Google Classroom

Information for Parents

Google Classroom for Parents

 All teachers in Chinook’s Edge now use Google Classroom as the primary learning management system to communicate school work to students at home. This should reduce the number of logins and different systems that parents are expected to learn.  Here are a few things you should know about being a parent of a “Google Classroom Kid”…

Parents do not have a login for Google Classroom. Only students can be added to Google Classroom.

This does not mean that you are to remain uninformed. Classroom keeps parents informed via email. To receive the emails, parents can provide an email address to their child’s teacher, and the teacher will add the parent into the student roster through the child’s identity in Classroom. At this point, Google will deploy an email to the address provided to the teacher, and parents must accept the invitation.

Once parents have accepted this invitation, Google Classroom will send regular email summaries to the email address provided. Parents then have the choice to have Classroom send daily summaries, weekly summaries, or no summaries. You will get ONE email per child, regardless of how many teachers each child has. 

What you can expect to see in your summary email is

  1. Missing work—Work not turned in when the summary was sent.
  2. Upcoming work—Work that’s due today and tomorrow (for daily emails) or that’s due in the upcoming week (for weekly emails).
  3. Class activities—Announcements, assignments, and questions recently posted by teachers.

What you cannot expect to see are your child’s grades. To see your child’s grades, parents will log in to Powerschool.

Additionally, we have also recorded a video suited to teachers and parents regarding how to add parents to Google Classroom without violating FOIP. The video shows the entire process, including what both parties will see on their individual screens.

Below we have created a 3:49 screencast video that shows parents the “nuts-and-bolts” of Google Classroom when logging in as your child (again, that is the only way you can gain access right inside of Google Classroom).

 

Need more Details?

We recommend that parents wanting to access the details of their child’s Google Classroom should sit with the child and ask for a “tour” of Google Classroom. This accomplishes a few things.

  1. It lets you, the parent, know how comfortable and confident your child is in the Google Classroom environment.
  2. It lets you, the parent, view the formative assessment comments that your child’s teacher may have made with respect to the child’s work.
  3. It facilitates a conversation with your child about their schoolwork and their online experience.

As educators, we would say that the third point above is the most important point, and often, this is a topic that parents struggle to get their child to open up about. (“How was school today?” “Fine.”) Sitting beside your child and talking about the content, work, assignments and grades in each course will facilitate this discussion without forcing you, the parent, to feel like you are prying and getting no actual information.

If you have questions about what you read in the email summaries, or what your child shows you in Google Classroom, please reach out to your child’s teacher/teachers for clarification.

For a more in-depth tour of Google Classroom, we offer this video:

Google also offers a comprehensive support page for parents.