Reactivate last year's classrooms

5 steps 4 min Updated 4 November 2026

Every active group keeps a record of its previous Google Classroom — last year's course. Over the summer freeze those classrooms are usually archived (students lose access), and while the school's provisioning window is frozen the normal sync won't touch them. This page lets you see each active group's last classroom with its current status in Google, and change the status of as many as you like at once — most often reactivating them for the new year.

The change is applied directly in Google, in the background — it does not wait for the next sync, so it works even while the school is frozen for the between-year break. Archiving and reactivating are reversible: nothing here deletes a classroom or its content.

Before you start

You must be a school admin with sync settings permission, with the school selected in the switcher.
Google Classroom must be set up for the school — see Google Classroom settings.
This page is for last year's classrooms. To make a group's current classroom active, use Make active on that group's Classroom tab instead — see Make a classroom active.

Steps

Step 1: Open Last year's classrooms

In the sidebar open Google Workspace → Classroom, then on the Last year's classrooms card select Manage. (Classroom settings at the top of the page takes you back.)

Step 2: Review each group's classroom and status

The table lists every active group that has a previous classroom on record, showing:

Group — the group the classroom belongs to.
Last classroom — the classroom name and its Google course id. "not in local sync" beside the id means Realsmart hasn't synced that course from Google, so its status shows as UNKNOWN until it has.
Status in Google — the state read from Realsmart's synced Classroom data (for example ARCHIVED, ACTIVE, DECLINED).

The chips at the top summarise how many classrooms are in each status, and Filter by status in Google narrows the table to one status (for example just ARCHIVED). If no group has a previous classroom on record yet, the page says "No classrooms to show".

Step 3: Choose the classrooms to change

Tick the classrooms you want. Use Select all N to tick every row shown (after any filter), or Clear selection to start again. You can pick as few or as many as you like.

Step 4: Pick the new status

In Set selected classrooms to, choose:

Active (reactivate) — restores teacher and student access. This is the usual choice after the summer.
Archived — makes the classroom read-only; it keeps all content and can be reactivated later.

Step 5: Apply

Select Apply to selected (N) (or Apply to all N) and confirm the dialog ("Set N classrooms to ACTIVE?" — it tells you the change is made in Google in the background, regardless of the school's provisioning freeze). You'll see "N classrooms queued to set to ACTIVE — this runs in the background and the statuses update here as they complete." The work is queued to run in the background, usually finishing within a few minutes; a banner ("Applying your changes in Google") shows while it runs and the statuses in the table refresh automatically as each classroom is changed. Large batches are processed in chunks of 50, so a school with hundreds of classrooms is handled safely without timing out.

Notes

This ignores the summer freeze on purpose. Reactivating archived classrooms for a new year is the main reason to use it, and that has to work while the school is still frozen. It is a one-off, admin-initiated action — it does not change the school's between-year policy (that lives in Google Classroom settings).
It's reversible. If you reactivate the wrong classrooms, just select them again and set them back to Archived.
Every change is logged. Each classroom status change is recorded against the group in the Logs (Google source) — "Set classroom "…" (course …) to ACTIVE by " — see Sync status and logs. If Google refuses one, the row reads "Could not set classroom "…" (course …) to ACTIVE — (requested by )"; nothing else is affected and you can apply it again.

Troubleshooting

A classroom stayed on the same status — look at the group's Logs for the Could not set classroom row: it gives Google's reason. If the reason is about the classroom's owner, see Orphaned classrooms.
Statuses show UNKNOWN — the course isn't in Realsmart's synced Classroom data yet (not in local sync), so there is no status to show for it.

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