What it is.

Google Workspace for Education is the school-only version of Google's suite — Classroom, Drive, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Gmail, Meet, the rest. Same apps a parent might use at work or home; different rules under the hood. Schools don't pay for the Education Fundamentals tier — Google provides it free to qualifying K-12 institutions. Monte runs Fundamentals.

You may have seen this called Google Apps for Education or GAFE. Google renamed it to Workspace for Education in February 2021. The name change didn't move anything; it just brought the school product in line with Google Workspace (the renamed G Suite). Same accounts, same apps, same data.

The apps your child uses.

These are all core services under Google's Workspace for Education contract — the same suite covers all of them under FERPA, COPPA, and Washington student-privacy law (more on that below).

  • Classroom
    Where assignments live. Teachers post, students turn in, parents see grades there if their teacher uses guardian summaries.
  • Drive
    Cloud storage. Every Google file your child works on lives here automatically.
  • Docs
    Word processing — papers, reports, journals.
  • Slides
    Presentations. Students collaborate on the same deck in real time.
  • Sheets
    Spreadsheets — math, data, simple budgets.
  • Forms
    Surveys and quizzes. Teachers send, students respond.
  • Meet
    Video calls. Used for snow-day check-ins, IEP meetings, after-school office hours.
  • Gmail
    Monte-account email. Students email teachers and (where allowed) classmates; not the same as a personal Gmail.
  • Calendar
    Class schedules, sports, club events. Sync to your phone if your child shares the calendar with you.
  • Sites
    Lightweight web pages — class pages, project portfolios, club hubs.
  • Vids
    Short video creation. Replaces a lot of what Slides used to be asked to do.
  • Chrome (signed-in)
    Bookmarks, history, and extensions follow your child between Chromebooks at school and a browser at home.

What's gone: Jamboard (the digital whiteboard) was discontinued December 31, 2024 — Google permanently deleted Jam files after that date. Classes that used Jamboard mostly moved to Slides or to FigJam (Figma is free for educators). What's newer: Vids (short video creation) and AI features like Gemini and NotebookLM. Whether Monte teachers turn AI tools on in a given class is a teacher-by-teacher choice — ask your child's teacher what's being used.

Logging in.

Your child's Monte account is issued by the district — students and staff each have their own account on the district's domain. The full account address is provided when the account is created. If you don't have it, email community@monteschools.org.

Sign in at accounts.google.com (opens in a new tab) from any browser. At school your child works on a Chromebook that signs them in automatically. At home they can use the same account from any device — phone, tablet, laptop, family desktop. The same login works in all three places.

Passwords.

We don't use Google's “Forgot password?” flow for student accounts — schools turn that off so a forgotten password can't accidentally route through a parent's personal Gmail. Password resets go through your child's building office — call or stop by, and the office will reset it (usually same day):

Staff who can't get in: contact your building admin or the District Office at (360) 249-3942.

Privacy — the actual posture.

Schools sometimes ask whether Google “reads” student email or “sells” student data. The answer is no, and the reasons are written into Google's Workspace for Education contract:

  • FERPA — School Official. Google operates as a School Official under FERPA when handling Workspace for Education data. Independent third-party audits (ISO/IEC 27701, 27001; SSAE 18 / ISAE 3402 Type II) back this up.
  • COPPA — for students under 13. Schools (not Google) are required to obtain parental consent for under-13 students. Monte acts as the parent/guardian agent under our board policy — you consent to a Monte Google account as part of registration. You can opt out at any time (see below).
  • Washington SUPER Act ( RCW 28A.604 (opens in a new tab)). Washington explicitly prohibits any school service provider from selling student personal information. Google is bound by this in our Workspace contract. Data may only be used for educational purposes the school authorizes.
  • No ads in core services. Google does not target ads to K-12 users in any of the core services (Classroom, Drive, Gmail, the rest), or in any other Google service accessed while signed into a Workspace for Education account.
  • 180-day deletion. When an account is deleted (graduation, withdrawal), customer data is permanently deleted from Google's systems within 180 days. There's no “the data follows them forever” story.

Verify directly: Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice (opens in a new tab) is the canonical source. Monte's contract sits on top of that — same baseline for every school that uses the product.

Account life cycle.

  • Kindergarten through 3rd grade: accounts are created with teacher sponsorship and a signed parent permission form. The Acceptable Use guidelines are age-appropriate at this level — assume staff-supervised use.
  • 4th grade through graduation: accounts are created when the student signs the Technology Acceptable Use Policy. Parents may opt out at any time. Note that opting out has academic implications — most assignments at the secondary level run through Classroom.
  • Leaving Monte (graduation, withdrawal, family move): the account is deprovisioned and data is deleted within 180 days. Before leaving, use Google Takeout (opens in a new tab) to download a copy of Drive, Docs, photos, and anything else worth keeping. Takeout is free, runs from any browser, and gives you a zip file. We'll remind graduating seniors during senior year, but the responsibility is yours — once the account is deleted the data is gone.

How parents see what their child is doing.

Most parents don't get a separate Google login at the school. The simplest, most reliable way to see your child's work is to sit with them and look at their screen. They can show you their Classroom assignments, their Drive, their Gmail; they'll learn faster how to use the tools by walking you through.

Google Classroom does have a feature called Guardian Email Summaries— weekly digests of your child's assignments and grades, sent to a parent email. This is enabled per-class by the teacher. Whether your child's teacher uses it varies; ask them directly, and if they'd like to set it up they can follow Google's setup steps (opens in a new tab).

For grades and attendance, the system you want is Skyward Family Access — separate from Google. Skyward is the district's Student Information System (SIS); Google Workspace is the productivity suite. Different logins, different jobs.

Acceptable Use — what students agree to.

The Technology Acceptable Use Policy spells out what counts as appropriate use of district devices and accounts. We require a signed AUP at registration each year (signed by parent for K-3, by student + parent for 4-12).

Two things parents sometimes want to know:

  • Filtering. Per CIPA (federal), we filter content on Monte devices and on the school network. The filter applies on Chromebooks at home too.
  • Account access by district staff. District administrators may, in accordance with board policy, access a student's account when there's a documented concern (safety, harassment investigation, suspected academic dishonesty). This is not routine — it's logged and authorized through the building administrator and Superintendent.

Opting out.

You can request that your child's Google Workspace account be removed or never created. Email community@monteschools.org with the student's name and grade, and we'll process the change. Heads up: most secondary classes route assignments through Classroom and Drive, so opting out can mean working off paper packets in classes that have moved fully online. Talk it through with the teacher first.

Questions?

Email community@monteschools.org or call the District Office at (360) 249-3942. If you reach a building (Beacon, Simpson, MJSHS) instead, the office can route to the right person.