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“ The best part is that I don't have to remember to go looking for grades, when new grades are available, an email says so. All I have to do is log on and type in my screen name and password. Then I am either pleasantly surprised or rather annoyed.”
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Online report cards update parents on progress
Daily Southtown - November 1, 2004
Schools in the south suburbs and city are increasingly turning to the Internet as a way of sharing up-to-date student academic and discipline information with parents.
From their own home computers, parents can log onto secure Web sites and see how their son or daughter did on last week's algebra test, whether they're making it to biology on time, and what big research paper will be due in the coming weeks. Call them online progress reports; they're a convenience to parents and students, though for some students they may also offer a little more information than they want to share.
Several schools have contracted with outside companies, such as Chicago-based Edline, while others have developed their own systems. Typically, both student and parent get a password to log onto the site.
Mother McAuley High School in Chicago linked up with Edline this school year, and as teachers have caught on to the technology, more information is becoming available to students and their parents.
About 350 parents had activated their Edline accounts as of mid-October, said Mother McAuley Principal Sister Rose Wiorek. She is hoping more will do so as grades for the first quarter, which ended Oct. 20, become available. So far, most of the students she has talked to like Edline.
"Some students are very happy with this," Wiorek said. "Of course, there are some that aren't very happy because they don't want their parents to find out how they're doing." Wiorek has hopes of adding more informational Web pages, such as ones devoted to sports teams and clubs, but the main goal for now is to get all teachers comfortable with using the system and updating it regularly.
By next year, Wiorek hopes parents with students at Mother McAuley and nearby St. Rita or Brother Rice high schools will be able to use one account and password to keep track of their children. Elementary School District 162 in Matteson also uses Edline.
Edline's service ranges in price from about $930 to $3,800 per year. The cost typically breaks down to $2 to $3 per student, though the per-student cost is higher for small schools, according an Edline spokesman. The privately held company wouldn't release the number of clients it has, but would say they number in the thousands and come from all 50 states and abroad, including Japan, China and Germany.
Rita Fox has dealt with Edline from two different perspectives. She is an American history teacher at Mother McAuley as well as the mother of two McAuley students.
"I just think it's a great little tool for teachers and parents and students," Fox said. "I think it's increasing the amount of communication between teachers and parents. ... My senior daughter says, 'I love Edline. I'm going to check it twice a day.' They're used to it. They grew up with computers."
Fox does wonder, however, if more parents will skip parent-teacher conferences now that they have more ready access to their child's school work. For her part, Fox said she still will contact parents directly if she believes one of her students' grades are slipping or other unusual changes occur in a student's work or behavior...
Curie High School in Chicago, another Edline client, doesn't require all teachers to use the online programs, though Mother McAuley and some other schools do. For Mother McAuley, the technology needed to use Edline was compatible with GradeQuick, a software program teachers already use for keeping track of student grades.
Because she was used to GradeQuick, Mother McAuley Spanish teacher
Rosemary Riccordino found the transition to Edline pretty smooth.
"I think it's cool. It's progressive. I think it's good for the parents," Riccordino said.
"A lot of teachers are using it. Some are not. ... Even those who were reluctant to use it see the convenience of it," said Phillip Perry, assistant principal at Curie. "Students love it. The students are actually very vocal in expressing how they feel about it."
Students are quick to ask the teachers who have opted out of Edline, "When are you going to go online?" Perry said.
"Today's kids, that's how they grew up," he said. "They're going to go off to colleges and universities where this is already the norm."