Our foremost concern is learner safety, and we approach this in several ways, as our safety policy describes. This article explains your responsibility for safety as a teacher at Outschool.
Teacher Responsibility for Safety
Regardless of your teaching topic or the age group you are working with, you are responsible for creating a safe online classroom environment. For this reason, teachers must teach all live classes on Zoom through the Outschool platform; classes should never be held using a personal Zoom code or other conferencing sites.
While parents (or legal guardians) are responsible for supervising their kids, we expect that you teach your classes in a way that encourages physical safety, mental well-being, and online privacy for all students. Poor judgment on safety and privacy can result in teacher restriction and removal.
Classroom Safety Basics
As the teacher, you must always be present and supervise your meeting. Do not leave learners alone or assign a student to be an administrator in your absence; please ensure you can be on your computer for the entire time Zoom is open and your live class is running.
Teachers must have cameras on, and their faces must always be identifiable while teaching a live class.
Before running your first class, please be fluent in the essential Zoom features you'll use to manage your classroom and respond quickly if safety or behavior problems arise.
Only children 3-18 may take Outschool classes. No one outside these age ranges should be allowed in class unless a teacher can verify their identity and child status at the start of every class. If a learner is not a child between those ages, please remove them from the classroom using the "block" button, which will immediately notify the Trust & Safety of an adult intruder; that user will be blocked from all classes until Trust & Safety investigates your report.
The same caution should be taken in correspondence with individuals who identify as adults without active learners in private messaging; this concerning behavior should immediately be reported to the Trust & Safety team so the adult can be educated and removed from the platform as necessary. In all adult (or underage learners) cases, be confident that T&S will investigate and take care of any negative repercussions when you enforce policy and immediately report a violation. Failure to remove adults from class (or to report suspicious behaviors by obvious adults on the platform) is considered non-adherence to Outschool Safety Standards.
To ensure you're admitting the learner who signed up for the class, you'll need to look at the learners' names as shown in your Zoom waiting room and cross-check them against their names on your classroom roster. That also means that you individually check each learner into class and NEVER “admit all” learners at once (do not hit the "Admit All" button). If the waiting room names do not reasonably match the roster names of the parent / legal guardian or learner, please use your one-way communication to ask them to change the name to the enrolled name. If you are confident that the parent’s name reasonably matches and admit/verify the child, you should update the name on Zoom so other participants can see the child’s name correctly. If, after staying in the waiting room, the listed name still does not match either the parent or child, please follow the protocols below:
(1) Explain the policy in the waiting room chat and tell the unknown learner that names must match their registration.
(2) Explain that you will check back shortly.
(3) If names still don't match, explain that you cannot admit them and will follow up after class.
(4) Report the situation to safety@outschool.com.
In summary, do not allow unknown individuals, unregistered persons, or adult learners into class. This jeopardizes the safety of your classroom. Never share the names of other learners or their parents / legal guardians when attempting to verify, as that information could be used to spoof admittance into the classroom.
Ensure that all learners have video enabled, or if they don’t, that you've interacted with them over video at the beginning of each and every class to verify their identity. Verifying them can be a quick check-in at the beginning of each class meeting, and you must be able to clearly see the learner’s full face to confirm that they are a child. Voice recognition is insufficient and cannot be used instead of live camera verification. We encourage learners to enable audio/video throughout the class to create a more social experience for all learners; however, cameras off (after check-in) are not required (some learners feel safer with video off) unless specially included in your class description before enrollment. If a learner enters your classroom and they are unable or unwilling to enable their video, please take the following steps:
Gently explain our Learner Safety policy.
Please place them in the waiting room, where you can check back on them in a few minutes.
Tell them you’ll follow up after class if they cannot turn on the camera in the waiting room after some time.
Report this situation to support@outschool.com.
Finally, all learners must be children between 3 and 18. Any adults trying to attend class as students or who contact you through the Outschool platform should immediately be reported to Trust & Safety.
Parents can listen to class at a “reasonable distance” from their learner (generally off camera except for tech help or extenuating family circumstances) or watch the recording later. Parents should be mindful that their learner is a participant and thus not actively engaged in the classroom as a student themselves.
Remember, it is against Outschool’s policies for a parent to listen in or watch class from a separate device. Teachers should not allow a second device login and should exercise caution when admitting a second device from a single learner.
If a safety-related incident occurs during one of your classes or you notice suspicious activity, you should contact Outschool Safety immediately to let us know at safety@outschool.com.
Please note that Outschool Trust and Safety will never attempt to "check-in" from the waiting room. If Outschool staff ever needs to enter your classroom due to an emergency, we have overall administrative privileges to access your class directly (though we will always announce ourselves to you when we arrive). Never admit someone from the waiting room who claims or pretends to be Outschool staff; report those situations immediately to Outschool.
Camera Policy:
All learners must be visually checked into class on camera (or with a green check) in each and every class. However, some learners may turn their cameras off once checked in. Although Outschool does not require cameras to be on past check-in, we encourage all learners to engage with their teachers and classmates by enabling their video for a quality experience. While many learners may feel more comfortable with their cameras off, Outschool allows teachers to make classroom rules. In some instances, teachers may require cameras to be enabled (for example, for academic needs, teacher preferences, or safety purposes). If a teacher does want to require a mandated camera policy for a specific class, it must be clearly listed in the class description and welcome message. If a teacher's camera preference mandate is not explicitly mentioned in a class description, learners may turn off their cameras once they check into class.
Safe Curricula:
If your lesson requires the learners to use any materials that could be potentially dangerous, such as sharp objects in a cooking class, make sure you designate time at the beginning of class to discuss the proper way to use/handle these materials. If your class involves a discussion on a topic, such as how to cope with anxiety, that may trigger more serious emotional responses; you should first make sure that your learners are equipped with the right skill set to participate in these conversations. To set the right expectations for prospective parents / legal guardians, you should also include this specific information or warning in the parental guidance section of the class listing.
Sensitive topics and zero tolerance for inappropriate classroom behaviors, materials, substances, weapons, etc.:
For teachers offering classes on any sensitive topic, as defined in our class content policy, you should take extra measures to ensure your learners ' safety. Outschool has a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech, displays of threatening behavior with weapons, or use of alcohol/restricted drugs/tobacco products by teachers or learners during an Outschool class. Alcohol, tobacco, drugs of any kind, firearms, and pornographic materials should never be used or promoted in a classroom and are subject to immediate removal from the platform. Even discussions of such topics or approved use of knives (like in a cooking class) or chemicals (like in a science class), mature reading materials, or discussion topics should be fully disclosed in a parental guidance section of a class description. We also encourage you to take the time to anticipate potential issues that may arise proactively. This could range from emotionally difficult topics you might discuss as a part of the lesson to follow-up questions your learners may have.
Counseling is not allowed on Outschool. To ensure learner safety, discussions related to personal mental health issues - like depression, suicide, or abuse - are not permitted on our platform. If a learner initiates a conversation about a sensitive topic, please gently explain that Outschool classes are inappropriate for these discussions and redirect your learners to a new topic. You should also follow up with the parents/legal guardians as needed. If you think the matter requires more attention, please email safety@outschool.com so our team can document the incident and provide insights into how to manage the situation.
Learner Behavior Issues:
You may encounter situations where a learner’s behavior merits special attention as a teacher. Perhaps it’s a learner who appears to be a bully (or be bullied), misbehaves, or suggests trouble at home. It’s your responsibility to address learner behavior as part of classroom management and to ensure a safe and welcoming environment for all learners.
If a learner is being disruptive and unable to adhere to the Learner Code of Conduct, we recommend the following:
Muting the learner and providing a verbal warning
Moving the learner to the waiting room for persistent behavior – Please note that there is only one-way communication in the waiting room (you can message the learner, but they cannot reply)
Sending a message to the parent about their learner’s behavior – You can reach the parent directly by navigating to the learners' tab of the class and selecting the parent conversations.
Remember, a teacher should only withdraw a learner with guidance from the appropriate Outschool team. Outschool always asks that you first address the problem with the parent in writing. Once that has happened, you may contact the support team to discuss and document the situation while explaining the measures you've already taken to mitigate the problem with the learner and parents.
Please share any concerning incidents with Outschool support so we can work with you to resolve them. This may involve asking you to contact the learner’s parents or legal guardians again and advising you on how to proceed.
Emergency Situations and a "Responsibility to Report":
Outschool cares about the safety and well-being of its minor learners, so all teachers and staff must notify Outschool Trust & Safety about any dangerous or life-threatening situations involving a child's immediate well-being, such as a medical emergency on camera, a fire at home, a household intruder, a dog attack, or a child alone in a hot car, etc.. If you think a learner may be in immediate physical danger, you should encourage the learner to call 911 and notify our safety team.
Other, more sensitive instances of dangerous situations may include when an instructor sees evidence of or hears a learner describe abuse or neglect. All Outschool teachers are considered mandatory reporters and may be required to share their concerns with law enforcement or social service agencies as needed; in such cases, teachers should reach out immediately to Outschool Trust & Safety to discuss the next steps in the reporting process.
Likewise, Outschool asks that its teachers also inform our Trust & Safety team about any learner talk involving self-harm, suicidal ideation, dangerous behaviors, or acts of aggression/violence towards others.
In these cases, timeliness is critical in protecting a child. While Outschool itself is a voluntary reporter, it requires all teachers to report concerns about what was witnessed to our safety team (safetyemergency@outschool.com) immediately so that proper intervention can be made. Depending on your geographic location, a teacher may also be responsible for reporting abuse or neglect to their local authorities or child protective services. While abuse or neglect can be hard to define, you should immediately report any time a learner expresses that they believe they are in danger or describes having experienced something more than acceptable physical discipline.
For additional information regarding what may constitute abuse or neglect, please refer to https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/can/defining/.
For additional information on differentiating abuse and discipline, please refer to https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/can/defining/disc-abuse/#discipline.
Please look at this mandated reporter site for U.S. teachers to see if you must comply with your state's mandatory reporting requirements.
For our teachers abroad, please be mindful that your jurisdictions, including Australia, Canada, and Southeast Asia, may also have mandatory reporting laws that apply to you when working with Outschool.
Because of the unique nature of online learning, you must report a situation to Outschool Trust & Safety, who will then help determine what action, if any, needs to be taken and by whom. While it may seem challenging to report a "virtual-learner" issue, the Trust & Safety team will work with you to evaluate the situation and gather necessary details and information to assist you as you fulfill your reporting duty; together, we will work through the best way to address the problem and share essential information that will be needed for intervention.
Securing Your Account to Avoid Compromising Situations:
As an Outschool teacher, you are also responsible for maintaining learner privacy on and offline by keeping your account private and secure.
Teachers' electronics should be secured, and all information about learners (or links to classrooms) should be guarded. Teachers should not share passwords to their Outschool account with anyone; if a teacher has children on their account, they should set up learner logins so that the teacher’s children can sign in directly to their learner account. Your teaching account or information about learners (or their families) should never be accessed by anyone other than you. Individual teachers may not share any account or learner information with family members, friends, or virtual assistants to protect privacy. As a teacher, you are responsible for the security of your account and should follow best practices in setting up passwords and regularly monitoring your account for any irregularities; if you feel that your account may have been compromised in any way, please reset your password and contact safety@outschool.com. Failure to report issues promptly could result in a temporary suspension or cause a hold of payments, so it is important to report problems immediately.
Virtual Assistants:
Virtual assistants are only permitted at Outschool for Organizations as outlined in contracts. Anyone other than an approved VA or organization teacher/approved admin owner is prohibited from accessing an ORG account. Before being granted access to the account, all virtual assistants/individuals must be thoroughly vetted and approved as "teachers" (having fully passed all background checks/IDV and training). Failure to follow this protocol could result in restriction or removal from the platform.
Protecting Learner Privacy & Personal Information:
A teacher should never reveal or encourage learners to reveal personal information about an individual or a learner’s family. Personal information can include but is not limited to, a learner’s full name, birthdate, personal email address, address, phone number, social media accounts, or gamer handles. Asking learners to share their location at the country or state level is OK, provided you give them an option not to share if they prefer not to.
In addition to not sharing personal information about your learners, you should not share private information about your classes outside the platform or combine classes at Outschool with another forum. This includes student voices (audio), using students' first or last names, or showing student faces. For example, you shouldn’t share names, photos, or videos of you interacting with your learners on your social media pages or other media.
If you want to share any completed learner work, such as a learner essay or art project, you must first obtain permission from your parent / legal guardian and realize they may choose to rescind permissions at any time. Outschool learners’ identities should be protected and never shared/mentioned outside those Outschool classes.
Since classes are recorded, protecting learner privacy on the screen is also essential. You may never download, upload, or store video of your class for any reason. You may only share videos with families in the class (or in an Organization, your staff teachers, or approved administrators). While the release of the class videos is always at a teacher’s discretion, you should be mindful of releasing the videos to unverified learners (please get in touch with support@outschool.com to help with verification questions).
In cases where learners have revealed personal information or otherwise breached their privacy on camera (examples: exposure or sharing of Personal Information by wearing a school logo or providing their date of birth), you should turn off their camera or mute so that other learners do not capture it. You can then send the learner a private chat through Zoom to let them know what was "caught on camera" without disrupting the class further. For more information on how to do this, please visit our Zoom Features for Teachers article. After class, please hide the video for privacy reasons as needed. Then, please contact the parent / legal guardian of the learner in question and contact support so that our Trust & Safety Team can remove the video. In cases where learner privacy is compromised, Outschool may delete a recording.
Sharing of Personal Information & Exchanging Contact Information:
You must keep all communication on Outschool. That means never sharing your personal contact information with parents / legal guardians or learners.
In addition to maintaining all communications on our platform, Outschool prohibits teachers and parents/families from meeting in person unless at an Outschool-sponsored event.
Learners may want to keep in touch with their classmates after their classes end and may ask to exchange contact information on Zoom chat or the Classroom page. Parents must always know about this and grant those permissions. If learners ask to stay in touch after class, please tell the child their parents/legal guardians can message each other directly from the enrolled view on the Classroom page. They can see how to do so by reading our help center article How to use Outschool. We ask that parents / legal guardians initiate those communications rather than learners to protect learner privacy and to ensure they have a safe experience with parental consent. If not, you can always contact support@outschool.com for help with these requests.
If you need certain contact information to send supplies or kits, help learners with recommendations, etc., please read the following article about sharing information for Educational purposes and follow those protocols. Teachers may be allowed to share some personal details in those specific circumstances (for educational purposes only) if done in context, as evidenced by an on-platform conversation with parents. Other exceptions may be made to support@outschool.com on a case-by-case basis for consideration by the Trust & Safety Team.
Parent Involvement in Outschool Classes:
To safeguard children and maintain privacy in group classes, parents are asked to stay reasonably off-camera and are not allowed to participate actively in classes. If a parent or sibling disrupts class, teachers may turn off and/or mute the learner's camera and privately message the family. Most discussions between parents and teachers should be conducted through the Parent Conversation Tab.
However, privately, in 1-on-1 tutoring classes, parents (always at a teacher's discretion) may "meet" with a teacher to discuss their learner's logistical needs, progress, and educational plans. Outschool reminds educators and parents that these discussions must be child-centered and that these sessions are recorded for safety purposes; no exchange of personal information should ever be shared to maintain privacy and professional boundaries. Adherence to all Outschool safety and privacy policies is expected, as any violations of those protocols will be enforced.
Gaming Platforms:
Outschool is proud to offer classes that allow learners to connect on their favorite gaming platforms. Private servers are essential for teachers to help keep our learners safe while enjoying their online gameplay, and gamer tags may be necessary to join those private servers. Gameplay is not to be held on public servers. Because gamer tags qualify as personal information, we ask that our educators comply with our guidance when collecting this information from learners. Here are the best practices that we ask our educators to use when eliciting personal data from learners:
You must explicitly note that gamer tags will be required in the class listing.
Direct learners or parents / legal guardians to privately message you about gamer tags rather than publicly posting them on the classroom page. This will uphold learners’ privacy and minimize personal information sharing.
Actively monitor the classroom page to ensure that learners do not post their tags there, and delete them if a learner does not comply with these guidelines.
Your private servers can only be opened during class time. Never leave learners alone or unsupervised in a server. Educators who open their servers to learners outside of class hours may be subject to immediate suspension.
Zoom Links:
Teachers may never send Zoom links to parents or learners regardless if it is via Outschool messaging (neither the Conversations tab nor the Learners tab in the classroom), as all class meetings should begin with the green Start Live Meeting button from the teacher’s end for safety reasons. Sending Zoom links via Outschool messaging (even to help a learner access class) violates the Outschool policy and could result in removal from the Outschool platform.
Online tools and Third-Party sites:
When choosing other third-party tools to help run your class, please consider their approach to learner privacy and safety. If you would like to use another site that requires signing up for a new account, go through the complete sign-up process to determine if that site has any age restrictions. If there is a minimum age requirement, do not encourage learners to lie about their age, which is a type of deception that could result in removal. You should instead be able to disclose this in the parental guidance section of your class listing and explain that the parents / legal guardians themselves will need to create an account with their learners. Please also check what Third Party Tools are available to learners, primarily if your class is geared toward learners under 13.
Substitutes, Guest Speakers and Co-teachers:
We only allow substitute teachers if you teach with an organization on Outschool. Otherwise, we do not allow for substitutes of any kind, regardless of whether or not the individual is an approved Outschool educator. We understand that unexpected emergencies or illnesses may occasionally arise at the last minute, preventing you from teaching your class. When this happens, you should cancel the meeting and communicate with the parents / legal guardians to arrange a make-up session or issue a refund. The Outschool support team is happy to help when things happen.
If you would like to bring a guest speaker to help enhance your lesson, you are welcome to do so! For security reasons, only one guest speaker is permitted per class meeting, and all guests must be adults known to the educator. This individual does not need to be an approved Outschool teacher, but we require that you, as the instructor, are present at all times and that parents / legal guardians are notified of the guest beforehand. If you aren’t sure about a specific situation, contact our support team so we can help you navigate it. After the guest speaker has attended class, you must contact safety@outschool.com so that any Zoom links can be immediately reset to safeguard your classroom.
Removal of Adult or Overage Learners (Immediate Account Block):
As a final reminder, all learners must be children between the ages of 3-18, and any adults trying to attend class as students and/or who contact you through the Outschool platform should immediately be reported to Trust & Safety (safety@outschool.com) after you utilize the Block Learner button from the learner's Manage Enrollment pop-up.
To avoid dangerous situations escalating, should an adult intruder enter your classroom with any malintended purpose by posing as a child during check-in, please remove them and immediately block that poseur. Immediately mail our emergency address with details, including the section link, time, and details about what happened. This button will immediately block the learner in question from all classrooms and sending emails within the Outschool system, so please utilize it only in cases of adults.
Removing Spam & Unsolicited Emails
To maintain the integrity of Outschool’s messaging system, teachers can block outside senders suspected to be “spammers” or innocuous solicitations. This feature is only intended to hide unwanted mass emails from a teacher’s inbox and not to be used to stop active learner families from enrolling in a class; intentional abuse of this feature to control enrollment by teachers could result in a warning. As always, teachers should bring any more serious concerns of suspicious behavior, harassment, or fraud sent to them through our messaging system to safety@outschool.com.
Teachers can mark messages as spam to remove them from their Conversations inbox. Open the message and click the warning icon at the top right to mark it as spam. You'll stop receiving messages from the sender, and Trust & Safety will review their account.
If you start the conversation thread with the sender, you won't be able to mark their message as spam.
If you incorrectly mark a sender's message as spam, you can unmark it. From the Spam messages view, select the message and click the warning icon. Their message will return to your main conversations inbox so you can receive their messages again.
Contacting Outschool Trust & Safety:
Outschool Trust & Safety Team works to keep our learners, families, educators, staff, and platform assets safe. A dedicated team of professionals is available to help you with your worries. For most questions, our online chat can direct you to helpful articles.
If you are still looking for the answers, you will be directed to an agent who will help route your ticket correctly; this is the fastest and most efficient way to reach a team member. If you’d prefer email, please visit Outschool Support's contact information page here.
If you have questions about routine safety issues, you can contact support@outschool.com. These will be triaged and answered within 2-3 business days. Sending direct messages to safety that are not "safety-related" could result in your ticket being misrouted and delayed, so always send non-safety-related issues to support@outschool.com.
Our Emergency Safety email should be used to report life-threatening or dangerous situations (those involving the immediate physical safety or well-being of a child or teacher in a classroom). Remember, this is like a fire alarm, so other non-emergency situations should be sent to Outschool Support instead. Abuse of this email could result in a warning or even removal from the platform.
As a reminder, SafetyEmergency@outschool.com should only be used in cases needing more immediate and time-sensitive intervention, such as self-harm, abuse, suicidal ideation, stalking, credible threats to harm others, witness of drug abuse/alcohol, child home alone, child with a dangerous weapon that could injure, action needed for a life-threatening medical emergency, etc.
Other resources
Parents and learners also have a role to play in learner privacy and safety. See this article for resources that provide more education on this topic: