Understanding Google Drive Sharing Rules for Students

Why Do We Have These Rules? 🛡️

To protect our students' privacy and data, we have set up specific sharing rules for all student Google accounts. These settings create a safer digital environment by preventing students from sending files to or receiving files from unapproved outside email addresses. This helps protect them from spam, phishing attempts, and inappropriate content.

How Sharing Works for Students

Here’s a simple breakdown of what these rules mean for sharing files in Google Drive, Docs, Slides, Sheets, and other Google apps.

Sharing Files From Your Student Account

• You CAN easily share files with anyone who has a district email address (@iusd.org), like other students and teachers.
• You CANNOT share files with personal email addresses, such as @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, or other accounts outside our district.
• If you try to share a file with an unapproved external email address, you will see a message letting you know that the district's policy prevents it.

Receiving Files From Others

• You CAN receive files from other students and staff within our school district.
• You CANNOT receive files directly from personal email addresses or unapproved domains. If someone from outside the district tries to share a file with you, they will be blocked, and you will not receive a notification.

What Are Approved (Allowlisted) Domains? ✅

In some special cases, the district approves certain outside organizations for collaboration. These are called "allowlisted" or "approved" domains. For example, we might approve a domain for a partner educational service (IPSF), a local community college (IVC) for dual enrollment programs, or neighboring school districts with which we partner.

Sharing with users from these approved domains works just like sharing with someone inside our district. 

What If I Need to Share a File for a School Project?

We understand that some school projects may require collaboration with people outside the district. If you have a legitimate educational reason to share a file with an external user, please follow these steps:

1. Talk to your teacher about the project and why you need to share it externally.  Staff members are able to share documents with external users, so they may be able to assist you by sharing the document on your behalf.
2. Your teacher will review the request and, if they approve, they will submit a request to the IT Department on your behalf to grant a temporary exception or add a domain to the approved list.
3. Please do not use personal accounts to work around these rules, as that would move your schoolwork outside of the district's secure environment.

For Parents & Guardians 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

These rules are in place to keep your child safe online. If you want to see your child's schoolwork, the best way is to ask them to log in to their school Google account on their device and show it to you directly.  They can download a copy to put on a USB drive if you'd like to save it elsewhere.  Alternatively, you can create a parent observer account in Canvas and stay up to date on the latest in their classroom.  Due to these security settings, they will not be able to share their work with your personal email address.

Additional Resources

For more general information on how to share files in Google Drive, please see Google's official support article.

• Google Help Center: Share files from Google Drive