We have all kinds of families at our school as I imagine most schools around the world do. In 2025, in Education (and most other sectors) diversity and inclusion are highly valued, all families deserve to be represented. Same gender families and blended families deserve to also be represented accurately especially in a school's MIS which is there precisely for teachers to learn about students.
I received a response from the Support team that informed me that the development team had decided that the family structure would no longer be maintained or updated and that my other option was to remove it.
Please see my response to your Support team below:
It is disappointing to hear that the Family tab will not be maintained or updated. As a school committed to diversity and inclusion, the solution of either "accepting its limitations" or disabling the functionality does not work for us. It is important for our teachers to identify siblings of the same family so doing away with the tab completely is not an option.
The current inability of the Family Tree structure to accurately represent all family structures—such as same-gender parents and blended families—creates significant issues. This flaw can lead to staff being misinformed about a child's family situation ie. assuming a parent has passed away (I am aware there is a 'Deceased' option but not all teachers will know this) as the mother/father section is blank (although they have two parents of the same gender which is also important to know).
Request:
1) Having the family structure in the family tab be editable so that they do not have static placeholders of mother and father and can be edited to 'mother mother' or 'father father'.
2) Allow for mothers or fathers or children to exist in more thank one family for blended families
With kind regards
Ana Marques
