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For as long as I can remember, school people as well as parents
have been dissatisfied with the level of communication that exists
between them. But it's not because we haven't tried to correct
the situation. In fact, one of my annual goals has been to "improve
communications." And I know I'm not alone: In my district and
elsewhere, committees have been formed to study this need, newsletters
have been created, and public relations specialists have been
hired to make recommendations about improving our communications
efforts.
Many schools and school districts have begun using the power
of technology to improve communications, through school and district
web sites, e-mail, and voice mail. But I'd like to suggest we
go further and apply technology to one of the most fundamental
types of school-to-home communication: the report card.
That suggestion is based on some conclusions I've reached after
many years of struggling with the elusive objective of improving
communications:
* We need to start over and rethink the process.
* The most important information we have to communicate to parents
is about their own children.
* The information we need to communicate should be timely and
complete.
* Parents need to have a way to initiate their own information
gathering.
* The process of becoming informed should be uncomplicated.
When I try to envision an information system that would provide
parents with the timely, personalized, and complete information
they need and desire, I picture something along the lines of "just-in-time"
reporting.
The principle of just-in-time production has characterized many
private-sector industries in the last quarter of this century.
Instead of stockpiling warehouses full of unneeded material and
parts, systems have been devised to gather the resources needed
to fabricate a product when there is a demand from a customer.
How might this principle work in a school setting? Let's look
at the report card process.
Most parents have no idea of the disruption to the instructional
process caused by the need to produce a report card. Virtually
the entire instructional staff becomes preoccupied with the grade
book for at least the last two weeks of each marking period. Teachers
check to see whether they have given -- and graded -- enough quizzes
and tests. Students suddenly become concerned about assignments
they failed to submit weeks before and try to complete them or
ask for extra assignments in order to raise their averages. Administrators
prepare computer forms for teachers to enter the grades and squeeze
in a few comments. The computer information department swings
into action to print the final product and send it home to parents.
During the week after this frenzy of activity, there is a natural
letdown as everyone recovers from the pressure of getting out
the reports. Unfortunately, the sum total of all this effort is
often a brief and not very informative report card that arrives
at the home a minimum of two weeks after the close of the marking
period -- hardly timely even if it were complete.
If we were to apply the just-in-time principle to our grade
report system, parents and students could assemble a progress
report (report card) on demand without intruding on the learning
process. Based on what they found out, parents could call a teacher,
counselor, or administrator for more information or for help correcting
a particular problem that was indicated by the data. Just as important,
students -- especially those at the secondary level -- could develop
a sense of control over their own progress instead of waiting
until the end of each quarter to find out how they did.
How would such a system work? We already have models in the
private sector. Using our push-button telephones and PINs (personal
identification numbers), we can access our credit card and bank
accounts, so why not access school records? We can find out our
current balance (in this case, class average), our last transaction
(last test or quiz grade), and the amount of credit available
(missing tests and assignments). Over the telephone, we can also
check our last five or 10 bank transactions (or entries in the
grade book) and page through our checking accounts.
Why can't this system work for report cards as well? I think
it can. In fact, I think parents and students ought to be able
to get as much information about the student's current status
in a class or course as they now can about their credit card purchases
-- and just as easily.
I check my accounts frequently, using a variety of tools, depending
on my needs. The same could be true for individual parents or
students. Some parents might want to create a just-in-time report
card on a weekly basis. Others might check in every other week.
The important thing is that such a system would be customized
to meet their own needs and not based on when the school district
is able to produce progress reports for all students. In fact,
by frequently sampling their child's progress, parents would see
their child's learning as the continuous, dynamic process it is
instead of as a static snapshot captured on a report card.
Such a system could be in place in the Owego Apalachin Central
School District in Owego, N.Y., in the near future. During the
coming year, we will be upgrading our phone service in all buildings.
As a first step, all staff members -- including the superintendent
-- will have voice mailboxes. Callers should be able to leave
a message for any person in our organization, at any time of the
day. Later, this system could be expanded to include the kind
of just-in-time progress reporting I've described.
Will the familiar printed report card become obsolete? Not for
the foreseeable future, although the way it is generated might
change. My bank and credit card companies continue to mail me
monthly statements. Similarly, if the reporting information already
exists on an electronic grade book, it should be a simple matter
to print out a hard copy periodically for each "customer."
As access to the Internet becomes more universal, through increased
use of home computers and cable television, parents could assess
their children's current progress on their own computer monitors
or television screens. And when that day arrives, we will have
taken a major step in addressing one of the major concerns about
communication between school and home: the parents' desire to
find our how their kids are doing.
Edward
J. Reid is superintendent of schools
for the Owego Apalachin Central
School District in Owego, N.Y.
Can the web help keep parents informed of their children's progress
in school? You bet. Here are a few tools to consider:
Parent
Internet Viewer. Excelsior
Software Inc. (800) 473-4572. Offered as an add-on
to Excelsior's Pinnacle electronic gradebook system, Parent Internet
Viewer automatically pulls grades, attendance information, and
discipline reports from the Pinnacle database and serves it up
on the school's web site, where access is controlled by means
of student IDs and PIN codes. Because students benefit from receiving
more frequent feedback about their progress, many teachers using
the system now enter assessment information more often, the company
says. The system can also send automatic e-mail notification to
parents in cases of absences or discipline infractions.
ParentCONNECTxp.
National Computer Systems Inc.
(800) 736-4357. ParentCONNECTxp is built on the foundation of
NCS' existing student information, instructional management, and
gradebook software packages. The system gives parents password-protected
Internet access to their children's progress in school, including
assignments, grades, attendance, discipline, and school notices.
Parents can configure ParentCONNECTxp to automatically notify
them when a special condition occurs -- such as a missed assignment,
discipline incident, or absence. Updated daily, the system can
generate an unofficial class ranking and GPA for a student at
any time.
nschool.com. (800)
370-2730. For districts that want to use the web to increase communication
with parents -- but are reluctant to spend thousands on software
and hardware -- the free nschool.com site is a good place to start.
Although this web-based school groupware service is not designed
to automatically provide parents with their kids' grades, it offers
many features that can strengthen the relationship between home
and school -- including calendar, e-mail, and discussion forum
functions. Announcements and calendar entries can be customized
by specific groups, such as PTA members or parents of fifth-graders.
-- Sidebar by Lars Kongshem
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