Everything a parent does in the River Tech portal

Before you start

Two things are worth knowing up front, because they explain nearly every question the office gets asked.

A parent account and a child link are two separate things

Making an account gives you a sign-in. It does not connect you to a pupil — that is a second step, and it always goes through a person at the school. This is deliberate: it is what stops anyone who can fill in a form from attaching themselves to somebody else's child.

So a brand new account looks empty, and that is normal. It fills up the moment the link is made.

There is one address to remember

rivertech.me is where you sign in, and everything else is reached from there. Bookmark it. If a link in an email ever drops you somewhere unexpected, going back to that address will sort it out.

Part 1 · Getting an account

From nothing at all to signed in and looking at your child's grades. Five steps, and two of them may already be done for you.

Which route is yours?

1. New to the school? Apply first

   If your child is not enrolled yet, start at the application form rather than the sign-in page: rivertech.me/enrollment. No account is needed to fill it in.

   It has five steps:

   1. Students — names, grade, and your family address.
   2. Parents — Parent/Guardian 1 is required; a second is optional.
   3. Emergency — contacts, and who is allowed to collect your child.
   4. Medical — doctor, allergies, and anything staff need to know.
   5. Review — the terms, the waivers, and your typed signature.

   When you submit, you get an application number for each child. Save it. The admissions team reviews the application and replies to the email address you gave for Parent/Guardian 1.

   Submitting an application does not create an account. Nothing is emailed to you automatically at that point, and there is nothing to sign in to yet. Your account comes later — either from the office once the application is approved, or by making one yourself in the next step.

   Already enrolled? Go straight on.

2. Create a parent account

   Go to rivertech.me. Under the Login button you will find Create a Parent Account.

   rivertech.me

   Student Portal Login

   📧 Email

   🎮 Games PIN

   Email Address

   you@example.com

   Password

   ••••••••

   Login

   Create a Parent Account

   Forgot Password?

   New to our school?

   Apply for Enrollment

   The sign-in screen. The 🎮 Games PIN tab beside it is not for you — it is a short route for pupils who do not have an email account yet, and it opens games and skills only.

   The form asks for six things. All of them are required:

   Field	What to put
   Email Address	An inbox you can open today. This becomes your sign-in name.
   Password	At least 8 characters.
   Confirm Password	Type it again — the page tells you as you type whether the two match.
   Username	A short name for your account. It is not shown to pupils.
   First Name	Your own first name, not your child's.
   Last Name	Your own surname.

   rivertech.me

   Create a Parent Account

   For parents and guardians.

   Email Address

   dana.whitfield@example.com

   Password

   ••••••••••

   Must be at least 8 characters

   Confirm Password

   ••••••••••

   Passwords match

   Username

   dwhitfield

   First Name

   Dana

   Last Name

   Whitfield

   Register

   Back to Login

   Example only — the name and address here are invented.

   There is no box for your child's name, and that is correct. Connecting your account to a pupil happens later, on your own dashboard, once you are signed in. See step 5.

   Press Register. You will see "Registration successful! Please check your email to verify your account."

3. Confirm your email

   Open the email and click the link in it. It takes you to a short page that says "✅ Email Confirmed!" and then sends you back to the portal, already signed in.

   • The link works once, and it expires. Do not forward it.
   • Open it on the device you want to use, not on somebody else's.
   • If nothing arrives within a few minutes, check the spam folder before trying again.
   If the link has expired, don't register again. A second attempt with the same address will be refused. Email learn@rivertech.me and ask the office to open your account — that takes a moment at their end.

4. Sign in

   At rivertech.me, on the 📧 Email tab, type the address and password you just set and press Login.

   A new account looks like this, and there is nothing wrong with it:

   rivertech.me

   👶 No Children Linked

   No children are linked to your account yet.

   ➕ Link a Child

   The empty dashboard. One button, and it is the right one.

5. Link your child

   Press ➕ Link a Child. There are two ways through this screen, and the quicker one is worth asking for.

   rivertech.me

   Link a Child✕

   Your child's full name

   First and last name

   Grade (optional)

   e.g. 9

   You are their (optional)

   Mother, Father, Guardian

   The school checks each request by hand before connecting an account, so nobody can attach themselves to a child who isn't theirs. We'll email you when it's done.

   Cancel

   Send Request

   ---

   ▸ Have a link code from the school?

   ABCD2345

   Link with code

   Both routes live in one modal. The code route is folded away under the grey line.

   The fast way — a link code

   Ask the office for your child's link code. It is a short code, roughly like ABCD2345, and staff can read it out over the phone or at the desk. Expand "Have a link code from the school?", type it in, and press Link with code. The connection is made immediately and your dashboard reloads with your child on it.

   • You only ever type it once.
   • One code per child — ask for each child's separately.
   • If the school reissues a code, anyone already linked stays linked.

   The other way — send a request

   No code? Type your child's full name, optionally their grade and your relationship to them, and press Send Request. A member of staff checks it by hand and you are emailed when it is done.

   The box does not suggest names as you type, on purpose. A search box here would tell anybody with an account whether a given child attends the school. So type the name in full and carefully — spelling it the way the school has it makes the match quicker.

   Got more than one child? Repeat this from ➕ Link Another Child. There is no limit.

6. Open your child's own account (if they need one)

   Once you are linked, your child's card may show "No sign-in yet". That means the school holds their record — their classes, grades and attendance are all on it — but they have no way to sign in themselves.

   You can fix that. Press ✉️ Open their account, give an email address your child can actually open, tick the confirmation box and press Send the link. They get an email that lets them set their own password.

   rivertech.me

   ✉️ Open Milo's account✕

   This creates the sign-in on Milo's existing school record and emails a link for setting a password. Their classes, grades and skills are already on it.

   Send the link to

   name@example.com

   An address Milo can open. It cannot be the one you sign in with.

   ✓ I've checked this address is right for Milo.

   Cancel

   Send the link

   Example only. Note the rule under the address box: your own sign-in address cannot be reused for your child.

   It uses the record the school already has. Nothing is started from scratch, so everything already recorded for your child stays attached to the account they end up with.

   Younger pupils who have no email at all can still play the learning games using a 4-character Games PIN from a teacher. That opens games and skills only, not the portal.

If you get stuck

Part 2 · Using the portal

What is on each screen, and which one to open for the thing you actually want.

The portal has two halves

You sign in at rivertech.me and land on your dashboard. Most of the day-to-day detail lives one step further in, at 📊 Portal, which is the classes-and-messaging side. The bar across the top moves you between them.

A parent's nav bar. Teachers and pupils see different items — if a guide or a teacher mentions a screen you cannot find, that is usually why.

Two more sections sit under a 🧭 More card at the foot of the Portal screen rather than in the bar: 📄 Documents and 🏆 Activities.

Beside the nav bar there is a 🔔 bell. It collects New Assignment Posted and Assignment Graded notices for your children, and new messages. It has Mark all read and Clear all.

One thing that catches people out: the heading at the top of the Portal screen reads "📚 Welcome to Classes & Messaging — access your classes, assignments…", and the classes list is headed "📚 Classes". That wording is shared with pupils and teachers. They are your children's classes.

Your home screen

Open 📊 Portal. This is the screen to start from.

Example only — every name and number here is invented.

Two things on that screen are easy to miss:

• The badge on each child, like 0/3. That is their disciplinary strike count. Green is none, amber is one or two, red is three. Strikes fade on their own over time.
• Each child's row is a button. Press it to open their full progress.

Your child's progress

Pressing a child's name opens everything the school has that concerns you, in one panel.

Example only. Real names, grades and marks never appear on this guide.

Reading the four statuses

How the GPA is put together

The four quarters are not weighted equally. Q1 counts for 20%, Q2 and Q3 for 25% each, and Q4 for 30% — so the year leans towards how it finishes. A quarter showing — has not been graded yet and is not dragging anything down.

Report card and transcript

Two documents, and they answer different questions.

Both open in a new tab, laid out for paper, with a single Print / Save PDF button in the corner. That button is the way to keep a copy — press it and choose your printer, or choose "Save as PDF" as the destination.

With more than one child linked, 📋 View Transcript in Quick Actions asks which child first. The report card has no equivalent shortcut — open each child's progress panel and use the button there.

Classes and assignments

📚 Children's Classes lists every class your children are in. With more than one child, each card carries a 👦 line naming which of them is in it.

Open a class and a blue banner confirms where you are — "👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Parent View · Viewing your child's class" — with three buttons under Class Actions:

Everything here is read-only. Class discussions are for pupils and teachers, and are not shown to parents.

Messaging a teacher

💬 Messages has two halves: a box to start a new conversation, and your recent ones underneath.

Example only — these people and messages are invented.

The To: list holds the teachers of your children's classes, plus the school's administrators. It is built from your children's timetables, so a teacher appears there once your child is in one of their classes.

Telling the school your child will be away

This is the one that saves a phone call. From Quick Actions, press 📅 Report an Absence.

Example only.

• One day off? Leave both dates the same.
• A whole week? Set the range. Weekends inside it are ignored.
• Already reported shows what is on the list — including anything the office entered — so a trip does not get reported twice.
• The reason is optional, and a short one is plenty.

This is the one place attendance appears for parents. There is no screen showing past attendance, so if you need a record of days missed, ask the office.

Activities, documents, and re-enrolling

🏆 Children's Activities

Sports and clubs, listed per child. Each shows a Sport or Club chip, the coach, where it meets, its schedule, whether it runs for a season or all year, and your child's standing — active, tryout or waitlisted. It is a read-only view; joining and leaving go through the coach or the office.

📄 School Documents

Handbooks, policies and guides for families, grouped under those headings, each with the date it was last updated. The River Tech Handbook opens the live Google Doc in a new tab — the rest open in the page, with a ← Back to Documents button.

📋 Re-Enroll for Next Year

When it is time to enrol for the next school year, this opens the application form again with your family's details already filled in. Check what has changed, correct it, and submit. It is an application, so the office processes it — the live records are not edited directly.

The calendar on your Home screen

🏠 Home carries a month calendar built from your child's timetable — class meetings, due dates for published assignments, tests, quarter boundaries and school events. The filter pills above it (Assignments, Tests, Classes, Quarters, School Events) turn each kind on and off, and clicking a day lists everything on it. Holidays and closures are shaded.

Above the calendar sits a 🎓 Days of School Left card — how much of the year is done, with weekends and holidays already taken out.

With two or more children linked, a Select Child dropdown appears above it. Changing it redraws the calendar for that child straight away, on whichever month you were looking at.

Part 3 · Your preferences

Everything you can change about your own account lives on one screen: 👤 Profile, also reachable as ⚙️ Account Settings in Quick Actions.

Email notifications

Two switches, both on unless you turn them off, and they are the only email settings you have:

Both start ticked, because both are on for a new account. Untick what you don't want, press Save Preferences, and it takes effect on the next email.

Some emails are not on this list and cannot be switched off from here — a disciplinary strike, for instance, is always sent. If the volume of email is not working for you, say so to the office rather than hunting for a setting that does not exist.

Your password and your email address

🔐 Changing your password

Type the new one twice and press Update Password. It applies immediately. Forgotten it instead? Sign out and use Forgot Password? on the sign-in screen — that link is good for one hour.

✉️ Changing your email address

This is the address you sign in with, so it is deliberately careful. Type the new address twice and press Send Confirmation Link.

How the site looks

🎨 Site Theme changes the whole portal for your account, and follows you to any device you sign in on. Six presets:

Picking one saves it immediately. Light is the one to choose if the dark theme is hard to read.

Underneath are three optional extras, each folded away until you open it:

• Customize Colors — set individual colours yourself.
• Background Image — a picture behind the portal, with a slider for how strongly it shows through. It needs a direct image link; Google Drive and Dropbox links will not work.
• Button Style Override — recolour the buttons independently of the theme.

There is no separate text-size control; use your browser's own zoom (Ctrl and +, or ⌘ and +).

Signing out, and staying signed in

🚪 Logout sits in ⚙️ Account Actions on the Profile screen; the main site also has a Logout button in its header. Otherwise you stay signed in on that browser — there is no timeout and nothing to tick to stay signed in.

🗑️ Delete Account is on the same card. It asks twice, and it cannot be undone. If what you actually want is to stop the emails, change your notification settings instead; if you want to leave the school, talk to the office first.

What only the office can change

These are not missing settings — they are held by the school on purpose, because they are the details a register, a pickup list or a paramedic depends on.

And a few things that simply are not there

• A history of your child's attendance. You can report an absence and see what is already on the list, but not browse past days. Ask the office for a record.
• Fees, invoices or payments. The portal handles none of it.
• Permission slips. The waivers are signed once, as part of enrolment and re-enrolment; there is no per-trip form.
• Class discussions, the school currency, games and skills. Those belong to pupils. The testing centre, the staff assistant and every admin screen belong to staff.

Quick reference

The whole guide in one table, for when you already know what you want.

Also worth reading

• Privacy Policy — what the school collects, how it is stored, and how to ask for your data to be deleted.
• Terms of Service — the agreement you accepted at enrolment.
• Enrolment application — for a new child, or for next year.

↑ Back to the top