Messaging students

What it is

Student messaging lets a teacher or admin send a private message to a student, in a one-to-one or group conversation, through the same Messages inbox the rest of the co-op uses. It only reaches students who already have their own sign-in, so it builds on student sign-ins. Students without a sign-in are not affected.

Turning it on

An owner or admin turns it on for the whole co-op. It is off by default.

Turning it off again stops new students from being added to conversations. A student can't reply while it is off, and the Messages page on their sign-in says messages aren't turned on for them.

Who can message whom

• Admins (owners and admins) can message any student who has a sign-in.
• Teachers can message students who are enrolled in a class they lead. Only a class's lead teacher counts, and only for students currently enrolled in it. A teacher can't message a student from another teacher's class.
• Parents can turn messaging off for one child (see below). A child with messaging turned off can't be added to a conversation.
• Students can't start a conversation with anyone.

Starting a conversation

Teachers and admins start a conversation the usual way, from Messages with a new message. The recipient picker lists the students you are allowed to message, alongside other members. A student you aren't allowed to message is not listed. If you add several students, or students and other adults, the conversation is a group conversation.

To reach every student in a class at once, the class's teacher or an admin can also open the class and use Message class. Students with a sign-in see that under Notifications and can reply there.

How parents are included

When a conversation includes a student, the student's parents are added to it automatically. This applies to every student in the conversation: with students from two families, the adults from both families are added. Only adults with an active membership in your co-op are added.

Parents read and reply to the conversation like anyone else, and the student sees their names in it. The student's Messages page tells them their parents can see these conversations.

To turn messaging off for one child, a parent opens the student's card in My Students, chooses Manage, and then Turn off messages. The same button turns it back on.

What students can and can't do

A student finds their conversations under Messages on their sign-in. They can:

• Read a conversation a teacher or admin started with them.
• Reply to it with text. The reply box checks for new messages every 20 seconds while the page is open.
• Reply in their class's Message class conversation.

They can't:

• Start a conversation, with a teacher, a classmate, or anyone else.
• Send files. Replies are text only.
• Reply if messaging is off for the co-op or for that student.

What admins can do

An owner or admin who is part of a conversation that includes a student, or a class thread, can remove a message the student sent. The message is replaced by a deleted placeholder and any files on it are dropped. This is the same result as the student deleting their own message.

Where notifications go

A new message adds a “New message from” entry to the notification feed of every other person in the conversation, with a short preview. That includes the student and their parents. Students see theirs under Notifications on their sign-in, and the Messages page marks conversations they haven't opened. Someone who has muted a conversation doesn't get these entries.