At ClassDojo, we believe it’s important for parents (which we’ll use in this article to include guardians) to understand how their children use ClassDojo in the classroom. This FAQ will help primary and secondary (K–12) schools that use ClassDojo communicate effectively with parents about their students’ use of ClassDojo.
Because school administrators can determine which services are available and the policies for each service, each school’s use of ClassDojo is different. Most schools have policies that govern the use of third-party services like ClassDojo, and compliance with annual notice requirements such as under the Family Educational Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) or equivalent laws in international jurisdictions. We believe that schools are in the best position to tailor the information they share with parents based on their school’s actual use of ClassDojo. In order to help inform parents of ClassDojo’s privacy and security practices, ClassDojo shares such information and resources, including a copy of the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and its implementing regulations under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (collectively “COPPA”) required Direct Notice, with teachers and school administrators. Teachers must work with their administrator to determine if they already have proper permission to allow their students to use ClassDojo in the classroom.
What permissions are needed in order for teachers to allow students to use ClassDojo?
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”) for parental consent, including, where applicable, the use of which is commonly referred to “school consent” if a school or teacher elects to utilize ClassDojo in the classroom. ClassDojo will provide all required notices and disclosures for schools to provide to parents when utilizing school consent.
For countries outside of the United States, when ClassDojo is used in the classroom, ClassDojo acts as a processor, as that term is defined in the relevant applicable data protection laws (such as GDPR, UK GDPR, etc.), to schools and processes personal information of children only on behalf of the school (the controller). Schools in different countries and communities have different regulations and approaches, and ClassDojo cannot advise you on compliance with the laws applicable to your school. You should obtain any parental consent that may be required by your school in a manner that complies with the laws of your jurisdiction. To help this, ClassDojo will provide notices and disclosures for schools to provide to parents or to use to develop their own notices. 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 when we act as a processor 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 and schools.
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. Due to the requirements of COPPA and similar to other cloud-based educational tools, ClassDojo requires that schools provide parental consent if they allow students under the age of 13 to access or use ClassDojo in connection with classroom or school use. Teachers may provide parental consent through "school consent" under COPPA, where teachers have certified that they are acting as the agent of the parent and consenting on the parent’s behalf for the student to use ClassDojo for educational purposes*. For clarity, it is ClassDojo’s obligation to comply with COPPA as a whole, we rely on schools to provide consent under COPPA by acting as the agent of the parent, but only after providing the school with the required notices set forth below. For more information on "school consent" under COPPA, please see the FTC's FAQ Section N as well as the FTC’s Policy Statement on Education Technology and COPPA.
ClassDojo obtains parental consent directly from a child’s parent if the parent (instead of the teacher) sets up their child’s student account, or if a student sets up his or her own student account and has not been given a unique code from their teacher. If a student creates his or her own student account on ClassDojo, after receiving a unique code from their teacher, the teacher or school is providing the consent to ClassDojo under “school consent” as mentioned above. Additionally, we obtain parental consent directly from a child’s parent for our Outside School Child Accounts. For more details on how we obtain parental consent directly from parents and what types of verifiable parental consent are used, please see our FAQ.
* ClassDojo must ensure that services made available to students when schools are providing parental consent using “school consent,” are used for educational purposes, and are used in compliance with applicable laws and regulations (including FERPA, the Children’s Internet Protection Act, and COPPA). Note that some of the restrictions on the use of students’ personal information for strictly educational purposes may not apply once ClassDojo additionally obtains verifiable consent directly from parents through the “email plus” or other approved methods described here.
How does a school provide consent?
When setting up your student’s accounts
Prior to allowing your students to access ClassDojo, you will be required to “agree” to act as the agent of the parent and consent on the parents' behalf under COPPA as mentioned above (“School Permission”). If a teacher creates a new class with new students, they will be prompted with a “just in time” consent confirmation when trying to access student login methods to confirm they are aware they are providing School Permission and acting as the agent of the parent - this is a per class-based
Permission. Teachers will additionally have a “just in time” permission shown again for expanded or sensitive feature use (and feature is not turned on by default). In addition, we obtain School Permission through our Terms of Service entered into by schools, districts, and their personnel (e.g. teachers, School Leaders, and Admins).
Note: If a student’s school or teacher elects to utilize Student Accounts in school or otherwise sets up a student’s account, the school will be responsible for obtaining any necessary parental consent (including if they choose to act as the agent of the parent and give consent on the parent’s behalf to create the Student Account on behalf of the student). ClassDojo provides the school with the required Direct Notice and all necessary privacy disclosures to give to parents at this time.
Teachers can only remove the permission they granted by writing to our Support Team.
You can see an example of this “just in time” notice below:
Resources for schools to share with parents:
Below are the resources that can be shared with parents, which explain ClassDojo’s services and our commitments to privacy and security. This information will help parents and schools to make informed choices about the technology their students use in the classroom.
- Download our COPPA “Direct Notice,” which ClassDojo provides to teachers to review through the “just in time” notice before allowing students access to ClassDojo. We also provide this Direct Notice within our Terms of Service. Please provide this Direct Notice to parents.
- 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 larger font, flagged via a blue information icon.
- 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.
- Please see our Schedule of Student Data (pages 7-10) that we also include with our Student Data Protection Addendum.
- We’ve also made a child-friendly video for students that highlights the most important details in our Privacy Policy that they should know about.
- Answers to many top questions about privacy and security appear on the ClassDojo Privacy Center.
- For more information about COPPA and generally protecting children's online privacy, please visit OnGuard Online.