By Lou Phelps
Getting out the news of a school system, whether it is a public or private system, is always a challenge. Technology is now in use by the Chatham, Effingham and Bryan county school systems that offers parents and student valuable information, but usage remains low.
It’s a perfect time of year to embrace what’s available, and learn about the information technology to follow school report cards, and get familiar with the system before a new school year begins.
The Bryan County schools are using a web program and strategy called PowerSchool! that allows parents and students to access a wide range of important information. The system is also used for internal system purposes, including maintaining staff information and schedules. Chatham County is also using PowerSchool! for elementary parents and students.
It’s very easy. Every parent who has a child registered has an account. “All they have to do is show up and request it. It’s very intuitive, simple to figure out,” according to. David Feliciano, Chief Data and Information Officer in Chatham. Bryan County operates the same way…just go down to your child’s school with a photo ID.
PowerSchool is a database application that runs on a server, and uses the internet to facilitate student information management and communication among school administrators, teachers, parents, and students, as well.
In Bryan County, parents and students, information is available on the PowerSchool “Parent Portal” portion of the system which gives both groups access to real-time information including attendance, citizenship, grades and detailed assignment descriptions, school bulletins, lunch menus and even personal messages from the teacher. The goal is to keep everyone connected, according to Lynn McCoy who manages the system for the county.
Students can stay on top of assignments, parents are able to participate more fully in their student's progress, and teachers can use their grade book to make decisions on what information they want to share with parents and students.
To begin, a parent or student logs into the portal after receiving their school’s specific website address set up for the program, along with a user name and password.
Parents and students can also email a teacher directly from the site, and they can sign up to receive information about a student's grades, attendance, and assignment scores, using various e-mail preferences. A parent can specify which information they would like to receive, how often they would like to receive the information, and how often they would like to receive email. And, multiple email addresses can be entered – one for Mom, Dad and the student.
Teachers can post comments for an individual parent or child, and they can respond directly to the teacher.
And the Bryan County school system can send out system-wide informational bulletins and update the school system calendar of events. And, individual schools can post upcoming events on the calendar for the public to see.
High school students also use the system to register for classes, or to make a future course request.
And, if any student fees are owed, such as for library books, that information can also be accesses.
According to Lynn McCoy, Student Information Specialist for the Bryan County public schools who oversees Power School, the system has 7,200 students, represented by more than 3,500 families, she estimates.
While the system does not track usage, she estimates that 30 percent of the families are now using the Power School Parent Portal, particularly around report card time. The site receives 3,000 hits on a daily basis, but she does not have data on how many actual visitors that represents. (Every page viewed on a website creates many hits.)
Bryan County began to use the system in January 2009, and it almost has a year and a half of experience, but only 30 percent participation.
The Effingham County Public Schools are using a system system called “Infinite Campus,” overseen by Noralee Deason, Information Systems Coordinator. “We began in mid-2009, with access granted to parents in August for the 2009-2010 school year,” she explained.
“It’s kind of hard to tell you how many families are using the system,” she explains. “We have student accounts and parent accounts. Parents are required to come down to a school and show photo identifications to open their accounts, and we know that some just log in using their student’s account,” she said. Middle school and high school to get their own accounts, and a lot of parents are logging in as their students.”
So far this year, Deason has had about 2,000 log-ins per week, by individuals who have set up accounts. “We have some log in four times a week, some only once. For example, we had 1,976 log ins last week; it will go way up at the end when report cards come out,” she said.
Effingham will be introducing the online access to students in grades 1 through 5 at the end of this school year; parents have been eligible to set up accounts all year, “but we’re going to create student accounts,” she explained. If a parent has four children in the system, they can see information on all four students under the one parental account.
The Effingham system is very pro-active. Middle school and high school parents and students get an email notification if they have any assignments missing, or have any failing grades. The email goes out the day that the grade is reported.
“Our teachers have had an electronic grade book for years. The only change with the new system is that we have had to tighten up our expectations for timely posting of their grades,” she said.
The county is not using the system for school calendar events, or district notices, as Bryan County is. But CRCT test scores will be posted, “as quickly as we can,” Deason said. “We’ll have personal contact with those parents who children did not meet expectations before the test scores are posted,” she emphasized. Kids can see them, too. Parents and students can see all the same information.
An Effingham or Bryan County teacher can email all the students in their class through the systems. And a teacher can email an individual parent – if they have an account – regarding any issue. “Within our SIS system, we gather parents emails for teacher and school communications, in general,” she added.
The time is now to embrace the technology purchased by your tax dollars to help both parents and students stay informed, and communicate more closely with teachers.
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