Introducing StayPut
Today we are launching StayPut: door monitoring hardware and software for adults responsible for students on overnight trips.
If you have chaperoned a hotel stay after curfew, you probably know the feeling. The trip is going well. Students are having a great time. Then lights out hits and your brain will not shut off. Are the doors staying closed? Is everyone where they should be? A lot of chaperones set alarms, walk the halls, or just do not sleep.
We built StayPut for that. Sleep easy. We’ll watch the doors.
What is StayPut?
StayPut tells chaperones when a hotel room door opens after curfew and alerts the right people quickly.
The web dashboard is where you set up a trip: rooms, student assignments, curfew times, chaperone invites, hardware orders, and alert history.
On site, a gateway hub picks up signals from door sensors (one per door) and sends events to the cloud over LTE. You do not need hotel Wi-Fi or guest network passwords.
When a door opens during curfew, StayPut sends push notifications, email, and SMS to the chaperones who need to know. Everything gets logged so you have a record after the trip.
StayPut helps with monitoring and notification. It does not replace adult supervision. Chaperones still set expectations, enforce curfew, and respond in person.
See How It Works or the StayPut docs for more detail.
Why StayPut?
Overnight trips stick with students, whether it’s DECA conferences, band competitions, church retreats, sports travel, or summer camps. For the adults, the hard part is usually the nights.
Hallway patrols wear people out. DIY alarm setups are a pain. Hotel Wi-Fi makes cobbled-together tech even harder. A lot of chaperones just stay up and worry.
We started StayPut because there had to be a better way than that.
The hardware is built for real hotels: removable adhesive on sensors (no marks left behind), an LTE gateway that does not depend on guest Wi-Fi, and a setup that takes minutes. Alerts go out on multiple channels, and trip history stays in the dashboard for documentation afterward.
We want chaperones to actually sleep so they can show up for students the next morning.
Who we are
StayPut, LLC builds door monitoring for K-12 schools, youth organizations, camps, and sports programs that take students on overnight stays.
Started by Garrett and Kyla, a husband-and-wife team. Kyla was a first-year DECA teacher getting ready for her first overnight trip. She was not sure what to do after curfew and said over dinner one night that there had to be a better system.
She asked other teachers what they did. Most had nothing formal. The most common answer was blue painter’s tape on the doors. Tape gone or applied wrong meant the door opened overnight. Kyla also found stories about students peeling all the tape off as a prank, and teachers who worried the tape flagged which rooms had students in them.
Garrett is a full-time electrical engineer who writes software on the side. He built the hardware and software that became StayPut: monitoring without tape, hallway patrols, or an all-nighter in the lobby.
Last year we ran StayPut on three trips in three different states, in hotels of different sizes. Today we are launching the full product for anyone who wants it.
StayPut is used by schools (DECA, FBLA, band, choir, debate, and other overnight travel), youth organizations, camps, and sports teams on away-game hotel stays. Day to day, teachers, coaches, trip planners, chaperones, and administrators set things up and respond to alerts.
What’s next
We will use this blog for product updates, trip tips, and stories from the field.
The knowledge base already covers trips, hardware, alerts, billing, and account setup. We will keep adding to it.
Want to take a look?
- Get started and create an account
- How It Works for setup, hardware, and alerts
- Contact us with questions about your trip or a hardware order
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Thanks to the chaperones who tested early trips and told us what was broken. We are glad to finally launch.
StayPut assists monitoring and notification during curfew. It does not replace adult supervision, chaperone judgment, or your organization’s policies.