A consent protocol
for K-12 hiring.
The handshake is the moment a blind candidate becomes a named one — and the only moment a district ever sees a teacher's identity. It is initiated by the district, granted by the candidate, timed by the system, and logged forever.
In K-12, being seen looking is the risk.
Educator job markets are small, local, and political. A principal who spots a teacher's name on a job board can — and often does — change the next year's assignment. The handshake exists because the act of exploring should never be the act of disclosing.
of teachers who left the profession cite being unable to job-search safely as a contributing factor.
RAND State of the American Teacher, 2023
K-12 candidates say they would not apply if their current principal could see the application.
EdWeek Research Center, 2022
average district cost per teacher turnover event, including replacement and lost productivity.
Learning Policy Institute, 2017
average time-to-fill for a K-12 instructional role — driven by a thin, fearful applicant pool.
AASPA Talent Trends, 2023
Four states. One direction.
Every handshake moves through the same four states. Transitions are one-way. Terminal states are immutable at the database layer.
- 01
Anonymous Active
Actor · Candidate
Profile is published with name, school, license number, university, email, and phone redacted server-side.
- 02
Unlock Requested
Actor · District
A district spends one unlock credit and writes a short reason. A 72-hour clock starts. The candidate is notified instantly.
- 03
Disclosed or Declined
Actor · Candidate
Accept and the district sees the full file and may message. Decline and the door closes — permanently, for that district.
- 04
Expired (No Ghosting)
Actor · System
At 72h the request expires. The district's credit is refunded. The candidate returns to Anonymous Active.
Identity disclosed. Conversation begins on-record. Audit row written.
District is permanently barred from that candidate. Credit consumed. Audit row written.
Request auto-closes at 72h. Credit refunded. Candidate returns to anonymous.
Legacy job boards leak. The handshake doesn't.
- Real name visible at upload
- Current school in resume header
- Anyone with a login can search
- Application = silent disclosure
- No record of who viewed what
- Identifiers stripped server-side before publish
- School & district rewritten into generic descriptors
- Only verified, credentialed districts can request
- Disclosure requires explicit candidate accept
- Every state transition written to append-only audit log
Handshake outcomes
syrcleHR pilot cohort · last 90 daysNo request has ever resulted in disclosure without the candidate's explicit accept. That number is, by design, zero.
Every handshake leaves a row.
Districts get a per-job audit trail. Candidates get a per-request timeline. Admins get an append-only log that the application layer cannot modify or delete. Compliance teams can export the entire chain for any role, any candidate, any window.
- Who requested · when · with which credit
- Reason text the requester submitted
- Candidate response · accept, decline, or expire
- IP and session metadata for the disclosure event
The handshake is the whole product.
Everything else — the blind profiles, the redaction engine, the credit ledger, the audit log — exists so that this one moment can be clean, consented, and recorded.