Getting started as a teacher

Once an admin assigns you to a class, a Teaching link appears in the sidebar. It opens My classes, which lists the classes you teach this term in meeting order. A term selector lets you look back at earlier terms.

Click a class to open its page. The tabs along the top are Attendance, Roster, Gradebook, Assignments, and Files. It opens on Attendance.

The Attendance tab opens on today. Students you haven’t marked yet sit under Not yet marked.

To see or correct another day, use the arrows beside the date to move a day or a week at a time, or pick a date. Past days can be edited.

You can add a note on any student’s row, such as “With a parent in another class.” Only teachers and admins see these notes.

If your co-op uses absence notices, a student whose family has told you they’ll be out shows Reported out on their row, with the reason if the family gave one. Clicking that row marks them absent rather than present.

The Roster tab lists your students with their grade and any allergy or medical notes the family has added, along with each family’s contacts. Phone numbers and email addresses are links, so on a phone you can call or write in one tap.

Copy all copies names and contact details as a table you can paste into a spreadsheet. Download CSV saves the full roster, including allergies and medical notes, so treat that file with care. A class with more than six students also gets a box to filter by name.

On the Assignments tab, start a new assignment and choose how students will use it. You pick once, when you create it, and it can’t be switched afterward.

• Posted assignment: appears in family and student to-dos and alerts families. It has a title, optional instructions, and a due date.
• Gradebook only: for paper tests and in-class work. The score counts toward the grade, but nobody gets a to-do or an alert.

You can attach a file to an individual assignment, and families see it as a download next to that assignment. For how this looks from the family side, see the academic progress guide.

The Gradebook tab shows one row per student and one column per assignment. Type points earned into a cell and it saves as you go. To enter percentages, set the item to 100 points. A paper test can go straight in with Add gradebook item, without visiting the Assignments tab.

Categories

With no categories, a grade is simply total points. To weight work, add your own or choose Use standard categories, which starts you at Tests 40%, Quizzes 30%, and Homework 30%. You can edit those any time.

Excusing work and leaving feedback

Open a cell’s details to add a Feedback note or tick Exempt from grade. Exempt work is left out of the grade rather than counted as a zero. The student and their family can see the note, so write it for them. Parents see their own children’s grades on each student’s page.

Overriding a final grade

If a calculated grade isn’t what you intend to give, you can override it with a letter or a percentage. You have to give a reason, and you can remove the override later to return to the calculated grade.

Export CSV downloads the whole gradebook.

The Files tab is for material that applies to the whole class, like a syllabus or a reading list. Drop files in and click Upload. Each one can be up to 50 MB.

Families find them under Class files on the class’s own page, which they reach from My Classes. Every adult with their own login in a family with a student in the class gets a notification, and several files posted within a couple of hours are grouped into one.

The whole class

Click Message class at the end of the tab row. That opens one ongoing conversation holding you, any other teachers of the class, the parents of every enrolled student, and any student logins on the roster. It’s the same conversation every time, so a term’s supply lists and room changes stay in one place.

A reply goes to everyone in it. Only a teacher can start the conversation, and families on the waitlist aren’t in it. If some enrolled families haven’t set up a login yet, you’ll see a note saying how many, since those families need an email or a call instead.

One family

Send a direct message: click the message icon, start a new message, and pick the parent by name. Or use the email address or phone number on your roster. The messages guide covers attachments, reactions, and muting.

The whole co-op

A message to every family is an announcement, so ask an admin to send it from Admin › Communications.

Some tabs appear only if an admin has switched them on, so yours may have fewer than a colleague at another co-op. If you need one you don’t see, ask an admin.

• Settings: change your class’s description, icon, color, and supply list. The title, capacity, fee, room, and time stay with admins.
• Waitlist: see who’s waiting, longest wait first, and click Promote to move someone into an open seat. In a paid class this adds the fee to that family’s balance, so promote only when you mean to hold the seat for them.
• Updates: email the families in your class directly. See class updates.
• Substitutes: pick an upcoming class day and click Request a sub. An admin assigns someone and you get a notification with their name. Families never see the note you add.

If your co-op uses incident reports, you’ll also see an Incident Reports link at the top of My classes. If it uses Roll Call and lets teachers run it, Roll Call appears in your sidebar.

A class can have an assistant, a second adult in the room. The class still appears under My classes, labeled Assistant, with three tabs: Attendance, a read-only Roster with allergy and medical notes, and a view-only Files tab.

Grades, assignments, parent contact details, the roster download, and class messages stay with the teacher. If you need any of those, ask an admin to make you a teacher of the class rather than an assistant.

An Earnings button sits at the top of My classes. If your co-op tracks teacher pay in HomeschoolGo, the page shows your total earned, total paid out, and what’s outstanding. Below that is a line for each earning, with the class, date, amount, and whether it has been paid, and a table of the payouts you’ve received.

The page is read-only and shows only your own pay. Your co-op records payouts and decides when you get paid, so ask them about anything that looks wrong. If you only assist in classes and have never been paid, you won’t see the button.