Google Classroom: Set up guardian email summaries

You can invite guardians to receive automatic email summaries of their student’s progress. You choose which classes to include in the summaries. You can only add guardians for students using Classroom.

Note: Due to privacy laws, parents and guardians can't access Classroom or student assignments. They can get email summaries if the teacher allows it. For details, go to About guardian email summaries.

Add, remove, or email guardians

Turn guardian summaries on or off

Go to classroom.google.com.

  1. Click the class > Settings .
  2. Under General, click the switch On  or Off .

If you don't want to turn on summaries for all your current classes and classes you create going forward, uncheck the Add all the classes you teach to guardian email summaries box.

Note: If you turn summaries on for all classes, it doesn't affect any classes where you previously turned off summaries.

Click Add Class.

At the top, click Save.

Invite a guardian

Only one teacher or admin needs to invite the guardian. When a guardian accepts the invitation, they are linked to the student in all of their classes. All verified teachers and admins can see the student’s guardian.

If you can’t invite or remove a guardian, contact your admin for help.

Go to classroom.google.com.

  1. Click the class > People.
  2. Next to a student’s name, click Invite guardians.
  3. Enter the guardian’s email address. To invite multiple guardians, insert a comma between the email addresses.
  4. Click Invite.

Until the guardian accepts the invitation, you see (Invited) next to the guardian's email address. After a guardian accepts the invitation, you’ll see the guardian’s name next to the student’s name on the People page. The student also gets a confirmation email. For privacy, students don’t see the names of other students’ guardians.

Remove a guardian

Warning: This action removes the guardian from all of the student’s classes at your school, not just the classes that you teach. If guardians don’t want to receive email summaries, they can unsubscribe instead.

Go to classroom.google.com.

  1. Click the class > People.
  2. Next to the student’s guardian’s name, click More :> Remove guardians.
  3. Check the boxes next to the guardians that you want to remove > click Remove.

You, the removed guardian, and the student get a confirmation email when you remove a guardian.

Email guardians

If a guardian accepts your invitation for automatic email summaries, you can also directly email them.

Go to classroom.google.com.

Click the class > People.

Choose an option:

  1. To email one student’s guardians, next to the student's name, click More :> Email guardians. An email window opens with the email addresses populated in the To field.  
  2. To email all guardians in a class, at the top, click Email All Guardians.
  3. Enter a subject and your message > click Send.