A new system in place at Newsome High gives parents a chance to monitor a child's progress and contact teachers without the phone tag.
By LETITIA STEIN
Published October 15, 2004
LITHIA - How was school?
Fine.
And your test went well?
Yeah.
And what about the grade?
Dunno.
At Newsome High, parents don't have to fear surprises when report cards are released this fall.
This school year, two e-mails are sent out whenever many teachers record grades in their computers. One notifies students. The other reports to mom or dad.
"Now the parents have access to the grades 24 hours a day," said Kevin Sharpe, technology specialist at Newsome High. "There's really not an excuse for them not to know their son or daughter's grades."
Newsome High is leading the charge among Hillsborough schools offering parents access to grade information through the Web. District officials said a handful of middle schools - including Burns in Brandon and Shields in Ruskin - are experimenting with the concept on a limited basis.
Newsome is the only public school in Hillsborough to fully embrace the Web-based grade reporting and communication system called Edline. After rolling it out last year, the school added features and brought more parents, teachers and students online this year.
Now any member of the school community with Internet access can log in to receive individualized information. Each student has a personalized homepage. Parents enjoy instant access to their children's latest class averages. Some teachers make available syllabi, homework assignments and their resumes.
An e-mail notifies students and parents when information is available.
"Everybody's on the same page," said social studies teacher Chad Haschel, who likes to post links relevant for homework assignments. "You're not just relying on the kid's word."
Students were a harder sell.
When Stephanie Palacios was struggling with geometry last year, she would hide her test scores from her parents. She didn't say anything when the Web-based system debuted.
Then her parents received a note about the system. Life hasn't been the same since.
"They check it every day," said Palacios, now 16 and a senior. She said her parents take away privileges, such as driving, after seeing a C grade.
"I'm trying to get A's and B's," she said. "They want me to get only A's."
Newsome administrators routinely receive calls from parents who say they never got the Edline registration codes sent home with their children in August. But the program will be hard to ignore as more teachers use it to communicate - and word gets out to parents.
Teachers say they have seen increased parental involvement. Instead of playing phone tag or struggling to coordinate conferences, parents can click on a teachers' e-mail address to ask questions about their child's progress.
Each student's personal page also links to information about extracurricular activities. The school's administrators post important announcements - a big help as families scattered during the recent hurricanes - and notices about upcoming events on the school calendar.
The convenience isn't cheap. Each year, Newsome High pays $1.80 per student up to 1,500 students for the services of Chicago-based Edline. Additional students can be added for a flat fee of $2,900.
The price has not dampened interest. As word has spread about Newsome's experiences, private and public schools have called to learn more. Brandon High and Gaither High in North Tampa called Newsome to discuss signing up, Sharpe said. Armwood High previously experimented with the program, but only within its math department.
At Newsome High, some students are coming around to the benefits.
Until his mother discovered Edline, Ryan Crenna was headed for trouble in honors Algebra II. He had a D-average as the end of the first grading period approached last fall. Then his teacher began posting test scores online. After three weeks, his grade climbed to a B.
"When I'm doing bad, it's good to let my parents know so they can crack down on me," said Crenna, now a high school senior who welcomes his parents' involvement in his studies.
Crenna's mother, Karen, still checks online several times a week to review her son's test scores and see that he completes homework assignments. Her monitoring helped catch times that a teacher forgot to record a homework assignment, and when errors popped up in his transcript.
"By being able to hone in and address potential issues, you could really derail them," said Crenna, who now relies on Edline to help a daughter in ninth-grade make the transition from middle to high school. "Nothing slides anymore. Nothing."
