What you actually get.

Privacy is enforced at the database, not just in the UI. Every other feature follows from that: every kind of family supported, two taps to your kid's class roster, Circles only you can see, Clubs for the activity groups your school actually runs, broadcasts that don't leak email addresses, trusted help from inside your school community, sponsors your PTO sells and keeps 100% of, and a directory that grows with your family across every grade.

Jump to: Privacy controls · Every kind of family · Search · Circles · Shared circles · Clubs & committees · Volunteer matching · Broadcasts · Trusted Help · Sponsors · Every grade

You control who sees you.

Three top-level choices for every family: Visible, Private, or Opt out. Pick Visible and you pick how widely: everyone at the school, only the grades your kids are in, or only their classes. Change any time.

Private means actually private. Hidden from class lists, grade lists, the All Families view. Search by other parents returns nothing. The share-your-email and share-your-phone toggles auto-uncheck because they're meaningless when no one can see you.

Make any of these changes from your phone, tablet, or laptop. Roost works the same everywhere. (DirectorySpot's mobile app is read-only; every update has to go through a desktop browser.)

Privacy is enforced at the database, not in the UI. A misconfigured permission can't leak information the database itself refuses to return.

Sarah Chen's profile in Roost. Directory visibility set to Visible to other guardians. Below it, three Who can see me options: All families at the school (selected), Only guardians in my children's grade(s), Only guardians in my children's classes. Sharing toggles for email, phone, and address below.
Sarah Chen's profile. Visible selected, with the three scopes (school, grade, class) below.

Every kind of family.

The Delgado family detail sheet in Roost, showing a split household across two addresses. The first household lists guardian Marcus Delgado (with email and phone) and the two children — Mateo Delgado (4th grade, Maple Grove Elementary) and Lucia Delgado (7th grade, Maple Grove Middle) — at 418 Birchwood Lane, Maple Grove, OR. A divider, then a second household lists the other guardian, Renata Delgado (with her own email and phone), the same two children, at a separate address: 27 Cedar Court, Maple Grove, OR. Each guardian has Add to Circle and Block controls.
The Delgado kids live across two homes — and span two schools. Roost shows both addresses, the shared kids once.

Stepparents, two moms, two dads, shared custody, grandparents raising grandkids, kids whose last names don't match their parents'. Each adult has their own account. Each kid links to as many guardians and households as their real life requires.

The directory shows the right contact information to the right people. No “Parent #2's info goes in a notes field that is not searchable.” No “the child is listed twice on the class roster.”Households grouped the way they actually are, the contact you're trying to reach surfaced where it belongs.

Circles. Yours alone to see.

Sarah Chen's Circles view in Roost. The "After-school pickup" circle is expanded, showing three members: Anna Carter with email, phone, and text icons; Ben Liu with a "Private" chip and "Contact info not shared"; Marcus Patel with email icon only. Other circles like Soccer carpool and Cross-school playdates collapsed above and below.
Ben went Private. Sarah still sees him, but only what Ben wants shared.

Personal contact groups only you can see. Soccer carpool, room parents, birthday party invitees, the neighborhood babysitter shortlist. Tap any family in the directory to add them to a Circle. Tap the Circle to email everyone in it with one click.

When someone in your Circle goes Private, they stay in your Circle. Your relationship doesn't disappear because of their privacy choice. Their contact details just follow their current settings.

Shared circles. A mini-directory you choose to share.

Turn any circle into a shared one and everyone in it can see each other — a private mini-directory for your carpool, your kid's team, or the room parents. Invite by link or QR code.

A shared circle can include families from other schools, or guests who aren't on Roost at all — always by invitation, never by search. You decide who's in, and you can make it shared or keep it just for you.

Clubs. The activity groups your school actually runs.

Football Boosters. Drama Parents. Class of 2027. Robotics Team. The groups that drive most of school life — and the ones that usually live in someone's WhatsApp, Facebook group, or a tangle of email threads, invisible to anyone who isn't already in.

Roost gives them a real home inside the directory you already trust. Anyone at the school can find a Club. Anyone at the school can join. The owner manages members and sends updates. Nothing happens off the platform you've already configured for privacy.

In elementary, the social unit is the classroom. In middle and high school, it's the Club. Roost models both — same opt-in mechanism, scaled to what matters at each stage.

Clubs you join; committees you staff.A club leads with its members and a join button — the place you belong. A committee leads with the roles it needs filled and who's likely to fill them — the Book Fair, Field Day, the fall fundraiser. It's the same tab, filtered by All, Committees, or Clubs, so the work to be done and the groups to belong to sit side by side.

The Clubs tab at Maple Grove Elementary in Roost, filtered to committees. The Fall Book Fair committee card is marked Recruiting and shows: led by Darrel Vandervort, 1 member, 2 roles open, 6 potential volunteers, 1 upcoming event, tagged Event Planning and Reading & Literacy. Below it, a Book Fair Week event card, also Recruiting, dated Aug 27 at 8 AM in the School Library, with 3 roles open, 8 potential volunteers, and a Shift sign-up button. A Field Day committee card follows, also Recruiting, led by Kaitlin Crona.
Committees show their open roles, their likely volunteers, and any upcoming events. Both Book Fair cards are recruiting.
The Clubs & Events page at Maple Grove High School in Roost. Header reads "Clubs & Events at Maple Grove High School" with subtitle "Activity-based groups and one-time events — boosters, drama parents, class committees. Anyone in Maple Grove High School can find one to join or help with." A search box, a Filters button, and a New button sit above the cards. Cards: 🎓 Class of 2027 Parents (Committee · Ongoing, led by Maryse Waelchi, 13 members); 🎭 Drama Parents (Committee · Ongoing, 10 members); 🏈 Falcon Boosters (Committee · Fall, marked "Recruiting", led by Karl Rippin, 1 member, 3 roles open, 1 upcoming event, tagged Event Planning / Fundraising / Sports & Fitness / Food & Hospitality); and a nested 🏈 Homecoming Game event (marked "Recruiting", Jul 10 · 5 PM at Maple Grove HS Stadium, 3 roles open).
Clubs, committees, and events at Maple Grove HS. Committees show their open roles and recruiting status — Falcon Boosters has 3 roles open, with its Homecoming Game event right below.

Find your volunteers without the cold ask.

Parents tell Roost, once and optionally, what they're into and how much they want to take on. As families opt in, organizers see the people most likely to say yes lined up next to each open role — and message them in one tap. Roost sends on the organizer's behalf, so contact info never changes hands.

When it's time for the day-of, turn any job into time-slots parents claim themselves. The sign-up sheet and the volunteer search, both inside the directory you already trust.

A Potential Volunteers list in Roost at Maple Grove Elementary: seven families whose profiles fit the open roles, each with a Likes line (Event Planning, Outdoor Activities, Sports & Fitness) and a Not a fit dismiss control. A Message these families button sits at the bottom, with the note that only managers see this and Roost emails them on the organizer's behalf so their contact stays private.
Organizers see the families most likely to say yes and message them in one tap. Contact info stays private.
A Recommended for you feed in Roost showing committees a parent's answers matched: Field Day (4 roles match Event Planning & Outdoor Activities), Fun Run (3 roles match), and Fall Book Fair (2 roles match Event Planning & Reading & Literacy). Each card has a short description, a View details link, and a Not interested control.
Parents pick what they're into. They're never signed up for anything — it just helps organizers know who to ask.
A Checkout cashier job in Roost split into time-slots, 2 of 4 filled. The 9:00–10:30 AM and 10:30 AM–12:00 PM slots are filled by Melody Cummerata and Theo Mueller; the 12:00–1:30 PM and 1:30–3:00 PM slots are open with Sign up and Assign controls. A second job, Restocking helper, shows 0 of 2 filled with an invitation to be the first to sign up.
Split any job into time-slots parents claim themselves.

Broadcasts. PTO email without the spreadsheet.

PTO boards and Club owners send a lot of email. Field Day reminders. Auction announcements. Auditions. Sign-ups. Volunteer asks. All of it currently lives in someone's downloaded CSV, manually pasted into BCC, hoping no one's missed and no one's exposed.

Roost sends from your school's own address, to the audience you pick — whole school, one grade, one class, or just the members of a specific Club. Recipients are BCC'd. Replies route to the inbox you choose. Every email carries a one-click unsubscribe.

No exported list. No exposed addresses. No “I forgot someone.”It's email, sent through the directory's privacy model — not a notification spray. The kind parents actually read.

Compose now, schedule for later. Pick a date and time, and edit or cancel anytime before it sends.

Sending on behalf of your group? A room parent or committee lead can send under their own name, with replies coming back to them, without changing the school's defaults.

Worth being upfront about: broadcasts and the directory's visibility setting are separate switches. A family that chose Private still receives broadcasts from their PTO — that's how field-day reminders and snow-day notices stay reliable. Privacy controls who can find you in the directory; broadcasts go to every family the PTO is reaching. Each broadcast carries a one-click unsubscribe if a family wants out of those too.

The Your Broadcasts page at Maple Grove High School in Roost. Header reads "MESSAGING — Your broadcasts" with subtitle "Compose a new message or review what you've sent." Tabs read Sent (selected), Compose, Unsubscribed, and Settings. A banner reads "Monthly send cap: 23 of 50,000 used at Maple Grove High School." A list of six sent broadcasts, each with a Sent pill on the right: Class of 2027: SAT prep workshop sign-up (Club: 🎓 Class of 2027 Parents), Football Boosters: away game potluck Saturday (Club: 🏈 Football Boosters), Band: uniform fitting reminder (Club: 🎺 Marching Band Parents), Robotics: build week kicks off (Club: 🤖 Robotics Team Parents), Whole school: fall musical auditions (Everyone), and Junior parents: counselor meetings next week (Grade 11). Each shows the school name and send date.
Six broadcasts at Maple Grove HS — each to a different audience: individual clubs, the whole school, a single grade.

Find or list trusted help.

Babysitters, tutors, coaches, and mentors — from inside your school community. The category is deliberately flexible: open it up to music teachers, language coaches, or whatever your school surfaces. Founding schools shape what shows up here.

List yourself, list someone in your family, or recommend someone you trust. The high-school junior earning service hours coaching the rec-league soccer team can post once and reach the families who actually need them.

Built to reach the schools next door.A family can extend their own listing to specific nearby schools in the district — so as more of them join Roost, the elementary families a couple of neighborhoods over can find your sophomore who babysits. Only listings about you or your own child travel, the receiving school chooses whether to accept them, and each arrives with a badge showing the listing guardian's school. Recommendations you write about someone else stay at your own school.

Roost doesn't vet listings. Every entry is either self-submitted or recommended by another parent. Treat each one like an introduction from a friend: meet, ask questions, trust your judgment.

The Trusted Help page at Maple Grove Elementary in Roost. Section tabs show Families, Trusted Help (active), Clubs, and Sponsors. Header "Find or list trusted help" with subtitle "Trusted help from your school community. Everyone listed opts in themselves and chooses what to share." A prominent callout reminds that Roost doesn't vet listed people — every listing is self-submitted or recommended by someone in your community, to be treated like an introduction from a friend. An Add a listing button, a search bar, and filter chips for Sitter, Tutor, Coach, and Mentor. Three available family-listed sitter listings: Sophia K. (9th grade, sits ages 4-12, CPR-trained, $15/hr); Iris C. (10th grade, also tutors K-5 reading, $18/hr, inquiries routed to Seth Stroman); and Imani B. (12th grade, Red Cross babysitting and CPR certified, sits ages 1-8, $18/hr, inquiries routed to Lois Walker). Each shows it is visible at Maple Grove Elementary and Maple Grove High School, with a Report listing link.
Sitters, tutors, coaches, mentors — always your community vouching, never Roost.

Sponsors that actually fund your PTO.

Your PTO sells sponsorships to local businesses — the dentist, the pizza place, the test-prep tutor — and keeps every dollar. Roost just displays them as cards on a Sponsors tab inside the directory. We take nothing. We don't process payments. We don't take a cut.

Each card has the things that actually matter: tap-to-call, tap-for-directions, tap-to-visit-their-website. Sponsors can include a promo offer (“Show this screen for 10% off,” “Family Night Friday — 10% to PTO”) that gives families a reason to actually use them. That's the ROI a sponsor needs to renew.

The Sponsors tab only appears when you have sponsors. No empty pages. The day your PTO closes the first sponsorship of the year, the tab shows up. Until then, the directory stays clean.

The Sponsors page at Maple Grove Middle in Roost. Section tabs show Families, Trusted Help, Clubs, and Sponsors (active). Header "Sponsors at Maple Grove Middle" with subtitle "Local businesses your community works with. Tap to call, visit, or learn more." Category filter chips: All (selected), Kids' Activities, Restaurants, Tutoring. Two sponsor cards side by side, each topped with a colorful geometric logo: Mathnasium of Maple Grove (Tutoring) — "Math help, K-12. Customized learning plans for each kid." with an offer "Free assessment + first session for Maple Grove Middle families." and tap-to-call (555-0211), Directions, and Website links; Adventure Camp (Kids' Activities) — "Summer adventure day camp. Ages 8-14. Outdoor focus." with an offer "Mention Roost for $50 off summer registration." and tap-to-call (555-0237) and Website links.
Each card has the things that actually matter. Tap to call, tap for directions, tap to visit.

One directory, every grade.

What you need from a directory changes with your kid's age. Same account, same family — what you do with Roost grows with them.

  • Carpools — to school, to sports, to driving practiceApplies to: Elementary, Middle, High
  • PTO broadcasts — Field Day reminders, fundraiser asks, picture dayApplies to: Elementary, Middle, High
  • Trusted Help — finding sitters, tutors, coaches, and mentorsApplies to: Elementary, Middle, High
  • Sponsors — local-business cards your PTO sells (you keep 100%)Applies to: Elementary, Middle, High
  • Volunteer matching — recommended committees and events that fit your time and interestsApplies to: Elementary, Middle, High
  • Event and shift sign-ups (game-day concessions, book fair, setup)Applies to: Elementary, Middle, High
  • Last-minute pickup helpApplies to: Elementary, Middle
  • After-school activity coordinationApplies to: Elementary, Middle
  • Birthday party invites and Halloween Boo BagsApplies to: Elementary
  • Teacher gifts (room parents)Applies to: Elementary
  • Clubs — sports boosters, drama parents, robotics, class committeesApplies to: Middle, High
  • Committee roles and recruitingApplies to: Middle, High
  • Targeted broadcasts to a Club (e.g. just Football Boosters)Applies to: Middle, High
  • Group projects and study partnersApplies to: Middle, High
  • Trusted Help — listing your kid as a sitter, tutor, coach, or mentorApplies to: Middle, High
  • Study groups for SAT, ACT, and AP examsApplies to: High
  • College prep and tutor findingApplies to: High
  • Volunteer hours and service coordinationApplies to: High
  • Internship and summer-job leads through the parent networkApplies to: High

applies·doesn't·E = Elementary   M = Middle   H = High

If you've got kids at more than one school, Roost already follows them.Post a Trusted Help listing once, and it's visible at every school you're part of. One account, every school, every year.

And it's built to reach across the district.A family can extend their own listing to specific nearby schools they choose — so as those schools come online, the high-school junior offering math tutoring reaches the elementary parents looking for exactly that, without anyone re-entering anything. Shared listings carry a badge showing the listing guardian's school, the receiving school chooses whether to accept them, and only your own family's listings ever travel.

I'm Jeremy. If you run a PTO, I'd genuinely like to hear how your directory works today.

Fifteen minutes, no pitch deck. We'll talk about what's working, what isn't, and whether Roost would help.

Get startedBook 15 minutes with me

Or see these in a live demo, or see pricing.