This checklist assumes you’ve read the companion explainer, or at least the short version: a school account is often required, a private personal email can help but can’t override it, and the real leverage over what a school-required platform collects sits mostly with the district. This piece is about what’s actually in your hands today, while that larger conversation with your district plays out.

None of this requires technical expertise. It requires a few habits, repeated consistently. (The boxes below are just for your own tracking as you read — nothing is saved.)

1.Keep the school account for school only

• Use the school-issued account (Gmail, Google Workspace, or whatever platform your district uses) only for schoolwork, teacher communication, and required school platforms.
• Don’t use the school account to register for games, social media, streaming services, shopping, health apps, unrelated clubs, or personal communication.
• Avoid “Sign in with Google” (or “Sign in with school account”) on anything that isn’t actually required by the school. Each additional sign-in can disclose an account identifier and other approved information to another service, creating another relationship your family and district may later need to review.
• If your child already has personal accounts linked through the school login, check whether the service allows you to add a personal email or another sign-in method before disconnecting anything. Save important content first — account-transfer options vary, and changing the login can sometimes cause loss of access.

2.Give your child a separate personal identity for things your family chooses

• Set up an age-appropriate personal email account, using a parent-managed account where necessary and following the provider’s age and consent requirements. Use it for family-approved activities outside the school’s control.
• If you want a head start on this before your child is old enough to use email at all, a reservation-style service (like Proton’s Born Private program, described in the companion explainer) is one option, not an endorsement of any single company.
• For suitable one-off registrations, consider using a unique email alias for each service. That can help identify where an address was shared and lets you disable the alias later, but it does not automatically delete the service’s account or the information already collected.

3.Separate school and personal activity at the browser and device level

• Use separate browser profiles for school use and personal use on family-owned devices — many browsers support this natively and it takes a few minutes to set up.
• Separate profiles reduce accidental mixing of accounts and data on a family-owned device. They do not defeat school management, filtering, monitoring software, or device-level policies on a school-managed device — those can still apply to the device itself, regardless of profile or sign-in.
• Don’t sync personal passwords, browsing history, bookmarks, or private files into a browser profile or Chromebook that’s managed by the school.
• School management policies and installed monitoring or filtering software may continue to operate wherever the device is used. Connecting a school-managed device to home Wi-Fi does not make activity on that device private.
• Before accepting a request to “manage this browser,” or to install a school profile, certificate, extension, or device-management application on a family-owned device, ask what control it gives the district and how it can be removed later.

4.Don’t feed extra information into school-managed tools

• Only fill in form fields that are actually required. A field being present on a form doesn’t mean it’s mandatory.
• Be cautious about optional fields requesting a personal (non-school) email address, phone number, exact location, contacts, microphone access, photographs, or biometric information, or permission to use a child’s work to help train or improve an AI product. Some of these permissions may be appropriate for a particular assignment or safety purpose (a recorded language assignment, a media project, a field trip, an emergency contact), but they shouldn’t be requested by default. Ask why the information is needed, whether a less intrusive option exists, who receives it, and how long it will be kept.
• If a sign-up screen or consent form is confusing, don’t guess — forward it to the other parent/guardian or the school’s designated privacy contact before approving it.

5.Teach your child what a school account actually is — without alarming them

• Explain that a school account is closer to a work account than a private diary: activity on it may be accessible to authorized school personnel or processed by technology providers, depending on the tool, its settings, and district policy.
• Encourage your child to keep sensitive personal conversations, private photos, medical questions, and unrelated searches off the school account and school-managed device.
• Keep this matter-of-fact rather than frightening. The responsibility for fixing this belongs to adults, schools, and vendors — not to a child expected to interpret a privacy policy.

6.Do this periodically, not just once

• At the start of each school year, check what’s newly enabled on the school account and what apps have been connected to it since last year.
• When your child changes schools or graduates, ask what happens to their account and data — whether it’s deleted, archived, or transferred, and by when.
• Revisit consent forms you signed in prior years; permissions granted once (for a specific app, a photo release, a monitoring tool) don’t necessarily expire on their own.

7.Secure the personal account on its own terms

• Use a long, unique password for the personal account, ideally stored in a reputable password manager rather than reused from anywhere else — including the school account.
• Enable multifactor authentication or a passkey when the service and your child’s circumstances allow it.
• Make sure recovery information (a backup email or phone number) belongs to the family, not the school. Don’t use the school email address as the recovery address for a personal account you want to remain accessible after graduation — a child can otherwise lose access to both systems when the school later disables the account.

8.Keep a simple record as you go

• Save a screenshot or copy of important consent screens, privacy notices, and permission requests, along with the date approval was given. These screens can change over time, and having a record helps your family confirm later what was actually authorized.
• If you have an older child, ask them directly what apps they’re required to use and whether they’ve noticed new monitoring messages, permissions, AI features, or account prompts. Students often notice changes before parents receive any explanation.