Edline

If you’re making the long trip across Pennsylvania via I-80, just off Exit 62 you’ll find the Clarion Area School District in Clarion, a town of about 10,000. Despite its rural environs, this is a university town with many professionals.

The district opted for the full suite of Edline solutions in the summer of 2009 but for many years has been an active user of GradeQuick, the powerful, teacher-friendly online gradebook solution to manage every critical classroom activity — assessments, attendance, lesson plans, standards, reporting and online parent communication. Rich in features yet entirely intuitive in terms of design and usability, GradeQuick is available in web, network and handheld platforms.

“We chose Edline and GradeQuick as a way to save time and prevent headaches. Plus it was fully compatible with existing administrative software. Edline provides a good, solid product with a simple gradebook interface,” says Jim Smyton, Clarion’s I.T. coordinator.

Smyton admits that when GradeQuick was introduced there was some resistance among teachers. “As with any change, we had some convincing to do early on but, when they realized how much time GradeQuick would save over the long term, they embraced it happily.”

That’s true. Whether among teachers or administrators and staff, Edline’s exclusive GradeQuick solution is saving countless work hours and making life easier at Clarion.

Since it was designed with their needs and experience in mind, teachers like GradeQuick because it’s easy to use in terms of posting grades with a simple click in a familiar interface that actually looks like a gradebook. Plus, Edline offers a cross-platform solution. Whether Windows or Mac, teachers can use the personal computer or operating system they prefer.

More than anything, though, GradeQuick is a timesaver for teachers. At Clarion Elementary they’ve recently moved from a handwritten to an electronic system that is fully integratable with the existing district-wide system. And inputting grades now takes a mere fraction of the time. “What used to take teachers two full days of work over a weekend — calculating grades and averages, filling out report card content, transferring grades to report cards by hand — now is completed much, much faster, with just a few keystrokes,” says Smyton.

The same is true for quarterly grade distribution reports. Instead of lengthy calculations by hand, teachers have all the information they need instantly available through existing software that interfaces seamlessly with GradeQuick.

For administrators and staff, GradeQuick offers a level of speed and quality retrieving essential data that wasn’t available before, which is particularly useful for school transfers, state reporting, and other administrative needs.

“We’re able to get statistical data reports that used to be unavailable or difficult to obtain. Like grade distributions by school, class or subject — a treasure trove of information — all in one place,” says Smyton. “It’s pretty outstanding stuff. I wonder how we lived without it before.”

Ultimately, however, the true beneficiaries of Clarion’s use of Edline and GradeQuick are students and their parents. Studies show that when parents are more involved, student performance increases.

“Our parents want to be very engaged. With Edline they can interact with the school much more and see the progress of their children in content areas. If they see a problem they can be proactive rather than waiting for results and the end of each quarter,” adds Smyton. “This is where Edline really makes a difference for us. It helps us give parents a window into education of their children.”