Password Registration and Recovery

The Lake Washington School District now uses integration with Microsoft to reset Windows and Microsoft 365 passwords. 

Staff and students that wish to be able to recover their own password from any internet attached device need to first register a secondary authentication method with their account.

YOU MUST PRE-REGISTER to use the service. Registration requires a working password to complete.

For help with parent logins, please refer to the Guide to Parent Logins and Passwords for information or contact ftaccess@lwsd.org.

Security questions and answers are the most common method used as authentication, but users can also choose other factors such as alternate email, text messages and the Microsoft Authenticator App. You MUST register two methods to recover your password.
The following instructions will help users register using security questions as the example:

1. Go to Password Registration – You may be prompted to login to your district work/school account. You will then be brought to the "Security info" screen.

2. Click on Add sign-in method. Here you can choose the method you wish to use in order to recover your password. If you select phone, you will be given the option of receiving a call or text message. For this example, we will choose Security questions.

3. Choose and fill out the questions then click Done.

You MUST add two methods in order to recover your password. We recommend that younger students accounts add a parent email or phone method. A full list of methods is available below, including the capabilities of each method. Note that while LWSD does not require multi-factor authentication for students to sign into any educational services, adding a method which allows MFA causes Microsoft to require MFA to access the “security info” page in the future, even for students. See the full list of methods below.

Microsoft adds and changes available methods periodically, so some items may be named differently than they appear on your screen.

If you’re a student, that’s all you need to do. You are now registered for self-service password reset! You can also add other secondary authentication methods or close out of the page.

Vendors and contractors, you should carefully review the methods in the list and ensure that you have at least one extra password reset method and one extra MFA method in your list to prevent you from getting locked out.