See what's new in NavEd. Product updates, new features, and improvements for micro school, co-op, and small school management.
Fixed: the Getting Started checklist rows now show as one card each.
On the Getting Started page, checklist rows with a "Watch the guide" link were
rendering as two separate boxes instead of one, with the guide link floating
outside the card. Each row is back to a single card, still fully clickable,
with the guide link working the same as before.
Fix: a very long lesson step, section, or unit title no longer breaks the curriculum builder.
Titles now have a clear length limit. Going past it shows a plain message with
the limit and how long your title is, instead of an error. A step title in
particular tells you that longer text belongs in the instructions box below
it. Duplicating a step, section, or unit always keeps the "(Copy)" label.
Nothing you already typed is cleared out when a save is rejected.
Announcement pop-ups are gone. What's New moved to the footer.
NavEd no longer interrupts you with a pop-up window or a banner across the top of the
page to tell you about new features. Every page now loads straight to what you came for.
You can still see everything that shipped, whenever you want, from the What's New link
in the footer of every page.
Getting Started now offers to connect Stripe.
The Getting Started checklist has a new optional row, Take payments online, after
the 6 setup steps. It links you to connect Stripe so families can pay tuition and
form fees by card, with payouts going to your school's bank account. It is
optional and does not count toward your setup progress. Once you have started or
finished connecting, the row updates to show that and links you back to finish
setup or to Payment Settings.
Take Attendance now fits on a phone.
On a narrow screen, each student's row now stacks the name above the Present, Absent,
Late, and Left early buttons instead of squeezing everything into one row, so every
button is on screen and easy to tap. Nothing changed on a desktop or tablet screen.
Roll can now record who left early, what time they arrived or left, and keep the note that explains it.
On Take Attendance, each student has a fourth button, Left early, which can be on together
with Present or Late. Late and Left early each open a time box, and any row that needs it
can have a PDF or photo attached, like a doctor's note or a signed pickup slip. Only
administrators and the cohort's teacher can open a note. The times, reasons, and note file
names are in the new CSV downloads on View Attendance and in the emailed attendance
report.
Edit tuition plans, and set them up from the year total.
Tuition plans now start from the year's total: type what a year costs,
choose how many payments and how often (all at once, monthly, quarterly,
or twice a year), and NavEd shows what each family pays. You can now edit
a plan after families are on it. Unpaid payments move to the new amounts
and dates, and anything already paid stays exactly as it was. A plan with
no money recorded against it can be deleted, and any plan can be closed
to new families. If your school has not set up card payments yet, the
plan form now says so plainly instead of claiming families can already
tap to pay.
Tuition and Payments now show what card payments would look like for your school.
If your school can take card payments but has not set them up yet, the Tuition and
Payments pages now show what a family would see when paying, what it costs, and
where the money goes. One button starts setup with Stripe. Nothing changes for
schools that already take cards, and checks and cash work the same as always.
Fix: the "People waiting to be connected" page no longer shows a
deleted account's placeholder address, and its title no longer repeats
itself.
An account that had already been anonymized could still show up as
someone waiting to be connected, with an address nobody could sign in
with. Those accounts no longer appear on the list, and connecting one is
refused even if something else tries to trigger it. The page title also
used to print twice; it now prints once.
Fix: grades now open on the term that just finished, not one that has not started.
Over a school break between terms, grades could open on a future term that had not
even begun yet, showing an empty gradebook. Grades now open on the term that just
finished instead, so the work that was actually done is what you see first.
Administrators can now connect a sign-in that got stranded from the person it belongs to.
Sometimes an account signs in but never gets attached to a student, staff, or family
record. Setting a student's sign-in email now offers to connect it right there when
that happens, showing who the account belongs to before anything changes. There is
also a new page on Users, "People waiting to be connected," listing every account at
your school in this state, with a suggested match when a name and school line up and
an honest "nothing obvious" when they don't. Nothing connects without you pressing
the button.
You can now waive a tuition charge that was added by mistake. On a
family's tuition page, an open charge has a menu with a "Waive this
charge" option. It asks for a reason, then the charge stays on the record,
greyed out, marked waived, with your reason and your name. If a family
was enrolled in the same tuition plan twice, the family page now says so
and lets you close out the duplicate copy's charges in one step, without
touching the copy that already has a payment on it.
Grades now tells you when you are looking at an earlier term. If you open your
child's grades from an old link or bookmark, a note at the top says which term you
are seeing and when it ended, with one button to jump back to the current term. When
school is between terms, it says that instead.
Fix: a clearer message when a child's new sign-in email is already in use at your own school.
Changing a student's sign-in email used to check every school on NavEd, so a
parent could be told an address was already taken when nobody at her own
school was using it. That check now looks only at her own school, and when
the address belongs to an account at her school that is not attached to a
student yet, the message now says so plainly and says an administrator at
the school can connect it. An address already in use at a different school
still cannot be moved over. The parent now finds that out when she opens
the verification email instead of being stopped at the form.
Fix: adding a family to a tuition plan twice no longer creates a second set of charges.
Clicking "Add family" twice, or going back and submitting the form again, used to put the same family on the plan a second time with a full duplicate payment schedule. NavEd now recognizes a family that is already on the plan and tells you instead of adding them again. Works on every plan.
Fix: a subject's missing assignment count could miss work a teacher had already flagged.
On a subject's Grades tab, if a teacher marked an assignment "M" for missing, it could stop showing up in that subject's own missing count. It now counts correctly, for students and for parents.
Fix: the parent dashboard's missing assignment count now matches the current school year.
The number of missing assignments shown on a parent's dashboard could include work from past school years, so it sometimes didn't match what showed up on the Grades page. It now only counts missing work from the current school year.
Name your own report card sections. Some classes, like Handwriting or Chapel, don't belong next to Algebra on a report card. On Administrative > School > Profile > Academic > Report Card Columns, add a section and name it whatever your school calls it. Then set any subject's Report card section to it on Academic > Subjects. It prints in its own section, in the order you choose, on report cards, the end-of-year report and transcripts. Works on every plan.
Fix: cleared a leftover copy of some schools' records that could cause a background error.
A small number of schools had an old, unused copy of their school record and some related setup data left over from a past upgrade. It could cause an error behind the scenes on some pages. The leftover copy has now been cleared safely, and all of your school's real records are kept exactly as they were.
Fix: renaming a user to an already-used username now shows a clear error.
An administrator changing someone's username to one already taken by
another account used to hit an unexpected error page. It now shows a
plain message explaining the username is taken, with nothing saved.
Fix: the one-click email unsubscribe link works from every entry point.
Clicking "unsubscribe" in a NavEd email could fail silently if the link was
opened outside your school's usual web address, such as through some email
apps' link previews. It now always finds your school and turns off the
emails, no matter how the link was opened.
Fix: a background error some schools hit when opening NavEd.
A few schools had an old, unused copy of their school record left over from a past upgrade. It caused an error behind the scenes on some pages, including new-feature announcements. The leftover copy is now removed safely, and nothing else about your school's records changes.
Faster gradebook loading for classes with a lot of assignments.
The Details table in a subject's gradebook, which shows each assignment's
highest, lowest, and average grade, now loads in one trip to the database
instead of a slower per-assignment lookup. The numbers themselves haven't
changed, gradebooks with many assignments just load quicker.
Faster saving in the free gradebook for classes with more students.
Saving grades in a free gradebook now calculates every student's average in
one trip to the database instead of a slower per-student lookup. The
averages themselves haven't changed, saving just gets quicker as a class
grows.
Faster attendance pages for classes with accommodations on file.
Taking or viewing attendance for a class where several students have an accommodation on file now loads in a single, fast page load instead of slowing down as the class grows. No visible change to the page itself.
Behind-the-scenes fix to an internal admin tool.
Behind-the-scenes improvements to our team's dev database refresh tool.
Fix: grade scales now check that you're an administrator at that school.
Setting up or changing grade scales, and picking a subject's grade scale, now confirms you are an administrator at that specific school, not just an administrator somewhere on NavEd.
Fix: yearly plans now stay exactly as purchased.
A school that bought a yearly plan could be moved to a smaller monthly plan on its own, weeks later, when an older monthly billing record still existed on its account. A yearly plan now changes only when the school changes it. Card problems on that older record no longer show a "Payment Past Due" banner either, and the older monthly record is closed when the yearly plan is bought, with any unused days kept as credit on the school's account toward its next bill.
Documentation search now matches each word of your search, not just the exact phrase.
Searching Documentation for something like "print bill" used to come back empty unless a page used those exact two words together. Search now looks at each word on its own and understands everyday office words, so "print bill", "billing statement" or "receipt" lead with the tuition and receipts guides. Searches about your school's own NavEd plan, such as "cancel subscription", still lead with the subscription guide.
When nothing matches closely, the page now shows the nearest guides, or a few good places to start, instead of a blank "No results found." It also offers a Message support button, and an Ask NavEd AI button when your school has AI help turned on for your role.
School administrators also get a new "Running the school office" guide, pinned on the Documentation home page. It lists where to record family payments, print receipts and statements, set up grade scales, choose report card columns, find your school's own NavEd billing, and reach support.
Tuition receipts and statements, on every plan.
Print, save, or email a receipt for any payment, a statement for any dates, and a yearly statement for each student for 529 plan and scholarship paperwork. Print or email statements for many families at once from Tuition > Statements. Families find their own copies under Payments. Schools can add their EIN, and choose to email receipts automatically for online card payments, under School > Profile > Receipts.
Cleaner wording on report cards and email headers.
Small copy fixes: the Reports page now reads a bit more plainly, and the header under the NavEd logo in emails no longer names one kind of school.
Plainer wording on the Billing History table.
A row in Administrative > School > Billing > Billing History now reads Paid, Payment due, Not collected, Refunded, or Partly refunded instead of Stripe's own terms like "Open" or "Uncollectible". The colored chip is unchanged.
Fix: an empty gradebook cell now prompts with your own grade scale.
On a class using a custom grade scale, like O, G, S, N, U, I, an empty grade cell was still prompting with the built-in Mastered/Progressing/Needs Improvement tokens instead of your own marks. It now shows your scale's own symbols, matching the banner above the gradebook.
Choose what prints on report cards.
When you print report cards from Administrative > Reports, uncheck any column, like Credits, Midterm or Final Exam, and NavEd remembers your choice for next time. You can also set the layout from School > Profile > Academic > Report Card Columns with a live preview, and choose which grades get their own Elementary, Middle School or Upper School layout. Parents and students get the same layout when they download a report card, and can leave things out of their own copy. Works on every plan.
Your own grade scales.
Schools can now set up any way they mark work, like O, G, S, N, U, I, Pass/Fail, or mastery levels, from Academic > Grade Scales. Pick a scale for each subject and choose whether it counts toward GPA. Teachers type or pick marks on the gradebook, marks are never counted as zeros, and report cards, progress reports and transcripts print each mark with a key. Subjects left out of GPA still show on transcripts with their credits. Also fixed: School Settings now shows the right grading scale name for percentage and points schools, applying a scale to more subjects no longer resets a subject's own GPA choice, and a final grade edit now asks for a mark instead of silently clearing one that was already set.
Fix: wide tables no longer push the whole page sideways on a phone.
A table that needs its own side-to-side scroll, like a family's tuition charges and payments, could in some cases stretch the entire page wider than the screen instead of staying contained to its own scrollable box. The table now scrolls exactly where it should, and the rest of the page stays put.
The Billing tab now shows a real Billing History with downloadable receipts, and always shows your actual plan name.
Administrative > School > Billing now has a Billing History table listing payments with a date, plan name, amount, and status. Payments made from now on have a Receipt link that opens a NavEd-branded, numbered receipt marked "PAID IN FULL" (or "REFUNDED" if the money was returned), with a "Download receipt (PDF)" button. Older payments keep their "View invoice" link, and a bill that is still due stays in the list with a "Pay invoice" link. A school on a yearly plan no longer sees per-student pricing or a student-count breakdown, since those don't apply to a flat annual plan. And a school that hasn't paid for anything now correctly sees "Free Plan" on this tab instead of a paid tier name that was never actually purchased.
Record one check for a whole family, on every plan.
Type the amount and NavEd suggests how it covers each child's tuition, oldest first, and you can change any line. Partial payments leave the rest owed, extra money is kept as credit for the next charge, and each family has its own page with every payment, including card payments, refunds and ones recorded earlier. Parents see tuition payments in their payment history.
Schools now get an emailed receipt the moment a payment goes through.
Behind-the-scenes improvements to how our team tests NavEd.
Fix: missing-work warnings only show for assignments actually given to that student.
When a teacher narrows an assignment to specific students after some grades were already entered, a student who was later removed from it could still see a "missing" warning for work that was never theirs to do. That warning showed up in a few places: the notification badge, the parent dashboard, a student's own grades page, and their profile. All of those now check whether the assignment still applies to that student before showing a warning, and a teacher's own gradebook view is unchanged.
Fix: picking specific students while creating a new assignment now saves correctly.
Narrowing a brand-new assignment to a few students, right there on the "Add Assignment" row, still saved it as everyone even after picking names in the "who is this for" picker. Editing an existing assignment's students already worked. Picking specific students on a new assignment now sticks too.
Fix: choosing specific students for an assignment now saves correctly.
On the "who is this for" picker, narrowing an assignment to a few students instead of the whole class didn't save. The assignment quietly stayed set to everyone no matter who was checked. Picking specific students now sticks, whether you set it from the assignment edit page, when creating a new assignment, or from the gradebook's own picker.
Schools can now require payment before a club seat is confirmed.
In School Settings, on the Feature Toggles card, there's a new switch: "Collect club fees at registration." It is off by default and needs Stripe payments connected first. When it's on, a family goes to Stripe checkout when they register, and their child's seat is held while they pay and confirmed once payment finishes. If they don't finish, the seat opens back up and nothing is charged. When it's off, a seat is confirmed right away and the school collects later. Free clubs always register instantly, and registrations already on the books keep the payment status they have now.
Fix: timezone detection no longer errors when a school's domain fails to resolve.
NavEd quietly detects a school's timezone from an administrator's browser so no one ever has to pick it from a list. On rare occasions -- a transient DNS hiccup, or a request served before the domain was fully matched -- the detection ran without a valid school context. That caused a silent 500 error logged to Sentry (NAV-EDUCATION-10Y); no data was lost and the browser never showed anything, but the error was real. Detection now skips cleanly in that situation instead of failing. A belt-and-suspenders catch in the endpoint ensures any other unexpected error also returns a clean response rather than a 500.
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