Consent to use ClassDojo if your child is under 13 - COPPA:
ClassDojo follows the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and its implementing regulations under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (collectively “COPPA”) rules for parental consent. COPPA protects the online privacy of children under the age of 13 and requires ClassDojo to obtain parental consent or notice (as appropriate) prior (with limited exceptions) to the collection, use, and disclosure of that child's personal information. ClassDojo extends the U.S.-based COPPA consent protections in all jurisdictions, even if not legally required to do so to provide these privacy protective measures to children worldwide. If we rely on other legally applicable grounds for processing children’s personal information (e.g. if we rely on legitimate interest in the European Union and the United Kingdom when we act as a controller or if the controller (e.g. school) relies on a certain legally applicable grounds for processing children’s personal information) we will still use the FTC COPPA consent methods described to provide further transparency for parents.
School Use
Student Account set up by the School, District, or Teacher or Student with Class Code
Your child's school or teacher may wish for your child to use ClassDojo in connection with their classroom or school, including to use a feature of ClassDojo called Portfolios that allows students to post photos and videos of their classwork directly to ClassDojo; or for use of Dojo Islands at school (e.g. Class Islands), and may set up your child’s Student Account on their behalf in order to allow them to access the Service in school (or may give your child a unique code to set-up their own Student Account). If (i) your child’s school or teacher sets up their Student Account, or otherwise grants them access to use the Services at school, or (ii) has them set up their own Student Account, then your child's school or teacher may have elected to act as your agent and consented on your behalf directly, commonly referred to as "school consent." For more information on "school consent" under COPPA, please see the FTC's FAQ Section N as well as our FAQ for schools. Please contact your child's teacher if you have any additional questions. Please note that, in addition, we require your child’s teacher to represent to us that they have reviewed any content uploaded by a student while using their Student Account prior to the content being viewable by you on their portfolio. Once a post has been approved by the teacher, any subsequent replies or comments to that post by the student will then be added without approval by the teacher and also become visible to the parent.
Student Account set up by you as the parent or by your child without a unique code
Additionally, in limited circumstances, you may set up your child’s Student Account on ClassDojo. Due to the requirements of COPPA, ClassDojo requires parents (if they are setting up their child’s Student Account on ClassDojo) to give consent before the child can log in to their Student Account and further access and use ClassDojo (including to upload any content)*. If your child sets up their own Student Account in connection with classroom or school use and has not yet received a code from their teacher, they will set up their Student Account with a username and password. Consistent with the requirements of COPPA, we also ask for the child’s age, and if they are under 13, we will ask them for a parent or guardian email address or mobile telephone number so that we can seek parental consent. We will not use parent emails or mobile telephone numbers provided this way to market our Service to you, unless you have opted in to email or SMS marketing or have separately created an account on our Service. Students will have limited functionality within their Student Account until we receive your consent or they have connected to their classroom through the unique code provided by their teacher or school at which time the school is providing “school consent” by acting as the agent of the parent .
*Note, however, that your child's school or teacher may have elected to act as your agent and consented on your behalf directly, commonly referred to as "school consent." Any Student Account (or access to a Student Account) created for the student by the parent, or the student’s teacher in class, or the student directly, are linked together (these are not different accounts).
Outside School Use
Outside School Account set up by you as the parent or your child
If you are setting up your child’s Outside School Child Account or otherwise allowing your child to use or access ClassDojo outside of school not in connection with school use, or your child is setting up their own Outside School Child Account, ClassDojo obtains parental consent directly from the parent. If your child sets up their own Outside School Child Account in connection with using ClassDojo not connected to a school (e.g. for Home Islands), consistent with the requirements of COPPA, we will ask for the child’s age, and if they are under 13, we will ask them for a parent or guardian email address or mobile telephone number so that we can seek parental consent. We will not use parent emails or mobile telephone numbers provided this way to market our Service to you, unless you have opted in to email or SMS marketing or have separately created an account on our Service. Children will have limited functionality within their Outside School Child Account until we receive your consent.
Additionally, we may ask for your consent if “school consent” was previously relied upon and we are now using personal information obtained from your child outside of the school context (e.g. for a non-school or educational purpose).
Any Outside School Child Account will also be linked with the Student Account (if both exist), but only certain content will be viewable by the child’s teacher. Please see our FAQ for more details on what is viewable, as well as our FAQ on how accounts are linked and the limited information shared between them.
Consent for certain uses of Student Data outside of school - FERPA & State Student Privacy Laws
In addition, if your child is using certain features of ClassDojo (e.g. Home Islands, Dojo Tutor, or you or your child are using some of our Premium Features ), some of your child’s data, including what may be considered Student Data under various state student privacy laws or education records under FERPA, will be used and shared (with your permission) between in school and out of school use (not in connection with a school) to enable these features to work. For example, if your child is connected to a school, you as the parent can elect to have your child's data obtained from school use then used to fill in the child's name for the Outside School Child Account. Prior to this sharing, you, as the parent or guardian, will have consented to this use and sharing. See our FAQ for more details on what information is shared between Outside School Child Accounts and Student Accounts.
Additionally, you may choose to link your ClassDojo Services account with your Dojo Tutor account. If you sign up for Dojo Tutor using your ClassDojo account, ClassDojo may share and use your ClassDojo Services login credentials (e.g., ClassDojo email address, user name) and your child’s name (and possibly other limited fields of Student Data or personal information of the child that you allow) to pre-populate your Dojo Tutor profile. Additionally, certain Dojo Tutor tutoring information, such as tutor assessments, feedback, and other session information (e.g. session recordings) (“Dojo Tutor Information”) may be shared at your direction to your child’s teacher to the main ClassDojo Services (“Dojo Tutor Information Sharing”). When this Dojo Tutor Information Sharing occurs with the ClassDojo Services, a copy of the Dojo Tutor Information will be made to share. This is a copy of the assessment and only this copy will become Student Data once the teacher has elected to save and bring this information into either their account or the student’s Student Account in the main ClassDojo Services. While your child’s personal information (e.g. name) and tutoring information (e.g. tutoring assessments) will be linked and accessible in both your Dojo Tutor and ClassDojo Services accounts, your child’s Student Account information on ClassDojo will remain separate and viewable only through your ClassDojo Services login, ensuring that school information remains segregated and separate from non-school information. For more information, please see our FAQ.
We provide this disclosure to obtain your consent through the Direct Notice that is provided in connection with COPPA consent mentioned above. We have also obtained authorization through our Student Data Privacy Addendum and Terms of Service entered into with schools or districts to allow for this limited use and sharing of Student Data or education records. If your school or district has a custom Student Data Privacy Addendum that limits this sharing, we will also honor this. .
How does a parent consent?
When setting up your child’s account
In order to set up either your child’s Student Account or Outside School Child Account, you must first create a parent account on ClassDojo. In order to set up your child’s Student Account, you must also connect to your child’s class. Parents can also set up their parent account without connecting to their child’s class, but will not be connected to their child’s school (or any activity on their child’s account in school). After setting up your parent account, you can also create an Outside School Child Account for your child if you are using ClassDojo at home and not in connection with school use.
We will then ask you for your consent within your parent account in the ClassDojo mobile application or the ClassDojo website at the time you set up either of your child's accounts (e.g. Student Account or Outside School Child Account) - you will not have to leave your account to consent. You will be provided with two check boxes (one for COPPA and one for FERPA & State Student Privacy Laws). **Please note that you will only be giving consent once when setting up your child’s account (or allowing them access to the Service) and that this consent will also apply to any children that you subsequently allow future access to ClassDojo accounts or the Service after your consent.
You can see an example of this below:
What you are consenting to
COPPA
You are giving your consent for your child to use a ClassDojo Student Account and/or for the use of an Outside School Child Account (depending on how your child is using ClassDojo), including for ClassDojo's collection, use, and disclosure of your child's personal information as set forth in the Direct Notice either sent to you through email (if your child is setting up their own account) or shown to you within your parent account in the ClassDojo mobile application or on the ClassDojo website at the time you set up either of your child’s accounts (as demonstrated above).
Once we have obtained parental consent, the child’s account will be set up and accessible by toggling from the parent account or by accessing the child's individual QR code. Once the child is connected to a school, the parent may also access the Student Account through the Student Login Methods. Although not required under COPPA, we may choose to impose parental consent requirements on Student Accounts and Outside School Child Accounts 13 and above at our discretion.
FERPA & State Student Privacy Laws
If you check the second check box, you are giving your consent for the limited sharing and use of certain data elements between in school and out of school use (not in connection with a school) that may be considered Student Data under various state student privacy laws or education records under FERPA. This use and sharing is to enable certain features that you or your child may choose to utilize (including in connection with your child’s Outside School Child Account). See our FAQ for more details on what information is shared between Outside School Child Accounts and Student Accounts.
When your child sets up their Outside School Child Account
When a child wants to set up an account to use ClassDojo not connected to school use (e.g. in connection with Home Islands), consistent with the requirements of COPPA, we will ask for the child’s age, and if they are under 13, we will ask them for a parent or guardian email address or mobile telephone number so that we can seek parental consent. Note that we may decide not to ask for age and to impose parental consent requirements on all users if we have an account sign-up page for children that is targeted towards children. We will then send either an email or SMS to the email or mobile number provided by your child that contains a link that takes you to a page where you will first need to set up your parent account, then you will be provided the Direct Notice before we obtain your consent. *Note - the Direct Notice will not be in the text of the SMS or email itself. We require that you set up a parent account on ClassDojo prior to viewing the Direct Notice and providing your consent. Once you set up your parent account, you will then see the Direct Notice and can provide your consent. After providing your consent, you will then finish setting up your child’s profile. Your child’s Outside School Child Account will be connected to your parent account once you provide your consent.
**Please note that you will only be giving consent once when setting up your child’s account (or allowing them access to the Service) and that this consent will also apply to any children that you subsequently allow future access to ClassDojo accounts or the Service after your consent.
Page where your child provides your email or mobile number:
The URL linked in your email or SMS will then take you to a page to first set up your parent account. Next you will set up your child’s account, and then you will see the Direct Notice and consent flow.
The Direct Notice and Consent you will then see after setting up your child’s account
What you are consenting to
You are giving your consent for your child to use a ClassDojo Outside School Child Account, including for ClassDojo's collection, use, and disclosure of your child's personal information as set forth in the Direct Notice shown to you through the link sent to either your email or mobile number (as demonstrated above).
Once we have obtained parental consent, the child will be able to use their Outside School Child Account. Although not required under COPPA, we may choose to impose parental consent requirements on Student Accounts and Outside School Child Accounts 13 and above at our discretion.
When purchasing or electing to use ClassDojo Plus or Sparks
In order for you (or your child) to use certain features in ClassDojo Plus, or for you (or your child) to use Sparks, you must first provide consent. This is a separate and distinct consent from the consent described above that you provided while setting up your child’s initial account on ClassDojo. Not every parent will see this consent (e.g. if you never elect to use or purchase ClassDojo Plus or Sparks). We may also need your consent if this new feature you would like to use (or would like your child to use) in ClassDojo Plus involves using certain Student Data that was previously collected under “school consent” under COPPA from your child’s school or is being used in ways that are beyond that initially approved by the school or allowed under various state student privacy laws (unless additional parental consent is provided).
We will then ask you for your consent within your parent account in the ClassDojo mobile application or the ClassDojo website either at the time you purchase ClassDojo Plus or Sparks at the time that you utilize a feature within ClassDojo Plus that either utilizes Student Data or allows your child to use the feature. - you will not have to leave your account to consent. You will be provided with two check boxes (one for COPPA and one for FERPA & State Student Privacy Laws). You can see an example of this below:
Sparks
Plus
What you are consenting to
COPPA
When you purchase or otherwise use (or allow your child to use) ClassDojo Plus or Sparks , you are giving your consent for your child to use a certain additional features (beyond what you initially provided consent for) in connection with ClassDojo Plus or Sparks , including for ClassDojo's collection, use, and disclosure of your child's personal information as set forth in the Direct Notice either sent to you through email or shown to you within your parent account in the ClassDojo mobile application or on the ClassDojo website at the time you purchase ClassDojo Plus or Sparks (as demonstrated above).
Once we have obtained parental consent, you (and/or your child) will be able to access these additional features. Although not required under COPPA, we may choose to impose parental consent requirements on Student Accounts and Outside School Child Accounts 13 and above at our discretion.
FERPA & State Student Privacy Laws
If you check the second check box, you are giving your consent for the limited sharing and use of certain data elements between in school and out of school use (not in connection with a school) that may be considered Student Data under various state student privacy laws or education records under FERPA. This use and sharing is to enable certain features that you or your child may choose to utilize (including in connection with your child’s Outside School Child Account). See our FAQ for more details on what information is shared between Outside School Child Accounts and Student Accounts.
What consent mechanism does ClassDojo use?
Student Account and Outside School Child Account Creation by Parent
When you are setting up your child’s Student Account or Outside School Child Account, ClassDojo currently obtains verifiable parental consent through what is commonly referred to under COPPA as "email plus" consent (see FAQ I.4). You will receive a confirmation email from ClassDojo after you have given your consent through the method indicated above that will also contain a copy of the in product Direct Notice you reviewed. We have obtained approval from iKeepSafe to use this method of obtaining verifiable parental consent under COPPA. If we later seek to use a child’s personal information in a manner beyond those allowed in the “email plus” consent (e.g. for expanded use of Dojo Islands where children are interacting directly with other children and personal information is shared) we will also obtain your parental consent through using a heightened verification method to verify you are the child’s parent and then obtain any additional required consent.
Outside School Account Creation by Child
When your child wants to set up their Outside School Child Account, ClassDojo currently obtains verifiable parental consent through either 1) what is commonly referred to under COPPA as "email plus" consent (see FAQ I.4); or 2) through what was recently set forth in the new 2025 COPPA Rule as “text plus” consent. You will receive a confirmation email or SMS from ClassDojo after you have given your consent through the method indicated above that will also contain a copy of the Direct Notice you reviewed. We have obtained approval from iKeepSafe to use this method of obtaining verifiable parental consent under COPPA. If we later seek to use a child’s personal information in a manner beyond those allowed in the “email plus” or “text plus” consent (e.g. for expanded use of Dojo Islands where children are interacting directly with other children and personal information is shared) we will also obtain your parental consent through using a heightened verification method to verify you are the child’s parent and then obtain any additional required consent.
ClassDojo Plus and Sparks
If you purchased ClassDojo Plus or Sparks, we will seek to also obtain your parental consent through using a heightened verification method to verify you are the child’s parent. Using your payment method along with your Apple or Google biometrics - such as your fingerprint or FaceID - required by the applicable platform to make the purchase helps to verify and prove your identity. Note that ClassDojo does not collect or have access to either your credit card information or your biometrics. For a list of what we receive from your payment method, please see here. You will also receive a confirmation email from ClassDojo after you have given your consent confirming your consent. We have obtained approval from iKeepSafe to use this method as a heightened method of obtaining verifiable parental consent under COPPA.
This heightened verifiable parental consent is done to ensure that if “school consent” was previously used, we obtain your consent for the use of your child’s personal information outside of the school context. Additionally, some of the features that your child may use in ClassDojo Plus may mean that we can’t rely on the lower level of “verification” that you are the child’s parent when we initially obtained your consent through the “email plus” method at the time you created your child’s Student Account or Outside School Child Account.
An example of how we obtain this “heightened” level of verifying you are the parent and your consent is set forth above.
Home Island Guest Users
Guest child users that do not otherwise have a ClassDojo account in connection with either home or school use may also be invited by a current Home Island child user (e.g. via a QR Code) to enter Home Island (“Home Island Guest Users”). Home Island Guest Users will have limited functionality and ClassDojo will either (1) not collect any personal information from such Home Island Guest Users or (2) only collect limited device or other persistent identifiers (e.g. IP address ) that may be considered personal information (and not further collect any other personal information of the Home Island Guest User) solely for providing support for the internal operations (as that term is defined under COPPA) of Home Island (e.g. to authenticate the Home Island Guest User). Please see here for details on the limited non-personal information of Outside School Child Users that can be viewed by Home Island Guest Users that play Dojo Islands without logging in. ClassDojo will ensure that such persistent identifiers are not used for unauthorized purposes outside of support for the internal operations (as that term is defined under COPPA) through training, data access, and data segregation and storage.
Consistent with COPPA, ClassDojo does not obtain parental consent for Home Island Guest Users as ClassDojo will either (i) not collect any personal information from such Home Island Guest Users or (ii) only collect limited device or other persistent identifiers (e.g. IP address) that may be considered personal information under COPPA (and not further collect any other personal information) solely for providing support for the internal operations (as that term is defined under COPPA) of Home Island (e.g. internal analysis). ClassDojo will ensure that such persistent identifiers are not used for unauthorized purposes outside of support for the internal operations (as that term is defined under COPPA) through training, data access and data segregation and storage.
Resources for parents:
- Download a copy of the Direct Notice that ClassDojo provides to parents to review at the time ClassDojo directly obtains parental consent.
- We've made a child-friendly video for children that highlights the most important details in our Privacy Policy that they should know about.
- For more information about COPPA and generally protecting children's online privacy, please visit OnGuard Online.
- Answers to many top questions about privacy and security appear on the ClassDojo Privacy Center.
- This Privacy Policy describes how ClassDojo products and services collect and use information. As stated in this Privacy Policy, ClassDojo does not use any student personal information (or any information associated with a student account) to serve behaviorally-targeted advertising to students, and student’s personal information is never sold to anyone, including marketers and advertisers.
- We have also published a separate Children’s Privacy Policy which sets out information about ClassDojo’s processing of personal data in relation to users who are children. It is drafted using clear and plain language, and also includes “bite-sized” summaries of each section in different font to distinguish for the reader
- Please see this page where we provide further transparency and an easy way for users to see the personal information we collect from each user type, including the sources from which the information was collected, the business purpose for which the information was collected, and the third parties with whom we disclose personal information for a business purpose.