E-signatures for schools, tutors and training providers

Which documents do education teams sign with eSignSimple?

Which education documents can be signed electronically?

• Photo and video releases
• Event and activity waivers
• Staff employment contracts
• Offer letters
• Internship agreements
• Contractor agreements

How do you get the most out of e-signatures in education?

• Save the form every parent must sign as a template, then use bulk send to reach the whole class at once.
• Check student privacy rules (such as FERPA in the US) before collecting student records.
• Minors usually cannot sign contracts themselves; send forms to parents or guardians.
• Write forms in plain language; parents sign faster when they understand what they are agreeing to.
• Include the child's name and the specific activity or date in the document, not only in the email.
• Our take: for trips and higher-risk activities, a signature alone is not enough. Pair the waiver with clear information about the activity so consent is genuinely informed.
• Add a text field where the parent types the child's full name and class, so a form signed for the wrong child is spotted before the trip, not on the bus.
• Decide your school's policy on separated parents (one guardian or both) before you build the template, and write it into the form.
• For the start-of-term rush, save each parent form as a template, then use bulk send so every family gets their own copy. The event waiver is a sensible first form.

Before you rely on an e-signature for a specific document, check the rules where you work: see e-signature law in the United States, the United Kingdom or other countries, and read how we store and protect signed documents.

How do we get 180 trip permission slips back before the bus leaves?

Start three weeks out. Build a single-signer template from the event waiver or your own trip letter: the trip details, date, cost, a text field for the child's name and class, a checkbox for any optional activity, and a signature and date field. Then use bulk send to the parent list, up to 200 families per send. Each family receives their own copy, so one parent's answer never overwrites another's.

Over the next nine days, reminders go out every 3 days, up to 3 times, to families who have not signed. Two weeks out, look at the pending list. In our experience it is now a handful of families, often with an old email address or a question about cost, and a quick phone call or a note home sorts them out. On the day, a staff member checks the completed list rather than a stack of paper slips.

The signed copies are also your record afterwards. If a parent later says they did not agree to the water activity, the completed form shows the checkbox they ticked and when.

What if both parents need to sign?

For forms where your policy needs both guardians, use a template with two signer roles. Bulk send then takes both parents' names and emails on each line of your list, or you can send a document individually to the two of them. Leave signing order off so they sign in parallel, each from their own email. Use this for higher-stakes consents and for families where a court order or your records say both parents must agree.

For everyday forms, most schools accept one guardian's signature, and the simplest fair approach is to send it to the main contact and copy the policy into the form. Whatever you choose, apply it consistently. Mixing rules from one trip to the next is what causes complaints.

Can a tutoring center take enrollment sign-ups through its website?

Yes, with a web form on Silver and up. Turn your enrollment agreement, with fees, cancellation terms and a photo consent checkbox, into a single-signer template, create a web form link, and put it on your website next to the timetable. Each parent who opens it signs their own copy, and you receive a completed PDF with a certificate for every enrollment.

Adult learners can sign for themselves on the same form. For under-18s, label the form clearly as for a parent or guardian and add a field for the student's name. Our guide on collecting signatures with an online form walks through the setup.