Starting in March 2025, Google Workspace for Education will implement new privacy and access restrictions for some applications that impact students. This memo provides some context to these changes and how Framingham Public Schools is working to ensure minimal impact to student learning with this change.

The Framingham Public School district uses a variety of tools that help students access their learning. One of those tools is Google Suites. Google Suites includes many common productivity tools such as Google Email, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive. Google also has a few other products that they call secondary products or “Additional Google Services,” including such software as YouTube, Google Translate, and Google Photos, plus several other lesser-known products. 

In March of this year, Google will limit access to these secondary tools to children under 18 unless parents sign a permission form. Due to this recent change in Google’s access restrictions and the timeline for when it takes effect, student use of YouTube and Google Photos will no longer be accessible to students. We will share additional instructions and guides with educators to continue using YouTube videos to plan instruction and content delivery. Due to this short timeline and the disruption of service to student use of these products, we wanted to bring this to your awareness.  Please remember this does not include Email, Docs, Sheets, Slides or Drive. 

Translate.google.com will be unavailable, but Google Translate in documents and slides will not be impacted for students. Google Photos will be unavailable, but students can upload their photos to Google Drive. Google Maps will also be unavailable for students, but they can use maps.bing.com. Other secondary products are not widely used at Framingham Public Schools. 

The full list is here:

As these changes take effect, our staff will monitor any impact to student learning and make adjustments as needed.

Thank you, 

On Behalf of the Office of Teaching and Learning