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Parent Guide

When a Book Purchase Circles Back to a Classroom

HootRated is free for teachers, ad-free for kids, and funded by book purchases — a small share of which goes back to local public schools. Here's how the circle works, and why we built it this way.

By George Marzouka ·

George Marzouka is the founder of HootRated and a father of two boys. More about the author.

I want to tell you plainly how HootRated makes money, what we do with it, and why a company that rates children’s books cares so much about the health of the local public school. It’s all one circle, and I think the circle is the most important thing about us.

Let me start with the part that’s easy to miss unless you’re looking.

The quiet math behind a stretched school

Here in South Florida, Miami-Dade County Public Schools — one of the largest districts in the country — enrolled about 313,000 students this year. That’s roughly 13,200 fewer than the year before, one of the steepest single-year drops the district has seen.

That number matters more than it looks, because of how Florida pays for schools. Funding is allocated per pupil — a set amount of public dollars follows each child through the schoolhouse door. So when enrollment falls, the budget falls with it, almost mechanically. Same buildings to heat, same buses to run, largely the same teachers to pay — with fewer dollars to do it. No villain in that sentence. It’s just arithmetic, and the arithmetic is getting harder.

I’m not here to argue about why enrollment shifts. I’m here because of where the squeeze lands.

Why a book company pays attention

Public schools do something no one else in education is asked to do: they take everyone. Roughly nine in ten American kids are educated in public schools, and unlike a private or selective program, a public school can’t turn a child away for a low test score, a tough year, or a costly special need. Universal acceptance is the whole promise.

When a budget tightens, one of the first places it shows is the shelf. The classroom library gets thinner. The new titles come slower. Field trips to the school library get rationed. And that shelf is the exact thing HootRated exists to serve — the unglamorous, decisive work of getting the right book into a specific kid’s hands at the right moment. When the shelf shrinks, the readers we care most about are the ones who feel it first.

So supporting public schools isn’t a side cause for us. It’s upstream of everything we do.

What we’ve built for teachers — and our promise about it

Over the past year we’ve built a set of free classroom tools for teachers — a place to organize a class, match books to real readers by both reading level and content maturity, and take some of the guesswork out of “what do I hand this particular kid.” You can see where that’s headed on our tools for teachers and schools & libraries pages.

Here’s the promise attached to all of it: these tools are free, and they stay free. Anything we build for schools remains free to schools. Full stop.

And a promise underneath that one, which I care about even more: we do not advertise to teachers or students, ever. The classroom side of HootRated — what we call the School Zone — is completely ad-free and commerce-free by design. No affiliate links, no “buy” buttons, nothing sold to a child or a teacher. If you’re using HootRated in a classroom, you are not the product and you never will be.

If you’re a teacher and there’s something that would genuinely help you, tell us. We can’t build everything, but we build what’s feasible and what teachers actually ask for — and we’d rather hear it from you than guess.

So how do we keep the lights on? (Honestly.)

Fair question, and I’d rather answer it directly than have you wonder.

HootRated is free to use. We make money in exactly one way: we’re an Amazon affiliate (and we partner with Bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores). When a parent finds a book here and buys it through our link, we earn a small commission — at no extra cost to you. That’s the entire business model. No subscriptions, no paywall on the ratings, no ads shown to kids.

That’s the deliberate split. The commercial side of HootRated lives with parents, by their choice, in the family zone. The school side stays free and quiet.

And here’s where the circle closes. After our costs are covered, a share of what’s left goes back to support local public schools. A parent finds the right book for their child → buys it → a slice of that comes back to a classroom in our own community. We’re a small company, so today this starts small — but it grows as we do, and it’s built into how we operate, not bolted on for a press release.

A model, not a marketing campaign

I’ve come to believe this is a template more growing businesses could use: grow and give back to the community you live and thrive in, as one motion rather than two. You don’t have to wait until you’re big to start the circle. You just have to design the circle in from the beginning and let it scale with you.

That’s what we’re trying to do here — modestly, honestly, and out loud, so you can hold us to it.

So: if you’re a teacher, the tools are yours, free, and I want your wish list. If you’re a parent, every time you find the right book here and buy it through us, you’re not just helping your own reader — you’re helping close a loop that ends in a local classroom. Same book. Two kids helped. That’s the whole idea, and I’m grateful you’re part of it. You can read more about who we are and why on our about page.

Frequently asked questions

Is HootRated really free for teachers?

Yes. Our classroom tools are free to use, and any tools we build for schools stay free to schools. There’s no teacher subscription and no paywall on our book ratings.

How does HootRated make money?

We’re an Amazon affiliate (and a Bookshop.org partner). When a parent buys a book through one of our links, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to them. That’s our only revenue — no ads shown to kids, no paid subscriptions for the core ratings.

Do you advertise to my child or their teacher?

No. The classroom side of HootRated is completely ad-free and commerce-free. We never show ads to students or teachers and never sell anything inside a school setting. Our only commercial links live on the family side, for parents, by choice.

Will the free teacher tools ever start costing money?

No. Free-forever is a promise, not a trial. Anything we build for schools remains free to schools.

How can I suggest a feature for the classroom tools?

Send it to us through our feedback page. We prioritize what’s feasible to build and what teachers are actually asking for, so your input genuinely shapes what we make next.

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