Privacy policy

What we collect, and why

When you're just looking around. We use a privacy-friendly analytics tool to see how the site gets used — which pages folks visit, roughly what country a visit comes from, and what kind of device and browser. It's all anonymous and lumped together: no cookies, no profile of you, and it can't follow you to other sites. We look at it for one reason — to make the site better. The only cookie we set is the sign-in for the volunteers who run the site; as a visitor, you never get a tracking cookie.

When you use the contact form (on the About page), you give us your name, email, and message, and we email it straight to a volunteer so we can write back. We don't save contact messages in any database — they just sit in our inbox like any other email.

When you sign up to volunteer, we collect your name, email, and — if you'd like — a phone number, so we can organize the event and send you a reminder. We hang onto this only for the school year (see How long we keep things).

When you subscribe to the newsletter (the Otter Town News), we save your email with our newsletter service so we can send you each issue. Every issue has a one-click unsubscribe, and you can ask us to take you off the list anytime.

When you donate or grab some spirit wear, our payment provider handles the whole payment on its own secure pages. Your card and billing details go to that provider, never to us — all we see is that the donation or order went through.

Notifications. You can turn on browser notifications to get a heads-up about news and events. Turning them on saves an anonymous tag for your device so we can send the alert — no name, no email — and you can switch them back off whenever, from the bell on our site or in your browser settings.

Children's privacy

This site is for the grown-ups — parents, guardians, teachers, and neighbors — not for kids. We don't knowingly collect anything from children, and we don't publish students' names. As a rule we don't post photos of students either. On the rare occasion we would — a fundraiser page or a flyer, say — we do it only with a parent-signed photo release on file, and you can ask us to take any photo down at any time. If you think a child sent us something, tell us and we'll delete it.

Who we share information with

We don't sell, rent, or trade your information. We share it only with the handful of trusted services that help us run the site, and only so they can do their part:

• Our payment service — handles donations and shop checkout on its own secure pages.
• Our email service — sends our sign-in links, replies, and volunteer confirmations, and holds the newsletter list.
• Our hosting service — runs the site, stores our images, and provides the anonymous analytics above.
• Our database service — where our content and volunteer sign-ups live.
• A spam blocker on our forms — keeps bots out without tracking you.

Our cafeteria menu — including the food photos — is fetched by our own server from the district's menu provider, so looking at it here doesn't hand your info to them. Our calendar is our own — the events live in this site's content system, and “Add to calendar” simply opens your calendar app with the event details you picked. And, of course, we'll share information if the law ever requires it.

How long we keep things

Volunteer sign-ups — we hold onto these through the school year so we can actually run the events and coordinate help, then clear them out each summer. Want yours gone sooner? Just ask.

Newsletter subscriptions — we keep your email until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove it. Contact messages live in our inbox only as long as it takes to help you.

How we keep it safe

Everything here runs over a secure (HTTPS) connection. The admin area where volunteers manage the site is sign-in-only and locked down by role, so the newsletter list and sign-up details aren't visible to general editors, and our backups are encrypted. No website is bulletproof, but we take real care with what you share.

Your choices

Unsubscribe from the newsletter with the link in any issue. And anytime, you can ask to see, fix, or delete anything we have about you — volunteer sign-ups included — by emailing info@ortegapto.org. We'll sort it out quickly.

Changes to this page

If we change how we handle your information, we'll update this page and the date below, and flag anything important.

Get in touch

Questions about your privacy, or about this page? We're happy to talk — email info@ortegapto.org or use the form on our About page.