A Safe Zone Around a New
School Before the First Day
A change of school means the old safe zone is now pointing at the wrong building entirely. Ten minutes the weekend before saves a confusing first week of alerts.
July 2026 · 5 min read
The Old Safe Zone Doesn't Update Itself
A safe zone marks a fixed point on the map — it has no idea your child has changed schools unless someone edits it. If admission to a new school happens mid-year or over a summer break, it's easy for the actual routine to change while the safe zone quietly keeps watching the old building, which means arrival alerts simply stop firing without any obvious error message.
Set It Up the Weekend Before, Not the Morning Of
Drop the new safe zone pin a few days ahead — walking or driving past the school once, even briefly, makes it easy to place the pin accurately and test the radius before it actually matters. Doing this on the first morning itself, in the rush of a new routine, is when mistakes (wrong pin location, radius too tight or too loose) tend to happen.
Picking a Radius for an Unfamiliar Building
Until you know the school's actual layout — parking, drop-off gate, how far the gate is from the classroom block — start with a slightly wider radius than you'd use for a school you know well, then tighten it after the first week once you've seen where the alerts actually fire relative to real arrival. See the radius guide below for sizing it correctly the second time around.
Remove the Old School's Safe Zone Too
It's easy to add the new one and forget to delete the old — leaving a safe zone around a building your child no longer visits doesn't cause harm, but it clutters the map and can cause confusion later if you're troubleshooting why an alert didn't fire where you expected. Clean it up in the same sitting as setting up the new one.