School: Monitoring your child's progress

[cycopath25]

Yahoo!
(Click)

I don't see a real big problem with this. We have something similar to this in my district. It also depends on individual teachers to keep thier classes/grades current and up to date.

I figured the CF posters would enjoy since so many of you seem to have all the answers for education.

Thoughts . . .

[cmoneyr]

As a parent, I think it's great. If I was a student I'd be pissed, lol. Seems like just another way to help parents stay in contact with what's going on at school.

Sadly, half the teachers that my wife works with would have no clue how to figure something like that out. Email is still a hot button issue with many of them.

[cycopath25]

Originally Posted by cmoneyr

As a parent, I think it's great. If I was a student I'd be pissed, lol. Seems like just another way to help parents stay in contact with what's going on at school.

Sadly, half the teachers that my wife works with would have no clue how to figure something like that out. Email is still a hot button issue with many of them.

Haha Yeah I had 2 fellow teachers ask me today to "fix thier computers". Their toolbars had moved to the right side of the screen . . .

[1100011CS]

Couple things:

parentconnect.com, as shown in that story, is just a "landing spot". Not a real site. Somebody from Yahoo needs to get a clue.

ParentCONNECTxp (Pearson School Systems - Parent Access) is made by the company for which I work.

[sodakjoe]

When I was in high school (not that long ago), our district had ParentView, where all of our grades were updated every other week, and parents could go in using our student ID numbers and a password to see all of our grades. I remember being really pissed about it, but looking back, it was a great tool for my mom to stay on top of me about stuff.

[clone2011]

My dad likes to check on me via his 3rd party Access+ account through ISU. Sucks when you get a midterm and your dad blindsides you with the news because you never bother to check that area of AP.

[Cyclone62]

I'm assuming this is one of those internet based portals that allows parents to see their child's grades and work as up to date as the teacher(s) have their gradebooks.

I used it to check on students' grades in other classes, their attendance, as well as keeping my gradebook up to date for other teachers to see as well. I find it to be very useful. Ours wasn't open to the parents yet, just the school. I know Johnston has Infinite Campus, the Des Moines schools are beginning IC, and some Cedar Rapids schools are using another one that has a name that escapes me right now. The only downfall I've really heard about where the parents that wrote nasty emails complaining about a teacher not accepting late work (usually for assignments months past due), thus their child has zeroes.

[Aaron Jacobs]

i just hope when the day comes I don't feel the need to check up on my kids grades all the time.

[Iastfan112]

About half of the teachers when I was in HS an internet update system, overall a good idea, but I advocate1 or 2 week emails from the teacher to prevent my parents from micromanaging my school work. They have a right to know whats going on but having them bent over my shoulder is hardly helpful.

[Cyclone62]

Originally Posted by Iastfan112

About half of the teachers when I was in HS an internet update system, overall a good idea, but I advocate1 or 2 week emails from the teacher to prevent my parents from micromanaging my school work. They have a right to know whats going on but having them bent over my shoulder is hardly helpful.

That's not very practical to have teachers email updates to parents. One being the number of students, and two being the emails are not always functional. Is it easier for one person to email 100-200 people every other week or for one or two people to email one person asking to get the update?

Or better yet, why don't the students themselves just give their parents the updates as they get them (or ask for them)?

[Iastfan112]

Originally Posted by Cyclone62

That's not very practical to have teachers email updates to parents. One being the number of students, and two being the emails are not always functional. Is it easier for one person to email 100-200 people every other week or for one or two people to email one person asking to get the update?

Or better yet, why don't the students themselves just give their parents the updates as they get them (or ask for them)?

Most teachers enter their grades into a program on the computer and most of these have easy ways to export them to email addresses. I've seen it done, its very simple and not at all time consuming. You assign an email to the students name at the begining of the semester(or 2 if need be) the computer remembers it and entering new grades theres a button to push to send it to that email, pretty nice and slick.
Only way this would be a problem is if the teacher doesn't keep grades on computer, but thats become pretty rare(think I remember 2 of my teachers being strictly gradebook in HS)

[Phaedrus]

Originally Posted by Cyclone62

The only downfall I've really heard about where the parents that wrote nasty emails complaining about a teacher not accepting late work (usually for assignments months past due), thus their child has zeroes.

My wife volunteers at school 10+ hours a week. She has horror stories about "slob" parents, and the kind of things they do to justify their child's unjustifiable behavior.

I "hate" parents like that. I get wanting your kid to succeed, but it takes effort and execution to get there.

We are okay with actively communicating with our kids and their teachers. Two of my kids' teachers are in the "breakfast club" we share as well.

[JHutch]

the des moines district just went to a system this year called "infinite campus". By next school year, it should have online capabilities for parents

[C.John]

We use Skyward Family Access in our district. Since my oldest is only in 2nd grade I have yet to use it for anything other than to verify the remaining balance on her meal plan but I can see the other features being useful once your child gets into the upper grades, especially if your kid is a lying little hoodlum.

[2020cy]

We have had infinite campus and I think it's great. Some of the teachers aren't good about updating and replying to e-mails, otherwise very helpful tool.