Currently, staff members can invite students to chat via this loophole in the Google chat features. This option only allows you to invite one student at a time. While it's helpful for reaching out to individuals or small groups of students, we recognize that it is not an efficient solution for secondary teachers to invite all of their students. NOTE - This is likely a temporary workaround as Google is great at catching their own loopholes. Still, Google is quickly working to develop a better chat platform so this issue may be resolved very soon.
Students can invite a staff member. This is a tutorial that you can share if you wish. It's already posted on the Chromebooks support page of SDJ Online Learning Portal for parents and students. You are welcome to share this via your classroom platform as well.