🙋 The waiting room: approving who gets in

Before anyone can say a word in your class, they pass through the waiting room. This page covers who waits, what you see in the approval box, and what Accept and Decline actually do.

New students always wait

Every first-time joiner lands in the waiting room. Every class, every time, and no setting can turn it off. A new student enters your join code, their first name and last initial, the screenname they want, and a 4-digit PIN, then they wait. Nothing reaches the chat until you let them in.

This is deliberate: you vet every new screenname, and you see exactly who is asking for it, before it can ever chat.

The approval box

When someone is waiting, a "Waiting to join" box appears on your console with a live count. Each row shows the student's first name and last initial beside the handle they picked, like "Sam K. · quietfox". The pairing is there so you can judge the screenname with the real kid in view: is the handle appropriate, and does this person belong here?

Each row has two buttons:

• Accept lets them into the chat immediately. Accepting also means you learned which real name owns which screenname, so teachChat writes that pairing to your reveal log. The record is deliberate, never silent (more on the privacy page).
• Decline is a hard reject: it removes the student entirely and frees the screenname. Use it for an inappropriate handle or someone who shouldn't be here.

A decline isn't a ban. The freed screenname can be tried again, so a student with a poor handle can simply rejoin with a better one.

Returning students come straight back

Once approved, a student signs back in from any device, Chromebook or laptop, with just their screenname and PIN. Signing in on a new device signs out the old one. By default they skip the waiting room and land right in class.

The stricter mode

With your guardrail settings (see moderation) there's a checkbox: "Also approve returning students each time they sign back in." Checked, every sign-in lands back in the waiting room for your OK, even an already-approved student with the correct PIN.

Two things this checkbox never changes:

• New students always need your approval the first time, checked or not.
• Unchecking it never admits anyone already sitting in the box. The box only drains through Accept and Decline.

What the student sees

While they wait, the student's screen shows a full waiting-room card: "You're in the waiting room," with a note that the page opens up on its own the moment you let them in. No refreshing, no watching for a signal. The instant you click Accept, their chat opens; if you Decline, their connection closes. (Their whole side of teachChat is covered on the student page.)

Forgotten PINs

Forgotten PINs are a when, not an if. In your roster, every student row has a key button (🔑) that resets that student's sign-in PIN: type a new 4-digit PIN, hand it over, and they sign back in with it right away.

teachChat also slows down repeated wrong-PIN attempts, so a classmate can't sit and guess a peer's PIN. A student who fumbles too many times sees a short "wait and try again" cooldown that grows with each miss.

If a student swears their PIN "stopped working," just reset it. The reset clears the wrong-guess cooldown too, so they're back in on the very next try.

The waiting room is the front gate: every new student pauses there once, you decide who gets in, and from then on their screenname and PIN carry them the rest of the way.