”
Ask Simply reads your own admissions pipeline and hands back the list, ready to act on — then drafts the reminder to those families for your review.
“Add a bus-route field to student records.”
Ask Simply proposes the change, shows exactly what will be added, and applies it when you approve. The nitty gritty of settings screens becomes a sentence.
“Which third-grade families haven’t re-enrolled?”
Cross-checks that used to live in one person’s head — grade, status, sibling, form — become questions you can just ask, with the records linked in the answer.
“Draft a page for the spring auction.”
Ask Simply drafts the event page in your website’s style with the registration form already wired in. You edit the words; it does the plumbing.
“Who still owes an application fee?”
Payment status lives on the family record, so the answer is a list, not an investigation — with follow-up drafts ready if you want them.
From the big numbers to the missing-form chase to drafting the next page — if it lives in Simply Schools, you can ask about it in plain language. See Ask Simply live in a demo
On the go
Your whole system, in a back pocket.
At the gym door during the open house, ask your phone “which visiting families registered for tonight?” — Ask Simply is built into the Simply Anywhere mobile app, so the answer is in your hand, not back at your desk.
Chat turns out to be the perfect mobile interface for a system like this: no menus to hunt through, no laptop to open — just the question, the cited answer, and the approval, wherever the work is happening.
The full Ask Simply, inside the Simply Anywhere appSame permissions, sources, and approvals as your deskAsk for the number on the way into the meetingReview and approve proposed changes from anywhereYour records, messages, and notifications ride along
Flavor two — for the people you serve
A website that answers back — honestly.
Families ask the same important questions every season — at 9 pm, on a phone, in the car line. A conversation widget on your school website answers them instantly and honestly, from the information you publish, and hands off to your office when a person should take over.
“Do you have space in 2nd grade next year?”
The assistant explains how admissions works at your school, answers from the pages and FAQs you connect, and books the tour — a real inquiry in your pipeline, not a lost voicemail.
“Where is the field-trip permission form?”
It finds the right form and hands it over — the same verified form your office published, completed on the spot and landing on the right student record.
“What time is early dismissal on Friday?”
Calendar questions get instant answers from the live term calendar your office already keeps — instead of another call to the front desk.
“Can I talk to someone about financial aid?”
Sensitive questions route straight to your team with the conversation attached. The assistant is honest about being an assistant — it never pretends to be staff.
You decide how it sounds — warm and parent-friendly, precise about policies, and always clear that aid, admissions decisions, and anything personal belongs with your staff.
The assistant is always honest about being an assistant, and a human is always one ask away — because the fastest way to lose someone’s trust is to fake a person.
Your assistant, your rules
Customization, control, and a paper trail.
A public assistant speaks for you, so you hold the controls — what it knows, how it sounds, and what it is never allowed to do.
It sounds like you
Guidance and voice settings — tone, words to use, words to avoid, example answers — teach the assistant your way of speaking. Each widget can also choose a deeper or faster AI model.
It knows what you connect — nothing else
You choose the pages, knowledge articles, and workflows behind each widget. It answers from those, says so when it does not know, and cannot wander into data you did not connect.
Real actions, same safeguards
When a visitor registers, signs up, or pays, the assistant walks them through the same verified forms and payment flows as the rest of your site. It cannot write to your data any other way.
People, one ask away
Visitors can reach your team at any point, and the assistant escalates on its own when it is unsure or the topic is sensitive. Conversations land in your inbox with full context — and offline hours are handled honestly.
Every conversation, visible
Your team can read every conversation, see what the assistant consulted for each answer, test changes before publishing, and measure satisfaction — including the questions it could not answer, so you know what to publish next.
Costs with a ceiling
AI usage is metered transparently with spending caps on by default. Plans include monthly AI credit, and live website assistants carry a flat monthly price — all published on the pricing page.
Honest answers
If you never turn AI on, Simply Schools is still Simply Schools.
Admissions decisions, financial-aid conversations, and the relationships with your families are yours — AI in Simply Schools fetches, drafts, and answers logistics so your office has more time for exactly those.
And if you do turn it on, it stays optional forever — feature by feature, widget by widget, with visible usage, spending caps, and public prices.
Bring us your enrollment season. We will make it feel simple.
Show us the application tracker, the forms folder, and the follow-up list. We will map them to Simply Schools and show you the calmer version of next season.