Set up Classroom for your school

Classroom helps students and teachers organize assignments, boost collaboration, and foster better communication. If you have a Google Workspace administrator account, you can set up Classroom for your institution in your Admin console.

1. Turn on Classroom

Classroom is turned on by default. If Classroom was turned off, you can turn it back on.

1. In your Admin console, click AppsGoogle WorkspaceClassroom.
   • If you don’t see this option, click Additional AppsGoogle WorkspaceClassroom.
2. Click Edit ServiceOn for everyone.

2. Give access to teachers and students

When users sign in to Classroom for the first time, they identify as teachers or students. Users who identify as teachers are automatically added to your organization’s Classroom Teachers group. As a Google Workspace administrator, you verify that the correct users identified as teachers, and give them access to the Classroom features they need. Also, you set the teacher permissions for your domain.

1. In a browser window, open your organization’s Classroom Teachers group.
   • If you don’t see this group, you might need to turn on Groups for Business.
2. On the left, click MembersJoin requests.
3. Next to a user’s name, check the boxclick Approve applicant or Reject applicant.

Warning: To ensure that teachers can continue using Classroom, don't remove the Classroom Teachers group. If you remove it, an empty group is recreated, users have to reidentify, and you have to reverify teachers.

For more details, go to Verify teachers and set permissions.

Import an exiting list of teachers into Classroom

If you already have groups for all the teachers or staff in your domain, you can add those groups to the Classroom Teachers group. You can also add groups with a sync tool, such as Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS) or Google School Directory Sync (GSDS).

If you use GCDS or GSDS, you should also manually exclude the Classroom teachers group from any synchronizations.

Manage permissions for your teachers and students

Classroom uses organizational units to apply different settings to sets of users or Chrome devices. We recommend putting teachers and students in separate organizational units so you can grant certain permissions to teachers, such as starting a video meeting, and not to students.

Note: If you haven’t set up organizational units, all users are placed in the same organizational unit by default.

Control who can join classes

You can control who can join classes in your domain, and which classes they can join. You can also allow users to join classes from the domains that you trust, and allow teachers and students from different domains to share information.

1. In the Admin console, click AppsGoogle WorkspaceClassroom.
   • If you don’t see this option, click Additional AppsGoogle WorkspaceClassroom.
2. Click Class settings.
3. Under Who can join classes in your domain, choose an option:
   • Users in your domain only—Only users in your domain can join your domain's classes.
   • Users in whitelisted domains—Users from domains you allow can join your domain's classes.
     The administrator of a domain you whitelist has to whitelist your domain.
   • Any Google Workspace user—Any Google Workspace user who has Classroom can join your domain's classes.
   • Any user—Any Google Workspace user with access to Classroom or any personal Google Account user can join your domain's classes.
4. Click Save.

For more details, go to Configure class settings.

3. Turn on video meetings and other features

You can turn on additional features, such as class video meetings, email notifications, and guardian summaries, so teachers can use them in their classes. To prevent student misuse, we recommend you turn on video meeting creation privileges for teachers and staff only.

Allow Google Meet for class video meetings

1. In your Admin console, go to AppsGoogle WorkspaceGoogle Meet.
2. At the top, verify that Meet is ON for everyone (enabled for both staff and students). If it's not enabled, follow these steps: 
   1. Next to Service status, click the Down arrow  and select ON for everyone.
   2. Click Save.
3. Configure which users can start a video meeting and other settings:
   1. From the Admin console, go to AppsGoogle WorkspaceGoogle Meet.
   2. Click Meet settings.
   3. (Optional) To apply the setting to everyone, leave the top organizational unit selected.
   4. (Recommended) To assign meeting creation privileges to faculty and staff only, select a child organizational unit or a configuration group. If you use Classroom and have verified teachers, you can select your Classroom Teachers group.
   5. Next to Video calling, at the top right of the gray box, click Edit .
   6. Check the Let users place video and voice calls box.
   7. Click Save.

For more details, go to Set up Meet for distance learning.

Allow Classroom email notifications for teachers and students

You can allow teachers and students to receive Classroom email notifications, even if you don’t allow emails for your school or organization. Teachers can turn notifications on or off for their class. Email notifications include invitations to join classes and updates on classwork. 

For more details, go to Allow Classroom email notifications for teachers and students. 

Send parents or guardians their student’s performance summary

Guardians can keep track of their student’s classroom progress through guardian email summaries. The emails summarize information about the student’s classes and work. See an example of a guardian email summary.

As the Google Workspace administrator, you can allow guardian email summaries for your school or district, and let teachers invite or remove guardians.

1. In your Admin console, click AppsGoogle WorkspaceClassroom.
   • If you don’t see this option, click AppsAdditional Google servicesClassroom.
2. Click General settings.
3. Under Guardian access, click Allow parents and guardians to access Classroom information.

Note: If you allowed students in whitelisted domains to join classes in your domain, the whitelisted domains must also enable guardian email summaries. If email summaries are off, teachers can't invite guardians for students in that domain. Learn more about whitelisting a domain.

For more details, go to Manage guardians in your domain.

Train teachers to use Classroom

Google for Education provides teachers with the knowledge they need to be successful. Resources include:

• The Google for Education Teacher center
• Teach from Home
• Google for Education blog

Related articles

• Set up Meet for distance learning
• Google Workspace for Education Quickstart IT Setup Guide
• Provision Google Workspace for Education users