Some sections on Code.org use a six-letter join code to allow students to easily find their teacher's classroom section.

On rare occasions in the past, students have joined a random section by guessing the code or have joined a section with malicious intent (such as using inappropriate language on a 'fake' account).

We allow teachers to restrict access or "lock" a section to stop this type of trouble-making behavior.

We would like to emphasize that it is very rare for students to "stumble upon" a section by guessing the section code, so for the vast majority of teachers this isn't a problem.

If you have an issue with an abusive student account in your section, or are worried about the possibility of unrecognized students joining your section, consider the following:

• You may consider restricting access to your section if you are using a Picture password or Secret Words password login type and will be adding students yourself (e.g. students will not be using the section code to join the section).
  • Adding students yourself is done through the Manage Students tab of the section page. You can read more about adding students to a section here.
• If your section uses a Personal Password login type, restricting access to a section should only be done if you believe a student in your section isn't supposed to be there.
  • Once you remove that student and lock down the section, that student will not be able to rejoin, but neither will anyone else.
  • Since sections using the Personal Password login type can only be joined via section code, locking down a section will prevent any students from subsequently joining that section.
  • You can still add students to the section manually by moving or copying them from another section, which you can read more about here.

How do I lock a section?

If you want to lock an existing section, go to "My Dashboard" and scroll to the Classroom Sections table.

Click on the gear icon in the row of the section you wish to restrict access to:

If you want to create and lock a new section, go to "My Dashboard" and click on the "Create a section" button. Choose a login type (Note: Restricting access to a section is only available for Picture Password, Secret Word, and Personal Password login types).

In both of these cases, the option to restrict access to a section will be an option in the section details. Set this option to "Yes"

We take student privacy and safety seriously at Code.org, and do our best to prevent malicious behavior on our platform. Please contact us if you have any questions about restricting section access.