Google Classroom is one of the most popular LMS available on the Internet. It features an important function that helps parents keep track of their children’s progress in terms of education. This article is a complete guide explaining to you how to invite parents to Google Classroom.
How to invite parents to Google Classroom? Students’ parents are commonly referred to as ‘Guardians’ on Google Classroom. The teacher can invite students’ parents to Google Classroom by performing the following steps:
- Log onto Google Classroom here – http://classroom.google.com
- Select the Class you wish to change
- Enable the ‘Guardians’ function
- Access the ‘Students’ section
- Invite students’ parents
- The guardians must accept the invitation
Now that you know how to invite parents to Google Classroom, let’s analyse each step. You will also find out what the perks are when you invite parents to Google Classroom.
Enable The ‘Guardians’ Function
The ‘Guardians’ function is disabled by default on Google Classroom. Before inviting parents to Google Classroom you have to enable this function.
To activate this feature, do the following:
- Log on to Google Classroom
- Click on the Students section
- Click on the Settings icon
- Click the button next to the ‘Include this class in guardian email summaries’ label
- Close Google Classroom and wait for a few minutes
If it is the first time you enable this function, you will be asked whether you want to enable it for all your classes. If you want to use this feature only in certain classes, uncheck the box.
NOTE: If you can’t see the ‘Guardians’ function, contact your G Suite administrator. The malfunction is probably since you are not yet added as a ‘Verified Teacher’.
Access The ‘Students’ Section
As mentioned earlier, to access the ‘Students’ section, there are some specific steps. To get to this section, perform the following steps:
- Go to your classroom
- Click on the ‘People’ tab
- Scroll down to the ‘Students’ section
There you can see all the students that are registered in your classroom. On the upper side of the ‘People’ page, you can also see the educators that are currently teaching in your classroom.
Invite Students’ Parents
To invite students’ parents, follow the next steps:
- Go to the ‘Students’ section
- Find desired students
- Click on the ‘Invite Guardians’ button
- Fill in parent’s email address
- Click the ‘Invite’ button
To assign more guardians to one student, repeat the above-mentioned steps.
After assigning one guardian to a certain student, the parents will be able to see all classes where that student is registered. Students cannot invite their parents to Google Classroom. This action can only be taken by a verified teacher.
The Guardian Must Accept The Invitation
After you confirm the assignment of a guardian to a student, the parent has seven days to accept the invitation. If they fail to accept the invitation within seven days, repeat the process once again. To accept the invitation, the parent must use a valid Google account. Do not confuse the Google Mail (Gmail) account with the Google account.
The invitation may be sent to the Gmail address if the parent has had a Google Mail account before. In this situation, the parent must check his old Gmail account. If a parent doesn’t have a Google account when receiving the invitation, the teacher must remove them from the classroom.
The teacher must create a Google account and link it to their personal email address. To finish the sign-up process, the parent must verify it using a valid phone number. Only after validating this account, the teacher should send a guardian invitation for the parent. This way, the teacher avoids parents not receiving the invitations.
Why Invite Parents To Google Classroom
Parents represent an important part of the educational process. There are a lot of perks when you invite students’ parents to Google Classroom. These perks enhance the educational process making it more effective.
It is not an easy task for a teacher to keep students’ parents informed about everything related to their children. Inviting parents to Google Classroom helps the teacher inform parents about a lot of different aspects.
The function that sends summaries to the guardians daily or weekly is a particularly useful tool. It helps parents to overcome issues that involve their children. For instance, if a student does not submit the assigned tasks before the due date, their parents will get notified. This way, they know if they should have a discussion with their children. They can also see if there is something that interferes with student’s progress (such as a new hobby that takes too much from children’s time)
For example, the teacher can send a weekly report that covers all the important tasks that involve their children. This weekly report usually includes:
- Missing work from last week
- Work due next week
- Class activity from last week
- Notable events
This way, the parents always know what is happening to their children during school. However, the parents cannot see the class stream and actual work of the teacher on Google Classroom.
How To Email Guardians
You can send a mass email to all the guardians in your classroom. To email the guardians, perform the following steps:
- Log in onto Google Classroom
- Go to the ‘Students’ section
- Click the ‘Email All guardians’ button
To prevent the parents from seeing each other’s email addresses, Google Classroom automatically puts them into the Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) field.
The teacher can email a certain student’s guardians. To email a specific guardian, follow these steps:
- Go to your Class
- Access the ‘Students’ section
- Click the ‘More’ button next to the student’s name
- Select the ‘Email guardians’ feature
After performing the above-mentioned steps, a new email window will open. The email addresses of that student’s guardians will be in the ‘To’ field.
By repeating the same process described above, the teacher can send the same email to multiple guardians at once. To do this, leave the email window open and scroll down to the other desired student. Then, repeat the last two steps and the email addresses will be added to the ‘To’ field, right next to the initial ones.
Summaries
The teacher can send different types of summaries (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.). These summaries include various information related to their children’s activity as well as administrative issues. It is the parent who sets the frequency of the summaries sent by Google Classroom. They can either choose to receive a weekly summary or more daily summaries. Additionally, they can opt not to receive any summaries from their children’s school.
Moreover, if the parent has multiple children registered on Google Classroom, the control panel shows all their children. From this screen, they can set different summary frequencies for every single one of their children.
Generally, daily summaries are sent each afternoon, around 3 PM / 15:00. The weekly summaries are usually sent on Friday afternoons around 3:30 PM / 15:30. The guardians must set their time zone to receive the reports in accordance with their country’s time zone.
The parents can unsubscribe anytime. To prevent Google Classroom from sending summaries, the parent should scroll all the way down to the bottom of any email summary. To finish the process, the guardian must press the ‘Unsubscribe’ button and confirm the change.
NOTE: The maximum number of guardians that can be assigned to a student is 20.
How To Turn On Summaries For Your Class
Before enabling the ‘Guardian Summaries’ feature, your school administrator must provide you access to the control panel. You need to have your Google account linked to a G Suite account to be able to make such changes.
To enable summaries for your class, perform the following steps:
- Go to your Class
- Click on the ‘Settings’ button
- Click the button next to the ‘Guardian Summaries’ label
The summaries will be sent automatically by the Google Classroom API. They include various information regarding students’ activity. Depending on the frequency set by the parents, they will be informed about the tasks that their children must submit for the following day. Additionally, they will get precious information about the work that their children failed to submit.
The teacher may include relevant information about different administrative issues, such as exams schedule and a quick overview of the student’s grades.
Removing a Guardian
In case you want to remove an assigned guardian, you can do so by performing the following steps:
- Go to your classroom
- Access the ‘People’ section
- Click on the ‘More’ button next to the student’s guardian’s name
- Check desired guardians and click the ‘Remove’ button
You must consider that when you remove a guardian there are certain consequences. The guardian and the student that was assigned to will receive a confirmation email from Google Classroom explaining the situation. Additionally, the guardian will be removed from all the classes conducted by your school. The guardian will no longer receive any summaries, neither from your class nor from other classes.
However, if another teacher from your school invites the guardian into their class, the guardian will receive summaries again. Those summaries will also include information about their children’s progress in all the classes managed by your school G Suite administrator.