YouTube Permissions for Students

Rhianon Gutierrez Updated by Rhianon Gutierrez

YouTube Access

BPS staff will have access to YouTube and YouTube Shorts and should use professional judgment when watching or sharing videos. All staff and students must follow the BPS Acceptable Use Policy for technology.

By default, BPS students at the elementary school level will have limited access to YouTube. Some videos and channels that are not already labeled as educational must be pre-approved by a teacher before they can view them.
If a teacher feels that too many videos are blocked or not enough videos are being blocked, they should discuss this with their school leader who can then open a ticket with the Office of Technology by emailing itsupport@bostonpublicschools.org with their request.

Approving Videos for Student Use

Student View for Unapproved Video

When students click on a video that is not approved, they will see the notice below.

Teacher View

Classroom teachers and school leaders can approve YouTube videos for student use by clicking on the "Approve" button under the video. Once approved, the video will be accessible to all BPS students.

YouTube Shorts

YouTube Shorts (youtube.com/shorts) features TikTok-style short videos that can be endlessly scrolled.

YouTube Shorts is blocked on all BPS student Chromebooks and on the BPS network for student accounts across all grades.

Limiting YouTube Use During Individual Classes

If teachers wish to limit overall YouTube use during instructional time, we recommend using Scenes in GoGuardian, a Chromebook management tool available in Clever. For more information, please refer to our GoGuardian HelpDoc.

How did we do?

Troubleshooting Aspen-Google Classroom Sync Issues

Contact