Running into an issue with the Feed, Chat, or emails from your child's school? This article walks through the most common causes and how to fix them.
Not Receiving Emails from the School
If you used to get emails from Playground on behalf of your child's school and they've stopped, work through the steps below in order.
Check Your Spam or Junk Folder
Emails from Playground can sometimes get filtered into spam or junk by your email provider. Search your spam folder for "Playground" or your school's name, and if you find one, mark it as Not Spam so future emails land in your inbox.
Make Sure You Haven't Been Unsubscribed
The most common reason family members stop receiving emails is that they (or someone using their email account) previously clicked an unsubscribe link, or their email provider automatically blocked the sender. Once that happens, your email provider may keep filtering messages from Playground even after you'd like to start receiving them again.
🚨 Unblocking a sender only affects future emails. Any messages that were already filtered to spam or deleted while blocked can't be recovered.
Gmail
Click the gear icon in the top right and select See all settings.
Click the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab.
Find your school's or Playground's email address in the list, check the box next to it, and click Unblock selected addresses.
It's also worth checking your Spam folder and marking any Playground emails there as Not Spam.
Outlook
Click Settings, then go to Mail -> Junk email.
Under Blocked senders and domains, find your school's or Playground's email address.
Hover over the address and click the trash can icon to remove it from your blocked list.
For extra reliability, add the address to your Safe senders list so Outlook's spam filter doesn't route it to Junk going forward.
Yahoo
Click Settings, then More Settings.
Select Security and Privacy.
Hover over your school's or Playground's email address under blocked addresses and click the delete icon to remove it.
While you're there, check Filters as well, in case a filter is routing Playground emails somewhere other than your inbox.
💡 Playground and your email provider track unsubscribes separately. If clearing your provider's blocked list doesn't bring emails back, reach out to your child's school or Playground Support so they can confirm your email address isn't marked as unsubscribed on Playground's end.
Still Missing Emails?
Since these emails are sent on behalf of your child's school, they also control which email address is on file for you. If you've checked spam, cleared any blocks, and confirmed your notification settings and you're still not receiving emails, reach out to your school directly to confirm they have the correct email address saved.
Feed Issues
If you're not seeing what you expect on your child's Feed, it's almost always one of the two reasons below.
Your School Hasn't Posted Anything Yet
Teachers and administrators post activities, photos, and updates throughout the day, but posting frequency is entirely up to your school. If the Feed looks empty or hasn't updated recently, it usually just means your school hasn't recorded any new activity yet, not that something is broken on your end.
Posts Only Appear After Check-Out
Some schools choose to hold activity posts and release them all at once when your child is checked out for the day, instead of posting throughout the day. If your school has this setting turned on, you won't see new activity posts until your child has been checked out.
💡 If you're not sure whether your school posts throughout the day or only at check-out, ask your school directly. This setting is controlled entirely on their end.
Confirm You Have Feed Access
If you can't see the Feed at all (not just a specific post), your guardian account may not have the right permission level, or your child may not have been added as a recipient on that particular post. Contact your school and ask them to confirm your permission level and that your child is included as a recipient on their posts.
Chat Issues
You Don't See Any Teachers to Message
From your child's profile in the app, tap the Teachers section to start a chat. If no teachers show up there, your child may not currently be assigned to a classroom, or no teacher has been assigned to that classroom yet. Reach out to your school to confirm.
Chat Has Been Disabled by Your School
Some schools choose to turn off family-to-teacher Chat entirely. If you don't have the option to chat with any of your child's teachers, this is likely why. Visit your school's website for their contact information and reach out by phone or email instead.