Many of our schools find that sharing classroom activity with parents fosters mutual understanding and grows Montessori families. However, only you can know the right level of transparency for your community.
We want to support your decision by making Transparent Classroom easy to configure. If you like, you can make presentations and child progress private and only use Transparent Classroom to share things like Photos, Forms, and Conference Reports with parents. In this article we'll show you how to:
How to Make Observations, Presentations, and Photos Private
Click on the lock icon to mark an observation as private. If the lock icon is closed the observation will be private (only the classroom teacher and school administrator will be able to see it), if it is open (unlocked) the observation will be visible to parents.
Unlocked (this child's parents would see this observation):
Locked (only the classroom teachers and school admins would see this observation):
To make all observations and presentations private by default, go to:
[Admin] > [School Settings] > [Parent Access] > for each classroom, check the box to give parents access. Unchecked boxes mean Activity will be private by default.
In this case, to share an observation or presentation with parents, you can click on the lock box to un-lock it. Photos, however, cannot be made private by default. You have to individually mark photos private on the Activity page, but untagged photos are never seen by parents.
Hiding the Child Progress Page
Parents love the child Progress page and tell us it gives them a better appreciation for the progression through a full 3-year cycle Montessori cycle. However, some schools are uncomfortable with parents being able to look at this at any time. To make this page private, go to:
[Admin] > [School Settings] > [Parent Access] > check the box to share the Progress page with parents. An unchecked box means parents with children in that classroom will not see their child's Progress page.
You can always share the Progress page for a short amount of time (during conferences) and then hide it again.
How to Make Past Records Private
Let us know! Email us to let us know you'd like all activity before the current date backdated to private for some or all of your classrooms (this can be done for all activity, only observations, only photos, or activity for certain classrooms).
Once you've customized what you share with parents, you're ready to check out our article about Adding + Onboarding Parents.
Questions?
As always, feel free to contact us by email at info@transparentclassroom.com, ok click [?] > [Ask], with any questions you may have. We look forward to hearing from you!
